Germy

Went home for Thanksgiving. First time travelling away from the LA since residency started this summer. It was nice seeing family and friends. My mother had a birthday recently, so the idea was to take her to Powell's   bookstore with a mandate to find books we would then buy for her. Of course, it had been a long time since I had wandered around the store, too. I found a handful of books related to the book I'm writing, and also this one: Golden: The Miraculous Rise of Steph Curry by Marcus Thomson II had been a book I've been meaning to read. I was in the Bay Area for six years. When I arrived the Warriors were not good, at all. And other than the 'We-Believe' team with the Baron Davis dunk and dismantling of the number one seed Mavericks, had last had real success around when last the Trail Blazers won a title -- the late 70's. Keith Smart was the coach, with Mark Jackson soon to come. Andris Biedrens was still on the roster. Sniffing the playoffs would ...

Lynch Park was an elementary school in South East Portland, on 148th right between SE Division and SE Powell, otherwise known as State Highway 26. I am an alum of Lynch Park, (a Jaguar for life) having spent my years of kindergarten through third grade learning how to be the best Jaguar I could be. Our gym did multiple duties; cafeteria, assemblies, whatever. But I remember Terry Porter, #30 of the Portland Trail Blazers, who grew up in Milwaukee Wisconsin, and had an impressive NBA career by way of University of Wisconsin Stevens Point, standing on what was our half court line and draining jump shots as he chatted with our principal, or someone. That memory stuck with me, thinking that he was launching them from half court with ease, draining them. Some years later I happened to be in that building, but it was now a Montessori school but that half gym half cafeteria still had the hoops on either end and the mid court line. The line was closer to the rim than an NBA three point shot on...

I've never been mistaken for a nurse. Even when I was in undergrad, working weekends in the emergency department, in a non-clinical capacity (granted, I did wear scrubs and carry a computer or clipboard) I was mistaken for a doctor more times than I can count. Not once did I enter the room and have a patient tell the other end of a telephone conversation that 'the nurse is here, I gotta go." But dozens of times in the span of a year or so, I had them say 'the doctor is here, I gotta go." These days i walk into a room, and they correctly assume I am a doctor.  When I have patients refer to my colleagues, including medical students, as nurses -- it is always based on their gender. I've seen responses that are highly varied, and I respect them all. But now, I can't help but step in and politely point out the fact that this is actually doctor so and so, or medical student blah blah blah. If nothing else, the patient should be aware of who and in what capaci...