A full license the College did grant
I could work elsewhere, but I shan’t
At home, with a friend
I saw a Parkinson’s trend
A tremor, and a walk with a slant
Synopsis: I’m a Family Practitioner from Sioux City, Iowa. In 2010 I danced back from the brink of burnout, and honoring a 1 year non-compete clause, traveled and worked in out-of-the-way places in Alaska, Nebraska, Iowa, and New Zealand. I followed 3 years Community Health Center work with a return to traveling and adventures in temporary positions in Alaska, rural Iowa, suburban Pennsylvania, western Nebraska and northern British Columbia. Just back from my 4th Canadian assignment, I’m taking some time off in the States
Much has happened in the two weeks since I last posted.
I got my full BC license on January 17th. Up to now I’ve been working with a provisional license, which requires that I have supervision and work in 3 month blocks. The licensing authority waived the requirement that I be a permanent BC resident. Technically I now can work in other parts of the province. Still, I would have to ask myself why I would want to go anywhere other than the most functional medical community I’ve ever experienced.
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We got back to the States on the 20th. The mountain of unread mail made procrastination unfeasible. I sorted it into piles of WILL READ and RECYCLING. Having been gone for the December holidays, we also had a few gifts.
At this stage of my career, having accumulated too much, we need very little. So if someone wants to buy a present, we’ve taken to saying it should be expendable, negotiable, edible, biodegradable, or inheritable. Imagine our surprise when we got a really nice cutting board. Which, strangely, we can use.
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I have noted an alarming increase in Parkinson’s in the general public. When I finished med school, the vast majority of Parkinson’s disease came from the Great Influenza of 1918. In the ‘80s you could pick it out in a crowd just on the basis of age and gait. Than generation has passed. Saturday, at a social gathering, I glanced at a friend’s hand resting on a lectern, and spotted the characteristic tremor of her right hand. Over the decades I’ve known her, I failed to note the gradual loss of facial expression. When quizzed she confirmed anosmia (loss of sense of smell), micrographia (shrinking handwriting), bradyphrenia (slowed thinking), and loss of balance. She also gave me permission to write about her in my blog.
And from time to time, in an airport or grocery store, I’ll point out to Bethany the telltale leaning, shuffling gait, and blank stare.
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My wife and I do better with cold than heat. We flew to Texas to visit our (doctor) daughter, her (doctor) husband and their children. We left Omaha at a temperature of 1F (-17C) and arrived in Houston to 47F (8C). We happily walked around in our shirt sleeves while the locals wore parkas, ski caps, and mittens. Two days later, I reverted to wearing my winter jacket, but not my long underwear.
Contrast remains the essence of meaning.