What Keeps Me Up at Night? Can I Just Get it Through the Door.

Did you know me in the summer and fall of 2005? I was on my way out of Holy Family Medical Center and creating the UroPartners Lab. We were leasing an office suite in a commercial building with the goal of transforming it into a laboratory that would pass muster with the Illinois Department of Public Health and earn the stamp of approval of Medicare and the College of American Pathologists. I had a thorough knowledge of what was needed, a reasonable budget, a cracker-jack team I was bringing with me from Holy Family, and a business consultant to boot.

So why wasn’t it my finest hour? Why wasn’t I reveling in the White Sox World Series Championship season? Why did a trip to Milwaukee to see Paul McCartney seem like a trip to hell? Why couldn’t I sleep at night? I was worried about just one thing. What if we couldn’t fit the equipment through the door? Was I going to wind up with a lab in a parking lot?

Of course, that didn’t happen–everything worked out fine, and we have had a 5-star high-quality lab here inside the building for the last 16 years. But those nightmares had been haunting me again for the last few days…

A lab like ours needs a backup power system, particularly to make sure that our refrigerators and freezers containing patient samples and expensive reagents don’t degrade during a power failure. While I would love an inline generator, some investigation in the past has shown the cost to be more than we could bear. Instead, we installed a backup battery system that during a power failure can power red outlets throughout the lab that control the refrigerators, the freezers, and some incubators in microbiology as well. It has served us well, but after ten years of juice the company that installed and maintained the system, let’s call them Power Is Us, told us the unit was badly outdated, and we agreed to purchase a replacement.

PIU hired a freight company, NoWay, to pick up the new unit from the PIU Wisconsin plant and deliver it to the lab. This was to be a two-stage process, with the unit to be first taken to Badway’s warehouse near O’Hare, and then delivered to the lab on a subsequent day. Easy-peasy, right? After all, we are only 15 minutes away from NoWay’s warehouse.

I did have a few requirements. One, I needed delivery to be between 8 am and noon, when we had a staff available to unload a couple of pallets worth of equipment and heavy batteries. And two, we don’t have a loading dock, so the delivery had to be with a lift-gate truck. All this was conveyed to NoWay, and the delivery date confirmed. And what happened?

Scheduled delivery date 1: No delivery “Our truck didn’t leave the yard until 11:30 so we knew we couldn’t get to you by 12:00.”
Scheduled delivery date 2: No delivery. At 4 pm, the last person in the lab is heading out the door when she gets a call. “We’ll be there a little later. We have until midnight, right?” Um, no. 12 pm means noon, not midnight!
Scheduled delivery date 3: No delivery. “Our driver didn’t think his truck would fit in your parking lot, so he just drove away.” (In fifteen years, no delivery truck has ever had a problem getting into our lot.)

So yeah, pretty frustrated by this point. The good news? PIU has agreed to deliver the unit to us themselves, take it off the palettes, and put it into place. It is what they did when they delivered the original system back in the day, and what I wanted them to do this time in the first place. A happy conclusion.

I’m sure I’ll get some sleep tonight.

The above are the opinions of the author and not of UroPartners LLC

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For School Boards, It’s What They Do, Not What They Say That Counts

Oakley Union School District--Google Maps — Oakley Union School District–Google Maps

“My fellow Americans, I’m pleased to tell you today that I’ve signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes,” President Ronald Reagan, 1984.

“And when you’re a star, they let you do it. Grab them by the p—y. You can do anything.” Donald Trump, 2005

“It’s really unfortunate that they want to pick on us because they want their babysitters back,” Lisa Brizendine, Oakley Union Elementary School Board president, 2021.

Yup, those hot mics will catch you. Especially during this time of Zoom meetings, you better know what is being broadcast versus what is in the sanctity of your own private group.

But as a former member and president of the Board of Education of District 125, solely comprised of Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, I sort of get it. Most people run for election to a school board not for some sort of ego trip, not for the perks (minimal) or monetary benefits (none) but to give something to their community. They spend long winter nights hearing about curriculum and the latest ‘new math” philosophy, they spend months negotiating teacher contracts, they look under rocks for the next up-and-coming superintendent superstar, who their district probably won’t have enough tax revenue to afford, anyway.

Sometimes they deal with problems of their own making, such as poor hiring, disciplinary processes, or financial planning. Sometimes it can be unequal enforcement of district boundaries or giving an athlete too much leeway. But in general, school board members follow one star–to give the students in their district the best possible education under the circumstances in which they find themselves.

And then COVID-19 comes and turns everything on its head. Follow the science, or follow the old president, or follow the new one? Think first about the students, or about the teachers, or about the parents? Or put it all in a blender and hope it turns out for the best?

So sometimes you vent. Let’s be honest. Doctors bitch about their patients, lawyers mock their clients, presidents fantasize about blowing up countries. And sometimes school board members say things they shouldn’t–but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t trying to do what is right. Judge them by what they accomplish not the sometimes foolish things they say.

Speaking of school board accomplishments, Steve Frost, Fei Shang, and Gary Gorson, three Stevenson School Board incumbents, are running as a slate for re-election in the spring election. I served with Steve and Gary, and marvel at the wonderful stewardship they have provided for the district. If you live within the bounds of District 125, please give their StevensonExcellence slate your vote on April 6th.

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An Ode to Suspenders

When first I walked the hospital floor
A young whipper-snapper always ready for more
I dressed to kill in my 3-piece suit
A really sharp dude, no way to dispute.

