Wednesday, December 06, 2006

For Boredom Relief, Take These Blog Carnivals

After a 30-hour flight ordeal involving three planes (one of which nearly exploded with me on it and another which urinated on me--I kid you not), four air hostesses whom I suspect were drill sergeants in their past lives, and airplane food which spontaneously drops on your carefully ironed newly washed suit, I have learnt an important lesson which I will now, in a gesture of great generosity, pass on to you my esteemed readers, all two-and-a-half of you:

Don't fly Cathay Pacific Airways.

And so I return home, only to find that my former best friend's parents have sent me a death threat. Ah, isn't life lovely?

But more on that later. Tomorrow I enlist in a 5-day National Loyalty Inculcation Camp For Make Benefit Glorious Nation Of Malaysia, and hence will be stuck in the jungles of Malaysia without internet access til Friday. So to paraphrase the great Jon Stewart: here they are, your moments of Zen:

Grand Rounds 3-11 is up at The Antidote, a blog by Emily DeVoto, Ph.D., who is an independent health care consultant, epidemiologist, and journalism groupie. She's come up with a concise and easy-to-read round-up of some of the best medical writing out there this week. I liked reading her post, as her writing style reminded me of one of my idols, Donald Trump, who is known for his no-nonsense to-the-point writing, a style which I myself have unfortunately never mastered. Which is probably why most of my readers fall asleep halfway through one of my posts. (That, or the brain damage my blog causes finally gets to them. Send me your gravestone addresses, dear readers, and I promise to put flowers once a year. --Editor)

Emily DeVoto PhD., webmaster of The Antidote

And Dr Crippen of NHS Blog Doctor has his second BritMeds up. This week's compilation of the UK's best medical writing is even bigger than the last one, and grew even bigger when the good doctor answered my comment urging him to check out HospitalPhoenix's dilemma and feature it on his blog.

Happy holidays, folks. And see you on Sunday.

13 comments:

The Little Medic said...

Hi,
Just wanted to say that I enjoy reading your blog and as a result i've been inspired to start my own :)
imamedicalstudentgetmeoutofhere
Keep up the good work

howling said...

"After a 30-hour flight ordeal involving three planes (one of which nearly exploded with me on it and another which urinated on me-- Don't fly Cathay Pacific Airways."

Ohhh? Tell me about it. Let me tell you: I can't even describe in writing what experience I had with 'Gulf Air.'

Really nasty.

Mother Jones RN said...

Good grief! Sorry about your ordeal.

MJ

Anonymous said...

Omigod, I flew the same airline long haul, and it urinated on me TWICE. Never happened on another airline.

And the blighters wouldn't even upgrade me. ;-(

medstudentitis said...

Um... Urinated on you? That's sick.

Anonymous said...

OK, well maybe I'm exaggerating slightly.

About half an hour into each flight, I had a steady stream of liquid pour onto me from the ceiling of the cabin. The first time was enough to soak the front and sleeve of my polar fleece. The second time I'd prophylactically covered myself with the blanket and it merely needed replacing.

The airline staff claimed it was airconditioning condensation. I was sitting in the window seat both times although about twenty rows apart. Apparently I was the only one affected, so maybe it was actually my own personal raincloud.

Never happened before and I have flown the same long haul route a dozen times. First time with Cathay though. Possibly the last as well.

medstudentitis said...

Hmmmm... I was reading a certain blog of a collection of medical students today that is published by an institution that sends me annoying emails and there was a new blogger whose stories seemed somewhat familiar... Cambridge...no patient contact... first-aider with no knowledge of first aid... and then I realized that it was you! Hah, now I know your real name AND what you look like!

DrG said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DrG said...

Hey added to you Blogs of Medical Students.

Keep up the good stuff!

The Angry Medic said...

Little Medic: Aww, that's inspiring. I've added you to my blogroll. Keep it up, mate!

Howling: I'm wondering if my tales of air travel misfortune will bore my readers. Why don't you blog about yours? Then we can commiserate with each other :)

Anonymous: See? Now the world knows we're not lying! Same thing happened to me, except mine was during takeoff. All over my best suit too. Sheesh.

Medstudentitis: Yes, I've started writing for Medscape. It isn't really secret anymore, cos I linked to this blog from my bio. Hope you liked the article :P

Emily DeVoto, Ph.D., said...

I was looking forward to seeing how I was depicted. Did the censors take it down? Thanks for the nice words about my blog, in any case...

Cheers!

The Angry Medic said...

Oh that's weird. I don't recall taking it down and I got no email from Blogger saying I'd violated copyright. It WAS in the public domain anyway.

I've re-uploaded it, in case you do drop by again on one of your free evenings. Thanks for dropping by, and keep up the good (but extremely snappy and to-the-point) work!

Emily DeVoto, Ph.D., said...

Hey! Quite a good likeness, really, so how the heck... Wait! You'll be hearing from my lawyers!

Yeah, that's it.

Never had to fire anyone, though.