A New Year

This is a list of notable new books by the New York Times for 2005, it is clear that I am home early on my New Year's Eve! It's still OK, because the Chinese New Year isn't till January 29th, and 2006 is the Year of the Dog!

Detroit

Two weeks ago I went to Detroit to interview for a residency position there. Motor City is an interesting town. It's sprawled out like LA, but the traffic is nowhere near as bad. There are a lot of liquor stores on the inner city street corners, and not much happening. Despite the fact that the Super Bowl is coming this year, it's a shell of a city. Why can't US automakers start making small cars that are fuel efficient and make the city thrive? At the very least, the Saturn Sky looks promising!

On a completely unrelated note, I was at Wayne State for the interview, and had a chance to go down to the Shiffman medical library there. Upon entering, I noticed a plaque on the door, and was quite surprised to see my great grandfather's name on it. So, since I was there, I looked up some of my great grandfather's work in the bowels of this library that looks like a nuclear bomb shelter. As I sat there leafing through the pages of the journal that he edited for some time, the Journal of the Michigan State Medical Society, I had the chance to see another era of US medicine. In those post World War I years and into the Second World War, there was a definite fear of socialized medicine. The fear was that the US Public Health Service would take over the profession, leading to poor quality, and the erosion of physician independence to make decisions for patient care. At the time, Blue Cross and Blue Shield were started as prepaid health plans, some of the first ones in existence. It is interesting to see how this situation has changed over the years. Looking at the NHS in the UK, it is fair to say our health care in the US is of higher quality. However, one thing I notice about the US is that people get left behind. In the NHS, and in Ireland (a separate system), there is a safety net. At some stage here in the US, we will need to establish a safety net, and whether it is prepaid, or paid by the government matters not.

After my visit to the library, I wandered past the Detroit Insitute of the Arts, and paused in fronth of Rodin's Thinker. Actually, one of many. As it turns out, there are copies of this statue around the world,and the original is in Paris. I don't know why, but I have bad museum karma. Every time I visit a city with a cool museum, I end up going on the day it is closed! So, if you don't like museums, travel on Tuesdays, you are sure to find the museums closed...

Minnesota

I have been here in Minnesota for three weeks now, doing an elective at the Mayo Clinic. It's pretty cold here, but it's Christmas Day today and the snow is starting to melt! Anyways, the place is huge, it's like a factory town for medicine, with the clinic being pretty much the only thing here. That said, it's an efficient well oiled machine for getting things done! Here I am sitting next to the Brothers Mayo on the steps.

There is an interesting professional ethos around here, something I haven't seen elsewhere, not even at Scripps Clinic in San Diego. Maybe it is the Mayo Model of Care, which I found engraved in the museum here. Certainly there is a lot of history around the place.

results are in

Got the word today, passed peds, obs and psych. Had the ex-president of the Irish Medical Council in my Peds exam, and faced both external examiners in the Obs exam, one from Trinity and one from Dundee, so it means something to have passed these last ones, not easy were they (couldn't have said it better if I was Yoda). Now just have to pack the old bags and am off to Minnesota for an elective in Critical Care, with trips to Michigan for interviews. Called round to Mick's gaff tonight and saw his pics of him laying the wreath at his grand-uncle Patrick Kavanagh's grave in Monaghan, very feckin cool. Heard interesting stories from Daran about the Jameson Distillery where he is now working, evidently they allow a free bottle of the stuff every two weeks. If a bottle of whiskey is 30 units of alcohol, that just about does it for your alcohol for life if you work there. Today was World AIDS day, so I guess my post about the condoms previously should be taken to heart! Went to an HIV/AIDS conference earlier this year sponsored by Bill Powderley in the Mater and it was staggering to hear what the global burden of this epidemic is, particularly in Africa.

Christmas in Dublin

Christmas Time!I managed to catch this shot of some buskers playing some music at the top of Grafton Street, with the Christmas Tree.

