Conversations with Patients ~ by Jay

I think we can give you something better for the pain.

Like marijuana?

No, I can't do that.

Darn. I thought that might be fun. I'm 83, you know. I don't have much time left to try things.

Well, it might, but it's not all that helpful for pain. It's more effective for nausea.

I wouldn't know. I never used it. My son did, and he tried to give me some, but my husband was much more conservative and he wouldn't allow it.

Oh?

No, he made them pull up all the plants from the yard, too. It was so pretty. Then again, when the police came, that wasn't so good.

Trying Something A Little Different ~ by Jay

There was time when I thought of myself as a poet. I have envelopes full of poems from my teens and twenties, handwritten on lined sheets pulled from class notebooks and neatly typed (with a typewriter!) on onionskin paper. There are even a few in there that don't make me cringe when I read them now. Poetry gave me boundaries - if I wrote prose I just went on and one and never got to the point. As a poet I found the emotional control that eluded me in the rest of my life.

When I started med school, the poems stopped. Every now and then, something resembling a poem would force its way out; sometimes I'd share them in workshops on narrative and medicine, and I've even posted a few here. I know I need to write regularly to reclaim that part of myself, and I've been thinking about taking a class or finding a group, but haven't found the time. It must be important, because the universe just provided me with a jumpstart.

A blogging acquaintance of mine has started a new blog just for poetry - it's PoeTry, because we're trying poetry. Or in my case, retrying. Head on over and check us out.

In Which I Feel My Age ~ by Jay

First Eve found one of the LPs we've kept for sentimental reasons (we no longer own a turntable) and said "What's that? What do you mean, it plays music? How do you put it in the computer?"

Then my current medical student told me the story of walking home from school on the afternoon of 9/11. I asked where she went to college, and she told me, but then added "of course, I was still in high school in 2001". Of course.

I've been wallowing in this a bit, I guess; a few weeks ago I downloaded Dean Friedman's eponymous album (recorded in 1977) from iTunes, and I was just listening to Ariel and heard these lyrics

We sat and we talked into the night
While Channel 2 was signing off the air
I found the softness of her lips
We made love to bombs bursting in air.

Channel 2? Signing off the air?

Wow, I'm old.

Generations ~ by Jay

My mother owns a cellphone. She turns it on when she wants to make a call. My brother and I have asked her to leave it on so we can reach her. Why should I do that? No one ever calls me.

Mom is the stereotypical technology-challenged senior citizen: what are all these buttons? Why does it say I have a message and I can't find it? Why isn't it on speakerphone?

So today at lunch when a text message showed up from "Mom - mobile" I was fairly sure it wasn't actually Mom. It was, in fact, Eve, who is visiting Mom for the weekend. Eve is, of course, an adept texter. Eve craves a phone of her own. We had a nice little text chat about what they were having for lunch and where they'd gone shopping, and she concluded with "It would B nice if I had a phone. Then I could text u to say I luv u".

Nice try, Eve. Not only are you still not getting a phone, but when Grandma gets her cellphone bill and sees the charges for the texts, I'll tell her to talk to you about it.

Now This, I Like ~ by Jay

One "pocket" says "NOT MY COVER LETTER" and the other says "NOT MY RESUME".

Go, Colorado Independent!

Men Are Dogs...No, Wait.... ~ by Jay

Check out this post from Sociological Images. Apparently you can buy a book explaining how to understand men through their dogs, and how to understand women through their cats.

The post reminded me that the gender binary is alive and well, and also confirmed that I will never, ever, live with a cat. Click through and read it - you'll understand.

Flexibility ~ by Tigermom

I used to think I was the queen of flexibility. I could change my plans if need be, I could get something different for dinner if the fridge contents mandated a change, I could study this subject before that.

Then I had kids.

And I learned what flexibility really means.

And that I had not been so flexible before. Now a wiggly live cute thing had needs that superseded my own. I could no longer sleep when I wanted, eat when I wanted, or use the bathroom when I wanted.

As the children grew and as I grew as a parent we learned to live while taking turns to get done the things that needed to get done and to get coverage for other things. Because the ultimate flexibility is realizing that one person cannot and does not have to do everything at once.

How did you learn about flexibility?

Dr. Tigermom, Incognito ~ by Tigermom

Dr. Grumpy is a cyber soul mate of mine. A neurologist out there somewhere, he approaches the care of his patients with good horse sense, caring, and writes about it with humor. He seems to view the sea of humanity as - well - human.

But my dear Dr. Grumpy wrote today about wearing schlumpy clothes to work and then being mistaken for the office fish tank cleaner instead of the doctor and thereby being summarily dismissed by Stuffy Visitors #1 and #2.