Suit coat, cool vest, and pants with neat creases,
I really shone in all those pieces
Tailored for me at my favorite store
Mark Shale in the city, had a great rapport.

And ties with a crest from a fancy designer
Cardin, Hermes, no one ever looked finer
What was holding it together, yeah making it sing?
It was my scarlet red suspenders, made me feel like a king.

Mine fastened with a button, no clips for me
Two in front, one in back, it’s 1-2-3
Who needs a belt when your pants are sitting
Just right on your hips for a perfect fitting.

In the UK you know they call them all braces
Not on their teeth, it’s the belts they replaces
Steve Urkel used to wear them on the Family Matters
Larry King had ’em on when he talked with lots of chatters.

For me times have changed and I’m dressing more cazh
Knit sweaters, tapered jeans, and all that jazz.
Got belts with metal buckles in black and brown,
Don’t have to look cool, not going downtown.

Just one problem that I’ve been noting
My body’s been changing, more weight I’m now toting
And while that’s going on, my tush is disappearing,
An old man’s figure is what I’m now rearing

Belts don’t do the job when your middle is missing
And once again it seems I find myself wishing
For suspenders to keep my pants tight on my hips
So I don’t give the world a total moony eclipse.

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My Mercy Memories–Not All Were Sweet

Mercy Medical Center-photo courtesy Chicago Tribune

Mercy Medical Center filed for bankruptcy yesterday. That’s a pity for the neighborhood, losing a source of medical services in an area that lacks sufficient resources. For me, it unlocks memories from almost 45 years ago, when I had more hair, less belly, and a whole lot of medicine still to learn.

In the summer of 1977, just entering my third year of medical school at the Chicago campus of the University of Illinois, I spent a grueling summer doing an eight-week internal medicine rotation at the old U of I Hospital. I was scheduled to follow this up with another two months at the “U” doing a surgery rotation. A bird whispered in my ear that if I wanted a posher palace for my introduction to surgery, I should arrange a switch to Mercy Hospital.

At the time Mercy was part of the Metro Six, a group of community hospitals including Illinois Masonic, Lutheran General, and Weiss Hospitals with a training affiliation with the University. I applied to the Dean for a schedule change using some vague reason and about a week before my surgical rotation was about to start, got the notification that my change had been approved.

In contrast to the in-depth, hands-on patient care I experienced on the internal medicine rotation at the University Hospital, my eight weeks at Mercy was truly a posher experience. I was on a service with two surgical residents, neither of whom had much interest in teaching. I can visualize their faces, but not recall their names. I learned to do pre-op physicals, learned how to scrub into an OR, and learned how to tie surgical knots on a practice knot board. But I never held a scalpel or dislodged an internal organ. My OR time was spent suctioning body fluids, retracting fat, and somehow managing to annoy the anesthesiologist.

One unique aspect of the surgical rotation at Mercy was dog lab. As horrible as it now sounds, students and residents spent one afternoon a week in a shed on the parking lot performing surgery on canines. I don’t know where these unfortunate beasts came from, and now I can only regret my actions, but I did manage to do some bowel resections—and according to the keeper who managed the menagerie, my victims did ok post-op. The only saving grace is that since that time Barb and I have given many four-legged friends a wonderful home.

Barb also experienced Mercy. Rules were much laxer in those days, and I had no difficulty obtaining permission for her to spend a day in the hospital with me, including time in the Operating Room, a first for her. She was carefully positioned by the surgical team, not too close, but still with a view of the procedure, an inguinal herniorrhaphy on a young man. The patient was prepped, surgical drapes placed, and the scalpel wielded. As blood seeped from the incision, I heard a groan and turned to see Barb beginning to wobble. She was hustled from the OR, a victim of too much gore–hard to believe she went on to spend a career dealing with messy post-op wounds!

I never did another general surgery rotation. As I became a surgical pathologist, I realized that a better understanding of surgery would have helped me in working with surgeons during intra-operative consultations, but I had lost my chance. I will never think like a surgeon–but damn, I can tie a good knot!

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You Go On Trial Today

You go on trial today.
They’ll say you incited
Your lawyers will fight it,
The riot, disquiet
In the city on the hill

Your talk was disruptive
You always did want this
The power, the glory
Your own favorite story, your quarry
Four more years laudatory
We’d all pay the bill

You have your defenders
Your fantasy blenders
With lasers more flavors
Of loony tune lies about liberal invaders
Who’d brainwash us, gun quash us
Until America was finally still

Your lawyers will story
It was all allegory
No violence no turmoil
Was ever to recoil
It was all just for fun, just to say that you won
To build up your branding, your standing, the fees you’re demanding
For your book and your speeches, ’bout living hell of impeaches
So two is better than one
When the time has come to chill

Your lawyers talk about process
Can the law really want this
Too tardy, too late, to wipe out the slate
While Constitutional scholars are betting their dollars
That it’s all elementary, to impeach is the sentry
Protecting our nation from a monster’s creation
As he delivers a poison pill

For a change you are quiet, your tweets on a diet
You won’t testify,
Won’t look in the eyes
Of the Senators, those jurors
Who will hear of your furors
And of the pretense as you challenged Mike Pence
His hiding, your chiding, over ballots presiding
He stopped being your shill.

The result is not debatable
The numbers not inflatable
Two-thirds of the Senate is not going to get it, they’ll let it
Give you your acquittal, your wrist slapped a little.
But still it is worth it, the House didn’t shirk it
You go on trial today.

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