On Being Vaguely Specific

I've been thinking about how much information people share on their blogs. It's an interesting thing, the different levels of privacy that people seek on the web. Some blogs that I've read include photos of family, their full names, the cities that they live in/have lived in, and lots and lots of personal details. Some choose to publish photos, faces partially obscured by large sunglasses, and with only a first name attached. But somewhere, somehow, they slip in their last name. And then some people provide a lot of personal details, but not their last name. Living in a city and publishing photos of oneself, you would imagine that it would be pretty easy to still retain some amount of anonymity. What I found scary was that, well, I kind of figured out which apartment building that blogger likely lives in given the disproportionate amount of pictures that have been taken around it. And, this is Boston. It's not a small city. The buildings could theoretically look very similar and all blend together. Red brick, fire escapes, concrete sidewalks, trees, asphalt. But, I happen to know this one not-so-well known area pretty well because of how often I walked past it with several of my friends. Y'all know who you are. It only took one picture where I recognized an air conditioning unit (of all things!) and then I knew the location of most of the pictures. So, that took me by surprise because, no matter how much one tries to keep locations, private information, and the like hidden, tucked away on the web, I guess it's really all a big grassy plain with only a little bit of tall grass hiding the details. No hiding here.

Which kind of brings me around to my original point. I try to be vaguely specific. Friends from college ought to know exactly (or at least have a good idea of) what I'm talking about. I'd like to keep writing about things here both as a way for myself to process life, and also as a way to let my friends know what I'm thinking about these days. And I think, just maybe think, that it's not working out too badly, this tiptoeing around PII. Either way, I think I end up farther on the more private/cautious (call it what you may) end of the spectrum. At this point, I have no plans to post pictures (that's what trips to visit people are for, aren't they?). I have no plans to post my name. I have no plans to post thoughts that I wouldn't mind attaching my name to. And, 90% of what I think about will not show up on here. Still, I think the 10% that I do post includes some of the more important bits. Isn't that the whole point to being vaguely specific?

These Days

These days I find myself with a lot more time to think. Applications to med schools have been submitted. Orgo, quite obviously, is now over. I am really really glad about that part. Not really my cup of tea. One thing that I miss is the ability to sit down with friends and talk to them when they're having a hard time. My approach to this whole issue in college was that I should never be too busy to talk to a friend who absolutely needed someone to talk to. Whether it meant staying up another hour or getting up earlier to finish assignments, I wanted to be there for them. And, for the most part, I think I was able to do that. However, I find that it's harder these days because I live far away, I work "real people" hours, meaning that I need to wake up early, and I'm quite tired by the time I get home. I'd still like to be there for my friends. I'm trying to think of ways to be creative and still be there for them. Ideas would be greatly appreciated...

"Don't Fix what Ain't Broke"

Let's face it. There are many times that I've taken things apart to figure out how it worked, only to find that I couldn't put it back together and get it working again. Things that, until then, had worked completely fine. I chalked it up to a learning experience, promising myself that the next time I would get it right. As I got older, I found myself in this situation less often. Part of it was that I learned to stop taking mechanical pencils apart. The other part was that I found myself fixing things that were actually broken. And, having learned from past episodes, I now knew that when disassembling, remembering the order in which parts are removed is probably the most important thing to do. Having graduated from college and not only fixed broken things, but developed new, improved products, I find myself returning to memories of pencil lead and mechanical pencil parts lying on my wooden desk while my 2nd grader self, fingers smudged with graphite, tried in vain to get it working again.

I was recently reminded that my eagerness to develop new technology and "improve" the quality of care in our hospitals might lead me to make the same mistake, but on a bigger scale. I volunteer at a local hospital's emergency room, and the techs and nurses are all really great. They care about their patients. They are friendly. They know their stuff. (The docs are also great, but not the focus of this particular post.) I was thinking as I watched them place countless IVs that it would be cool to make a robot that does this for them. Save them time and effort, allowing them to do other things. However, when I mentioned this to Sally*, she said, "Oh no, don't do that. It would leave me without a job." I hadn't thought about that. I'm not one to deliberately avoid developing new technology just for the sake of saving someone's job. However, I also realize that there would be additional risks associated with designing a robot that can start an IV, depending on how they are utilized. If the robot goes from patient to patient on its own based off of a queue controlled by triage, there are so many things that it would miss. A trained nurse or tech upon walking into a room is instantly conscious of so many things. The slightly abnormal coloring of a 2-month old infant. The alertness, or lack thereof, of a patient. The likelihood of a very much drunk 20-something to wander out of his room in search of shoes and wallet. Most importantly, nurses and techs know how to handle patient interactions way better than robots can. Or at least that was the case when I last checked.

