Also anything potentially breakable. Crockery, glassware etc. Best to have something that’s already been stress tested in someone else’s home.
Clean hands, Cool head, Warm heart.
GP, Gardener, Radical progressive
Also anything potentially breakable. Crockery, glassware etc. Best to have something that’s already been stress tested in someone else’s home.
I know some nurses that know them pretty good, it’s not that outrageous to know the schedule by heart if you use it most days. I don’t use it most months though.
Nearest thing I can think of is a running file with medical guidelines I use occasionally but not often enough to want to learn, childhood vaccination schedules, colonoscopy follow up timelines, lots of imaging follow up guidelines.
I grew up on a small family farm in southwest Western Australia, both my parents are university educated and expected me to go to uni, but as the oldest son I was also expected to take over the farm.
Did okay in high school, wasn’t all that dedicated of a student. I was accepted into a double degree studying environmental biology and cultural anthropology, because why, not the point was to get an education, not a job. I did fairly well at school but I struggled to get a part time job as a shy 18 year old, I couldn’t get student allowance as I was technically part owner of several million dollars of land through a family trust, and my parents couldn’t support me because of a couple of bad seasons and anyway it’s a pretty asset rich/cash poor business.
Because I liked science I applied for a job as a lab tech at a winery, failed to get that but the offered me a job as a cellar hand and I spent 4 months working 12h shifts. Left that job with more cash in my pocket than I’ve ever had before so I spent the rest of that year travelling around Australia and then Europe.
Running out of money I came back to Australia, I had a friend who was washing dishes at Ayers Rock resort, I joined him. Someone in HR noticed on my resume that I had a truck license and forklift ticket and I was promoted to delivering in-flight catering to the airport. Got sick of the bosses nonsense so a girl I was seeing got me a job doing stargazing tours, spent the next several years in various tourism jobs.
Decided at that point I might as well get that education I was wanting. I enrolled in a double degree again, this time in Economics and International Development, it turns out International Development is code for tedious human geography so I changed to Political Science. During my final year a friend of mine was applying for medicine, I thought that sounded interesting, decided to sit the entrance exam and drop economics as I didn’t want maths heavy, complex Econ to tank my GPA.
Didn’t get into my first choice of med school so moved across the country to study, wound up in the rural and remote medicine track. After doing my hospital time I started working in general practice, I found the culture of GP so disgustingly focussed on manipulating Medicare that patient care took a back seat, also on one occasion I was told I needed to start charging a patient a bigger rate because “having patients like that in the waiting room isn’t a good look”.
I decided to leave GP and return to the public hospital system, a mentor of mine thought that’d be a shame and found a small town practice owned by portly British West country ex-navy surgeon who described himself as a cloth cap socialist. I obviously took that job.
He sold the practice a couple of years later, the new owner is as penny pinching and money grubbing as my first GP employer but I now have the confidence to stand up for my patients, I also now know that management telling individual doctors how to bill is considered price fixing by the ACCC. I also have enough experience and reputation within the community that it is best impossible for them to get rid of me.
I probably would have been happy as a farmer, or as a medical specialist or a surgeon although the training might’ve killed me(at the time it was common for surgical trainees to work 24h shifts). As it is I don’t my time between chronic diseases, preventative care, palliation, paediatrics, mental health, and emergency. I can’t imagine a better place to end up.
Reminder me of this
“What to do if you find yourself stuck with no hope of rescue: Consider yourself lucky that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn’t been good to you so far - which, given your present circumstances, seems more likely - consider yourself lucky that it won’t be troubling you much longer.” Douglas Adams
If you don’t have time to do something right what makes you think you have time to do it twice?
Respect other people’s time. When dealing with a busy person in a professional context;
I have an idee fixe that I could set up a non profit that bought homes and rented them at a price somewhere between the maintenance cost and the market price. It would make a profit and slowly expand providing more and more affordable housing. Ideally it would start with more than 1 million but doesn’t need to.