It’s not the size that matters, but how you use it. Words never spoken to me, I swear. No, really. It’s just an idiom. One week ago today, I walked in and gave Nascentia my things: my clinical bag, my equipment, my electronics, my trunk bin, and my ID badge. 8 months earlier it had seemed like the right move to seek employment with Nascentia. They were looking for a staff therapist and I was miserable, despite my apparent success in middle management. I had an opportunity to not deal with the toxic and back-stabbing personalities in my workplace, make equal money, and work in my car again. No more meetings. No more politics. Just me, one on one with patients again. It was nice. 2 days ago, I sat in the parking lot of my next employer looking at the single entry to a single level building with no […]
I received an email from a friend yesterday. We had been talking back and forth about COVID and they were unconvinced that it was as contagious as it has been made out to be. They wrote, “Figured you might appreciate the first part of this email. I haven’t done my own homework on it, but the editor of this newsletter is someone familiar with big data and statistical measures; making those inferences…a little more accurate; hopefully.“ This is what the body of the article said: The insights about COVID-19 and its spread published in the last three days have been incredible. The increase in data and transparency is allowing us to better understand this virus. The University of Oxford just published some excellent research outlining how quickly the team from Oxford’s Evolutionary Ecology and Infectious Disease group believes COVID-19 has spread. The assumptions used were all reasonable and backed by […]
We expect the COVID-19 hospital demand to peak in 2-3 weeks(1), per Governor Cuomo. In the 5 counties referenced earlier, there are a total of 196 cases of COVID-19(2), as of yesterday afternoon (146 in Onondaga, 4 in Cayuga, 8 in Cortland, 29 in Madison, and 9 in Oswego). 20 patients are currently receiving hospital care in Onondaga County(2), and my guess is that anyone who requires hospitalization from the surrounding area is already included in that figure. The exponential growth in infection rate has seemingly been the same across the globe. The curves in China, Italy, and NYC all look pretty similar … scarily similar. It is easy to look at NYC and see that NYC was at 173 cases on March 10.(3)* If CNY follows the same exact curve, we would be looking at 30,000 cases when this thing peaks in two weeks, more if the peak occurs […]
In July, I left Company A to work for Company B, taking a $5k paycut to return to clinical work … kind of. Company B actually had really low minimum base salary (20% less), but I was only expected to see 5 patients per day and I earned an extra $18k (which would cover the difference) if I serviced 6 patients per day, matching my productivity when I worked as a clinician for Company A. In mid-January, Company B changed expectations to cut their own costs, mandating 6 patients be seen for minimum productivity while at the same time struggling to admit a sufficient number of patients to afford therapists to consistently see 7 patients (not to mention that seeing 7 presents with some quality of care/ethical dilemmas and they were already beginning to remove autonomy from therapists regarding patient care as well). So, folks like me who were working […]
6 weeks ago, things were a little different. I wasn’t naive. COVID-19 was going to get to my community. I had no doubt. I had been watching and following the news out of China and had strongly considered not traveling to San Diego in mid-February as a result. I also had no idea that it would get here as quickly as it did. Not that it would have necessarily changed my mind. I walked out of the building at Nascentia yesterday, 4 weeks after giving them notice of termination of my employment. The last 4 weeks have been a roller coaster ride as COVID hit New York and I’ve perpetually wondered if now was the right time for such a move, but despite incessantly re-running the scenarios in my mind, there was no turning back. Will the next company still take me considering what is going on or would they […]
I’ve started posting pictures that I am taking during this crazy time here. I’ve chosen to use black and white images because there is a lot of mixed light in the home (natural, incandescent, LCD, fluorescent) and I find the colors difficult to manage and off-putting. I’m electing to lift the shadows and keep the images brighter than I usually would because I want to have details in the shadows in my poorly lit home … the details for a project like this are most important, I think. It is funny, really. I have $2000+ worth of camera equipment in my office and I’ve started a photo project with my $400 cell phone. I would be ashamed of myself if not for how wonderfully pragmatic the decision is. I LOVE my real “camera”. The images from my Olympus are great and far exceed the quality of the images that are […]
Despite the fact that we are now sleeping in separate rooms and distancing in our own home, we appreciate that we are in the minority. Tonight, Christine and I were talking about how we actually wouldn’t be surprised to see a baby-boom in 12 months. Sure enough, other folks are thinking the same. Of course, the problem is that computer models are indicating that this COVID-mother-fucker is likely to make a comeback next winter too. That’s not exactly what I would consider peak baby delivery conditions. We could make and effort to get the word out to be careful and think things through, but young people are still having weddings, going to beaches, and getting drunk in bars. So, yeah … I guess we’ll just cross our fingers and wait to see what happens. In the meantime? #misanthropy
I don’t know. Maybe I’m a shitty PT. Maybe I’m just not self-deluded. As always, there’s probably something closer to ‘right’ somewhere in the middle, but still … this COVID-related message was retweeted by the APTA’s President of the Home Health Section: Ugh. I get it … I’m a nihistic shit, but are we really thinking – when dealing with a virus/illness that is killing nearly 20% of the afflicted over the age of 80 in Italy and is projected to infect between 40-70% of the general population – that our default position is that the small benefit that physiotherapy has demonstrated in reducing readmissions (in limited samples/populations) is worth the risk of becoming COVID vectors in the community? When data from China indicates that the infected are contagious for days prior to exhibiting symptoms? When the patients that we are trying to serve are the ones most susceptible to […]
I’m gonna be a bit bored for a while, I think. Fucking COVID. I am going the route of overkill; it helps me sleep at night … usually. But, then again, when I am sleeping on an air mattress in the office (where I plan to distance myself to) so that Christine and the kids can live in the house without fear of possible contagions as each is off from work and school … well, we’ll see, I suppose. I think that I’ll explore some writings again. Maybe something short every day. Something to occupy my mind. Something to do when Christine and I are unable to spend evenings together. I’ll try to capture the experience with photos from my cell phone. I’ve selected it with intention. I’ve also decided to process all photos in a bright monochrome. Also with intention. I wish I had used equal intention in framing […]