Wash up, it's time for dinner!

Updates:

My mom’s doctor is still a loser. He told her that the fluid in her peritoneal cavity is actually gas. You can palpate it and tell that it is fluid. She said he never even touched her stomach. What an asshole. So she tried to give him another shot, he failed. Now she’s going to someone else.

I got a new job!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And it is the one that I really wanted to boot. Apparently they really wanted me too since they offered me more money than I asked for. I have never had that happen before. Now I can really tell that NIH guy to go and screw himself with the bird flu.

Mary started her new job today and had someone call at 11 AM to make sure she wasn’t falling through the cracks. It had been 3 hours! So I think she’s going to be happy and taken care of.

Since things seem to be going so smashingly well today it is hard to rant, but I know I can pull up something…

My Beef This Week

My problem this week is with people who don’t wash their hands after they use the bathroom. Come on! I have been to 5 states in the last week and saw this about 15 times in a week. I almost want to lecture the person leaving the restroom, but I know someday someone would punch me.

In the Microbiology and Immunology Department in grad school, I actually did lecture people that worked there. They should fucking know better. We had herpes and CMV on doorknobs and on random surfaces. We had shit that would scare your doctor growing on the copy machine. I washed my hands BEFORE and AFTER I went to the bathroom. Try explaining how you got that random case of herpes from work, it’s a motivator.

Two years ago at an infectious disease conference where physicians that specialize in INFECTIOUS DISEASES primarily attended, they did an experiment. They had med students sit in the bathrooms and count hand washers vs. non-hand washers. Outcome: Men 50% hand washers, women 90% hand washers. Now the women had the upper hand, pun intended, because there were less of them in the profession and they have entered into it later, WAY after Pasteur discovered microbes. Most of the older men were the culprits. No wonder we are transferring diseases all over the hospitals and having issues like “flesh-eating” Staph and antibiotic resistant Pseudomonas. The fucking doctors aren’t washing their hands after each patient OR after shaking the snake!

My mom says I’ve always been a chronic hand washer, ever since I was little. I think she actually made me that way, but she likes to pretend it’s genetic. I just don’t understand why we continue bad behaviors when we KNOW better. Human nature, I guess. But it’s not like we’re talking about complex behaviors like addiction or positive reinforcement, we are talking about being lazy.

I had one woman rationalize not washing her hands to me by saying that she never touches anything, only the toilet paper does. Guys are the ones that need to wash, she says. Um, ok. Do you think she’d be that confident if I went to the bathroom and then rubbed my hands all over her face? She better pray I’m really fucking accurate. They don't call it the fecal-oral route for nothing!

This is just one of those things that I bang my head against the wall about. We have to enforce hand washing in some patients rooms for healthcare professionals, not just visiting family. If trained, educated professionals can’t be trusted to do it, what is the hope for the general community? Think of all the diseases we could thwart if people all over the world would just pick up a bar of soap.

…now if only I could get everyone vaccinated…