Dr. Sour Puss

Well, I did it. I told everyone I'd wait until the election to make a decision about my future career plans, but in the end it didn't matter. Every day as I drive in to the hospital that sense of dread starts to fill up my stomach and grows stronger until I pull in to my parking space and trudge up the stairs confident I am about to spend another 12 hours doing mostly unpaid work as the agent of a system that utterly fails everyone involved. I expect headaches in my job. I mean, it's the doctor who is supposed to be the lone hero in the middle of the bureaucratic insurance mess, who is desperately trying to make the system work for the patients, and even once in a while trying to save a life. And it's important work. There are times when families genuinely appreciate the work I do, moments when I feel actual satisfaction. But those moments are becoming less frequent and the personal cost to me is becoming too difficult to bear. When I approach the end of each year and t...

Yep, that's right. In this optimistic time of change, the Mrs. and I decided to go and make ourselves a kid. The little Sour Kitten is due in April. Things are going pretty well, Shireesha seems mostly over the morning sickness but is starting to feel the weight of the baby. It's been a weird experience. Neither of us are what you would call baby-crazy and we hadn't even discussed it much prior to this year. There is so much uncertainty in the world, and with two careers in medicine specifically, that it seems fool hardy to throw a huge variable into the equation. But I do have more hope lately than I have had in years and with that hope comes a sense of freedom and possibility. Shireesha's career is finally in a somewhat state of stability and with my options wide open, this seems like a good time to bring a child into our lives. I mean, we aren't committed to the idea of being childless forever, so if not now, then when? I think it's fitting that we don't ...

There has never been a president who looked more like me.

Washington State Proposition 1000, the Right-to-Die initiative. Modeled after Oregon's generally successful Physician-Assisted-Suicide law. Initiative Measure No. 1000 concerns allowing certain terminally ill competent adults to obtain lethal prescriptions. This measure would permit terminally ill, competent, adult Washington residents, who are medically predicted to have six months or less to live, to request and self-administer lethal medication prescribed by a physician. Should this measure be enacted into law? Yes [ ] No [ ] I voted no. Yes, I am a bad liberal. Yes, I am another fascist physician trying to foist my personal ethical beliefs on my patients. Actually, I am neither and I have really mixed feelings about this, something that is rare in this age of divided politics. I won't be heartbroken if it passes and I am pretty sure I signed a petition to get this on the ballot. Here is my thinking. My day is divided into 15 minute blocks of time that I spend with patients....