Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Out of the Fog

The fog lifted quickly this morning.image It burns off in mid morning and things become clearer as I head off , not on call, not worrying about seeing 40 or 50 patients with itchy burning eyes, floaters, flashing lights, computer vision problems, chldren referred for evaluation of dyslexia referred by a  school psychologist for eye exercises. Mixed in with that mix are the retinal detachments, acute narrow angle or undiagnosed chronic glaucoma, the ocassional herpes dendritic keratitis, zoster, macular hemorrhage, vein occlusion and central artery occlusions. and the bread and butter for most ophthalmologists....that cataract !

But as I said I am not going to be doing any of that for awhile.....perhaps never.  I have made my mind up to become 'cognitive' again after several decades of assembly line medicine seeing 50 or more patients a day. image I sometimes lie awake at night, and also during the day (between naps). It must be the sleep apnea as well as my antidepressants and meds for bipolar spectrum disorder.  Now that you know the 'truth' about me you will understand the reason(s) for the nature of my writing.

I had always attributed my sense of anxiety and apprehension as well as occassional irritability and impatience to my sense of superiority in all  things medical and surgical. I mean I survived college, med school, internship, residency, military service in a combat zone, with several episodes of moderately severe depression which I always attributed to my meager financial resources,  and family responsibilities and seemingly endless nights on call and moonlighting to survive residency. Early on my anxiety would bring me to a therapist. It felt good to ventilate. image So after 30 years or more my last therapist told me that I sounded 'bipolar'.   Well, shit yes...!! How else would any normal human be able to have normal SSRIs with little sleep and staggering hours and workload without a bit of an imbalance in vital neural brainwash.??

Now, I don't know what bipolar sounds like.

There, I have exposed myself....image my hidden vulnerability.

I have not changed, but the world around me has changed. All the things I studied for and worked for are gone. (but not my family) So it's not my fault and it is not my responsibility to adapt anymore.  I now have a new fundamental understanding and gestalt for those 'old eccentric folks' walking around babbling and seemingly inappropriate....

During my 'seeking'  a career transition (a euphemistic saying to cover up boredom, burnout,or whatever) I visited a local Starbucks near a UC campus.  There it was....the future of the world, a lot of Apple Macs (all white) and lots of Asians. (no insult intended).

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I  am not certain what the p.c. term is for those of asian descent.  It seems many Asians excel into getting into the UC system.

This is a wonderful that they  move to the U.S.to keep our universities full, since our own public school system cannot keep up feeding the greater University system.  The unemployment of college professors would be much greater without Asian participation.  What goes around in the business world also comes around in education.  So our educational institutions also participate in the global economy I am just concerned that our balance of education is negative. We need to export more students!!

If you haven't applied for a job in the normal workplace in the last ten years, you will be in for a shocker.  image

You have to do most or all of it online....No face to face

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unless  you can penetrate the software algorithms screening for key words in your resume.

I am even suspicious that you do not have to write coherently, just put the correct keywords, or tags in the appropriate fields.

Guess the correct combination and your resume does not get filtered into some giant resume spam file.....

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presto it appears in the 'incoming resume file for some lower level flunkie to bring into the dean's office, or the human resource filter to be forwarded to the appropriate department in whatever business you will be hired to continue your financial plans.

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