It is a pretty funny story. And it makes Stuffy Visitors #1 and #2 look like the superficial snobs they probably are. More to the point, Dr. Grumpy feels fortunate for having gotten out of listening to a pitch since the Stuffies turned out to be sales reps.

So?

Well, for most guys, Dr. Grumpy's experience is the exception. Isn't it hilarious that the reps did not realize that there they were talking to the DOCTOR???

But Dr. Tigermom is nearly always mistaken for the nurse, secretary, and chief fish tank cleaner. Dr. Tigermom is always nicely dressed and cleanly groomed. So why do people not realize she is the DOCTOR?

Male doctors look like Doogie Howser, MD or Marcus Welby, MD.

What do women doctors look like?

Shabbat Shalom ~ by Jay

cross-posted from Feministe

I am home after a hectic day. Sam is taking the dogs to the kennel and picking up dinner on his way home - he's been out of town, we've both been ridiculously busy at work, and we're going away this weekend for some last-chance grownup time before we pick Eve up at camp on Sunday. Right now the house is blessedly, amazingly silent. I am not on call; my pager is quiet in my pocket. I don't need to call anyone, examine anyone, sign anything, comfort anyone, or read anything. And soon it will be Shabbat.

For much of my life I thought observing Shabbat would be a nuisance. Eat at home every Friday? Go to services every week? Avoid driving? What a retrograde, reactionary pain in the tuchus that would be. My family never did any of those things. I liked my Friday nights free for babysitting and later for going out with friends; in college, Friday night was movie night for my crowd.

Shabbat snuck up on me. I wasn't looking for a weekly observance. I needed someplace to go for High Holidays, and our second year here someone suggested I try the Reconstructionist congregation. I knew as soon as I walked in that I had found a home, but for a while we stuck with the intellectual stuff - adult education, scholarly discussions of G-d and Torah, workshops on interfaith relationships (Sam wasn't Jewish). We made friends. It turned out our friends attended Friday night services, so we started going once in a while. Once in a while turned into two or three times a month, and I realized that I was looking forward to it, and that when we couldn't attend, I felt the loss. We became Friday night regulars. Shabbat gave us a chance to pause, to breathe, to sit together in silence and in song and to remember why we chose Judaism. Why we chose this congregation. Why we chose each other.

When Eve was born, we stopped attending Friday night services because we'd rather be home as a family, but the rhythm of Shabbat remains a constant in our lives. Our weeks are busy; our work can be draining and exhilarating and all-encompassing, and the mechanics of getting everyone to the right place on time each day keeps us focused on the clock and the calendar. On Shabbat, we stop counting minutes. We sit with each other. We bless wine and bread and Eve and our life together.

We still drive and shop and use the phone and watch TV; for a while we observed a screen-free Shabbat, but we've drifted away from that. The gift of Reconstructionist Judaism is that we can (and must) reimagine the old rituals to fit contemporary life; the challenge is that we need to decide, as a family and a community, what best suits our values. Sam and I still struggle with our practice, but even the brief pause at Friday night dinner brings us closer to living as we wish to live.

Soon I will light the candles and sing the blessing, as will Jewish men and women around the world. I see Shabbat candles flowing from time zone to time zone, as they have for centuries. The candles will change the quality of life in our dining room, and the quality of attention we give each other. The sages have said that we are given an extra soul on Shabbat. I feel that when we sit together as a family and a community; the extra soul is my deep connection to the ones I love. It is healing. It is rest.

Shabbat Shalom.

It's Too Late, Baby ~ by Jay

When Eve was about to turn 3, I arrived one afternoon to pick her up just as she had started to cook dinner in the play kitchen in her classroom. She asked to stay and play for a bit, so I sat down to watch, and noticed a couple of boys hovering next to the kitchen, ostensibly building a block structure but clearly paying more attention to the girls, who were oblivious. One of the boys tripped over something and fell down; Eve glanced at him on the floor and giggled. Both boys started throwing themselves on the floor, saying "Look, Eve! Look at me! Look!"

That night, I told Sam the story and said "She's two years old, and boys are already making themselves stupid to get her attention. Uh-oh".

Eve is now 10. She can hold her own on the playground. I've lost track of the number of boys who "asked her out" in fourth grade. She's learned that sometimes boys will fight over her, and she's learned that girls might stop liking her because too many boys are interested (she's very proud of the fact that even though Carmen had a crush on Robbie, and Robbie really liked Eve, Carmen and Eve are still best friends). She's said "no" to every boy who's asked her to be his girlfriend because "we're too young". How old do you have to be?, I asked. "I don't know, but older than 10". We've talked about why you might say "yes" and what you might say "yes" to; we've talked about enthusiastic consent, in appropriate contexts. That's all good. But I wasn't prepared for the voice from the backseat saying "Everyone says I'm the hottest girl in the fourth grade".