Then, while walking to my favorite cycle shop to pick up my bike with the broken spokes, I ran into a strange man who was promoting the idea that condoms are not what they seem to be. Rightly so, I suppose, as there was a recent condom scare in Dublin, in which several thousand fake condoms were distributed and sold in shops! More information available at Irish Medicines Board. Anyways, I escaped unscathed and the bike shop didn't even charge me for the repair! I think this is because I called my favorite Spanish bike mechanic "The Man", and he said not even his mother called him that. That made my day. Anyways, the exam results from peds, obs and psych come out tomorrow. Man I am sweating it! Ran into two people from the class walking across town, evidently the day to be out shopping for Christmas! Which reminds me...

Back from Sligo: Without a Fridge Named Saoirse

Spent the last two weeks commuting back and forth from here to Sligo, on a psych attachment there. Sligo is a small little place, made liveable by the Sligo Higher Institute of Technology, affectionately known as SHIT. At least it's not shite! Lovely little roads to run around on leading to just about nowhere. Apparently however, a nice day in Sligo is a day it doesn't rain, as I was told it's a lovely day on two consecutive cloudy overcast gray days, which evidently were lovely by Sligo standards. It's all relative I suppose. And not to complain, but I am a little curious about the trains in Ireland. What is the story with a return fare costing the same as a single? And just what does the money go for? Is it the classy carriages? Why couldn't they put in some doors that you don't have to stick your hand outside the window to open? It makes me think I am in the wild west gettin off a train in Ireland, goin back 50 years to 1950... This is a little off topic, but my trip to Sligo did have two very interesting revelations about Ireland and roads.

First, I found out the meaning of the song about the N17. For those of you who haven't spent any time in an Irish country disco, the song says, wish I was on the N seventeen, etc etc. Now why would anyone write a song about a road? Well, turns out it's the road from Galway to Shannon, and it's a bit of an emigration anthem... ahem.

The second revelation came as I was gettin my hair cut by a barber on North Earl Street in Dublin, so not technically a Sligo based revelation. In any case, he was telling me about the emergency, during world war II. The government was so concerned about Germans landing here that all the road signs were taken down. Nowhere, anywhere had road signs, you simply had to know where you were going. This might explain why these days it is so bloody hard to find a road sign. I thought it was something to do with the U2 song "where the streets have no name"but it was all about the emergency in world war II.

Also finally found a place to live, nice place by the sea in Portmarnock. Will ride in to city, only 45 minutes cycle... All the looking around though. Spent ages on daft.ie... it really is daft. Got lost looking for a place in Beaumont area, some place called Ardmore with an housing estate with like five streets named Ardmore Drive, Place, Park, Grove, and Close. Of course, I have to walk down every single one because they are poorly signposted, and only three of the five have actual signposts... And this is an estate built post 1950, so the whole world war II explanation doesn't cut much slack for this oversight in roadway nomenclature. Speaking of which, I will have to devote another blog to the phenomenon of the Irish housing estate!

Video Blog

Introducing the author of the post, check out my video (it's clean)...

Bluetooth

Well, finally came into the 21st century and got a laptop, and even taught it to talk to my phone... This is all based on a technology which is named interestingly, after a Viking called Bluetooth, who was pretty sophisticated in his own time... I think he might have coined some money. So this whole bluetooth thing is very Monaaay!!!

The interesting part of all this is that now I can take photos with th e phone, which I have done, and some are here! If only I could figure out the panorama feature! The one above I took on a hike in Howth during September, when it was still warm enough to wear shorts. Some ladies were out riding their horses, and the flowers are nice. And the next one is of the view looking across Dublin bay towards Dun Laoghaire and Bray Head.

Stephen's Green

First Post

This is the first post to John's Journal of Irish living in Dublin etc. It is Wednesday Sept. 28th. This blog was inspired by Toby's blog about India. It will hopefully be better than my previous attempts.