How do you get the cantankerous 70-something Alzheimer's patient to allow you to stick a needle in her? There's lots of coaxing to be done, especially since she is somehow mistakenly convinced that these healthcare professionals in blue scrubs and nitrile gloves are "clumsy shoemakers" who are out to hurt her. (I have no idea how she got it into her head that they were shoemakers. It is all that I can do to keep from laughing, though it wasn't funny in the least bit at the time.) Once you have her permission, it's not like it gets any easier. Her veins are fragile and slippery, ready to collapse as you attempt to collect the blood samples before flushing with saline and starting the drip. Throughout this process, the tech continues to attempt to distract her, asking her questions. That's where the skills come in, I think to myself. I cannot imagine a robot trying to complete this process. In fact, it is quite laughable. This is only one case. I could go on describing many more that I have seen in my short time volunteering at this hospital. When we attempt to replace the personalized human care with the sterile efficiency of a robot, I wonder what will happen to the quality of care at hospitals. So I remind my engineer self, "Don't fix what ain't broke" and return instead to "fixing" surgical tools.

*Names have been modified for privacy reasons.

Facing Tomorrow, the Day After, and the Next

Recently, there has been a lot of violence in various locations around the world. I know it's an obvious statement. But I bring it up because it has got me thinking. I think what makes all of it so scary is the seeming randomness. I think that it's easy to just look at it and honestly feel bad for those who were affected, but to move on with little to no change in how we live. There are several things that I've been reflecting on as I stop to think about all of this in an effort to process it and take it all in.

The first is that when we wake up and roll out of bed, we never know what is going to happen that day. We could get into a car accident a block away from our houses. We could go to a seemingly safe environment at work and be faced with a volley of shots like those at the Navy Yard a few weeks ago. Most likely, though, we will return home safe and sound, exhausted by a full day of work. And I think it is that probability that has the tendency to make me complacent. Complacent to believe that the routine that I follow is really going to continue tomorrow, the day after, and so on until there is some event in the distant future that shifts my routine in just the tiniest way. Perhaps I will change jobs in a few years, go back to school, or move to a different city. But for the most part the overall routine will never change. Or so I sometimes find myself thinking. I think this type of thinking can be very dangerous. C.S. Lewis wrote, "100 per cent of us die, and that percentage cannot be increased." I like to remind myself that the opposite is true. As far as I am concerned, there have been so few people who have not eventually died that I can safely approximate my probability of dying as 1 as well.

In light of that thought, I like to ask myself- if this is indeed reality, how then should I respond?

I don't think we ought to change our daily routines in response to acts of violence. That would be, in my mind, giving in. I think we ought to stand our ground, be strong, keep on moving to show that in the end, good will prevail. However, I do think that I at least ought to change the way I approach life in general. The first thought that comes to mind is that I really want to live a life worth living. A life that does not center on my comfort, my well-being, and my personal ambitions. A life of serving others and of passing on the grace and love that I have been shown. A life where, at the end of the day, I would be able to face my Savior and say, "here is what I have done with the gifts that You have given me."And hear, "Well done, good and faithful servant." Because at the end of the day, it's about the relationship that we have with God. It's about glorifying Him to the maximum of our abilities. And the Christian life well lived is one that reflects His glory, and not ours. I believe that I have a Savior who loves me and controls my eternal destiny. Life isn't easy, but He says that His grace is sufficient for us, and so each day I want to live by looking to Him for a purpose in life. That is how I choose to face today, tomorrow, and the day after. Running in pursuit of that which cannot be taken away.