Sometimes I think it's too late for my daughter to develop a healthy sense of her own sexuality, when at 10 she's already getting clear messages about her function as a object for the male gaze. She wasn't entirely sure what they meant by "hot", but she knew somehow that it wasn't the same as being the prettiest girl in the fourth grade. Eve loves fashion and her taste is very sophisticated. She likes clothing that hugs her body, emphasizes her waist and shows off her legs. I don't know where that came from - it wasn't from my encouragement or from imitating my style - but it's been consistent since she rejected the Hannah Andersson outfit she was given for her 4th birthday.

I want Eve to enjoy her clothes, to play with her appearance, to celebrate her beauty. I want her to enjoy her body, too, when she's a teenager (or when she chooses), and be able to find sexual activity that's pleasurable and meaningful for her. I'm really OK with the idea that she is a sexual being. But I don't want her to measure her worth by the way other people respond to her looks, and I don't want her to define her sexuality as what gets the guy off (and, yes, I'm fairly sure she's hetero, to the degree that a parent can know such things about a 10-year-old).

I couldn't figure out any way to protect Eve completely from the premature sexualization that's so prevalent in our culture. We've tried to address it directly, to point it out and explain why we're concerned about it. Now I wonder how to have a conversation about owning your own sexuality with a child who hasn't yet gone through puberty. This isn't the "facts of life" - we've talked about that for Eve's whole life, and continue to do so - this is specifically about the nature of sexual pleasure and agency. That seems a bit much for the summer before fifth grade, but I don't think I have a choice.

Where There's Smoke ~ by Jay

crossposted from Feministe

My dad quit smoking cigarettes in public in 1964, but he still smoked cigars (and snuck cigarettes at home) when I was a kid. My mother smoked cigarettes, publicly and a little defiantly. I'd been dating John for six months - most of my junior year of high school - before I found out he was smoking (he hadn't exactly lied to me about it, but he'd never lit up around me, either). I didn't know until his mother told me.

I thought of that today as I walked past a man in the hallway at work and smelled the residue of his cigarette smoke from about four feet away. How was it possible that I had been physically intimate with someone and not realized he smelled of smoke? It was possible because I was used to it. Smoke was in the air I breathed, it clung to my clothes, it permeated the car I was learning to drive. I'm sure my hair smelled like cigarettes (as well as Clairol Herbal Essence shampoo. Hey, it was the 70s). I never smoked, but you wouldn't have known that.

My mother was always very proud of the fact that her house didn't smell of smoke, but the first time I returned to college after break and opened my suitcase, I realized I couldn't take my laundry home - I had to bring dirty laundry back to to college and wash it there, or it reeked. And three months after my mother finally quit smoking, she replaced all the carpets and had the house repainted - because of course it did smell of smoke. She just hadn't noticed because she was used to it.

Privilege is like smoke. When we're living with it, you don't notice it. It's in the air. It's all around us, invisible, ubiquitous. We don't notice the privilege we share with others; we only notice what surprises our senses and our brains - the way I could smell pot smoke on someone, even when I was living with my cigarette-smoking parents.

As I unpack my knapsack, a task I will continue to work at for the rest of my life, I can feel my senses opening up - and once I've started to notice a piece of my privilege, it's as if I've opened that suitcase again back in my freshman-year dorm. It's startling, and disturbing. Some pieces are more obvious to me than others - my class privilege often remains invisible to me. I'd like to wash it off, but it's more complicated than that.

Cigarette smoke is harmful even to those who don't smoke (I had ear infections twice a year until I moved out of my parents' house); privilege is more harmful to those who don't have it, but the existence of the kyriarchy harms us all. We'll have to work together to kick the habit.

News Flash! Premeds Don't Make Better Doctors! ~ by Jay

cross-posted from Feministe

A recent study in Academic Medicine challenges the conventional notions of what students need to do to prepare for medical school. Mt. Sinai Hospital has a program called HuMed, in which they offer guaranteed med school admission to college undergrads (sophomores and juniors) who are majoring in the humanities or social sciences, and they waive the other requirements - no physics, no organic chemistry, no MCATS.

Turns out the HuMed students do at least as well as the traditional students on every measurement except their scores on the first step of the three-part licensing exam (which, by the by, has been clearly shown not to correlate with anything meaningful in one's later career in medicine). HuMed students are far more likely to receive an honors grade in their psychiatry rotations, and also more likely to select primary care and psychiatry residences. The only other difference is that they are more likely to take leave for non-educational reasons (which to me says that they are more likely to have rich lives outside school).

