Dr. Sour Puss

Seattle got unexpected snow for Christmas. Me and Mrs. Sour Puss went for a walk and I slipped and fell dramatically right on my ass in slow motion. It was pretty hysterical. I got to watch my 90 year old grandmother discover video iChat thanks to the MacBook I gave to my sister. Pure magic talking to her 3000 miles away, she was absolutely astounded that the video phone had finally been perfected. I got to watch the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy thanks to the paging operator forgetting that I was on call. There were no serious problems that I missed and by the end of Return of the King I was crying like a fucking baby, just like I always do. My wife made fun of me, just like she always does. I got new slippers, a Star Wars Lego kit (my mom has been doing this every year since I was 20), and the book Schulz and Peanuts.

I've never shied away from taking care of difficult, complex patients. In fact, at my hospital, I am known for it. Some doctors won't take referrals from me any longer. Of course, my acceptance of these challenges is not without some reluctance and it doesn't stop me from complaining about all the train wrecks that appear on my schedule daily. This year, we had a pumpkin carving contest and my clinic manager put an engineer's cap on top of my pumpkin. Chronic pain, out of control psychiatric problems, overweight diabetics that won't do a thing to help themselves, these are the things that keep my job interesting. But today I saw an actual train wreck. Receptionist: "Dr. Sour Puss, I have Mrs. McLucky-as-hell on the phone. She said she was hit by a train." Me: "Um, maybe we should refer her to the Emergency Room?" Receptionist: "She says it happened last night." Me, sighing: "Alright, work her into the afternoon." Near Harbor ...

How does one create a first blog post? I mean, presumably no one is going to read this, right? CJ suggested I start off with a picture of a cat and that seemed reasonable. I freely admit that half the reason I am doing this is to boost my cred over here , where currently my user profile points to the website for Elmer's glue. Plus, many of my more ranty or yahooish posts keep getting deleted with the instructions to GYOFB. So there, I GMOFB. I thought it might be nice to have a place to vent my frustrations and observations on life as a primary care doc. I realize no one cares, but a busy 12 hours in the clinic and the hospital can put a lot of crazy ideas in your head and honestly, I think Mrs. Sour Puss is getting tired of hearing it. Not that she would ever say so. I am actually not a terribly bitter person, just vocal. I am frequently surprised when people point this out to me. I spend a fair amount of time reading other people's blogs and I suspect I will link to things th...