The Heart

I am preparing a lecture for some students at the hospital and while I was looking for pictures I stumbled across this site. It is freaking amazing! They have other animated bio-stuff but this is the coolest. As the cardiac muscle becomes transparent you can see the blood filling the ventricles and being ejected through the great arteries. Also, if you look closely you can see the Tricuspid and Mitral valves.

The human heart ladies and gentleman.

Beating heart with blood flow from Hybrid_Medical_Animation

A Christmas Poem

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the flat
I was all on my lonesome, except for the cat;
Earlier that evening, when I came home from work,
My girlfriend was waiting, just to call me a jerk;
She called me insensitive, she called me a lout,
She called her new boyfriend to help her move out;
Then before she left, just to "even the score,"
She flushed every cigar from my humidor.

With the Cigar Emporium closed and an Arctic wind blowing,
My girlfriend gone and my john overflowing,
I settled on the couch with my old cat Frisky,
With lots of self-pity and lots of Irish whiskey;
Because of the stress, or maybe because of the booze,
It wasn't too long before I started to snooze,

Suddenly, a commotion came out from out on the street,
A crash and a bang broke my snoozy retreat;
I went to the window and lifted the blind,
And seriously thought I was losing my mind;
On the street was a fat Gent all dressed in red,
With some funky looking reindeer pulling his sled.

Whether he was real or not, onward he came,
Whistling to his deer, calling each by his name,
"Now, Cohiba! now, Hoyo! now Monte and R.J.!
On, Bolivar! on, Ramon! on, Upmann and El Rey!
To the top of the stoop! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"
As if sensing my need for a little more proof,
Santa and his reindeer flew up to my roof.

Santa had noted my humidor was bare
and flew from the North Pole to end my despair,
St. Nick then handed me the most wonderful thing;
A 7-inch Grafton with a 54-ring
And as I watched him and the deer fly into the night,
I thought, "what a great Christmas, now who has a light?"

The Big Cheese

My boss retired at the end of November which has left us with out a head for the last 2 weeks and with the way the health service works here it looked like that would be a position that wouldn't be filled for several months. I was told to try and keep things under control but avoid "acting up" in order to keep the pressure on the hospital and government health executive to fill the post. Yesterday I was presented with a letter from the HR department asking me to fill the position of Acting Chief of Perfusion until the post can be filled. I accepted. I have found out that the surgeons asked that I be offered the position in order to, A: maintain a working chain of command and B: strengthen my application for the permanent post when it is advertised.

Needless to say I am quite flattered by their confidence in me considering my relative inexperience (those going for the post will have at least 10yrs more experience). I am quite eager to inflict as much of my "American" mentality on the place as I can (i.e. more efficiency and less bureaucratic oversight). Unfortunately the "upgrade" comes in title only as the government will not allow "upgrades" to include pay increases. Hopefully I can convince the powers that be that I can run the department on a long term basis which will then lead to significant financial incentives. It is definitely an uphill battle as the status quo is difficult to change but at the very least I'll have a nice addition to my CV.

Early Christmas

Dana finally got home today and if it wasn't enough to have her back she brought me the mother-load of cigars. She bought me the Toro Seleccion Internacional which is 10 cigars from H. Upmann, Romeo y Julieta and Montecristo. My mom bought me the Connoisseur Collection which has Hoyo de Monterrey, El Rey del Mundo, Sancho Panza, Flor de A. Allones and Ramon Allones. I bought some Punch Gran Puros, got a Romeo y Julieta #2 Habano from Pete and my personal favorite, The Egg from my best mate Ryan. All I can say is that my Dossier is going to be sick!

- 6%

The Irish government released their semi-annual budget this week where they have tried to halt the continuing debt the country is facing. Currently the country in operating at a debt of 12% of GDP which is one of the highest of the member states in the EU. The big controversy in the budget is the pay cut to public employees, of which I am one. It is a graduated cut which applies higher percentage cuts at different levels of pay. I have calculated the cut to my pay to be just over 6%, which in effect means that I am earning less than when I started 2 1/2 years ago. The calculated decrease in cost of living is around 3% which gives me around a 3% cut in earning potential. This is bad enough, but it comes with the pension and pay levies that the government has applied to public employees over the last 2 years. Overall my net income is down around 20% from 2007 and that hurts.

Let this be a lesson to anyone arguing for government run anything...socialism sucks, big time!