I was an English major in college, with a concentration in American Studies. I wrote an undergraduate thesis on the works of Eugene O'Neill. I also took the premed requirements, because I had to, but taking organic chemistry, as usually taught to undergrads, and getting a decent grade doesn't mean that you actually understand anything. I had to learn everything over again in pharmacology, anyway. I did receive honors in my psych rotation, and I chose a primary care specialty. I read this study and smiled, and felt validated.

And then I saw this:

In an independent comment, John Prescott, MD, chief academic officer of the American Association of Medical Colleges, noted that this program is "unique and shows that you can take highly qualified students and they will succeed in this setting." He points out, however, that this is not an "either/or" discussion. "We need physicians who can communicate well, who can adapt to change, and display altruism. But we also need physicians with a sound foundation in scientific principles."

Um, what? It's not an either/or, but it is? We can either have docs who can communicate with patients and display altruism, OR we can have docs with a sound foundation in science? Huh?

I have had patients ask me where I went to college and what I majored in, but I've never had anyone say "Oh, you were an English major? Well, could you go find me a physicist instead, please?" I'm here to tell you that it is entirely possible to be a doctor with good communication skills and a strong scientific fund of knowledge, and if you were the one wearing the stupid gown with the draft in the back, you'd damn well want both.

Friends Without Benefits ~ by Jay

cross-posted from Feministe

I found my ex-boyfriend on Facebook.

Did you raise your eyebrows? What did you assume was going on? Do you think this is a good idea? How do you imagine this story will end?

Would it change your mind if you knew that we broke up in 1978?

I met John when I was 13; we dated briefly when I was 14 and then seriously from just before my 16th birthday until I graduated from high school. My mother still calls him "Jay's first love", and he was. He was also my best friend. We were friends before and after we dated, and when I lost touch with John in my mid-20s I missed him terribly. He was the first person I looked for online when I understood that such a thing was possible, but he keeps a deliberately low profile and I never did find him - not until Facebook.

I don't know what I expected when I friended him, but it wasn't what has developed over the last year. John and I have an ongoing Email conversation; we talk on the phone a few times a week; we check in with each other when we're traveling. We've written volumes about what happened way back then - about the choices we made, the places we went, the ways in which we hurt each other and helped each other and taught each other and loved each other. We've dug up old photos and traded new ones. We've had lunch together, alone, and we've visited each other's homes. We've even visited each other's mothers, who both still live in the houses we grew up in. John's mother started to cry when she saw me walk in the door. My mother keeps asking when he's coming back to visit her again.

And many of my friends are astonished and skeptical. Not my husband - Sam is unconcerned - but my friends. I didn't expect that, either. "Playing with fire", they observe. "I could never do that". "Are you sure this is a good idea?" "Are you still attracted to him?" Well, yes, actually, I am, but that doesn't mean we're going to end up in a hotel room together.

I've always been friends with men; until I was 35, most of my closest friends were men. Nobody ever seemed surprised by that. It's clearly the idea of being friends with someone with whom I've had a sexual relationship that bothers people. I wouldn't want to have sex with someone who wasn't my friend. I've had three major relationships in my life, and I was friends with each man for a while before anything else developed. I'm monogamous, and I've been married for 25 years, but that doesn't mean I haven't felt attracted to anyone else. I don't see attraction and friendship as mutually exclusive.

There's a lot buried under the shock I hear from my friends. There's a fear that sex is a potent, toxic force that can destabilize relationships, and I suppose that might be true if my marriage weren't sexually satisfying. There's also a model of hetero marriage in there that troubles me. My feminist, egalitarian friends don't buy into the idea that men don't talk - they expect to have intimate, emotional conversations with their husbands, just as they expect to share parenting and housework. And with that expectation comes the assumption that all of our physical and emotional intimacy needs are supposed to be met by our partners.

That's a lot to ask, especially for an extrovert and external processor like me. I want to talk about everything. A lot. Sam needs time and quiet to sort out what he's thinking and feeling. For years, I felt like there was something pathological about me, or something wrong with Sam, because he couldn't meet my need for intimate conversation. After a lot of therapy, I've come to see it differently, and we both know that our marriage is better when I have some of my needs met by other people.

My life is richer because it includes both Sam and John. That's the best benefit of all.

It's That Time Again ~ by Jay

I'm guest-blogging at Feministe for the next two weeks. I will cross-post anything that seems appropriate, but please come on over and join the conversation there, too.