Sunny Saturday afternoon, driving with Barb, cruising along a wide open, well paved two lane road. Foot edging down on the gas peddle, watching out for traffic but not paying much attention to the speedometer. Taking a curve as tires squeal a bit, and Barb warns of a cop on the shoulder. Slow down while passing the black and white, but a glance in the rearview mirror a moment later shows red and blue lights flashing. Pull over to the side of the road, lower the windows, kill the engine.

I’ve been drivin’ all night…
my hand wet on the wheel.
Radar Love-1973

“Why were you speeding?”

“I wasn’t paying attention, I am very sorry.”

“You were doing 50 in a 35. Been stopped here before?”

“No, sir”

“License and insurance cards please.”

“Here they are.”

“This your address?”

“No sir, we just sold our house, I haven’t changed the license yet.”

He is in his cruiser for a very long time. Barb says he must be writing a ticket. Deep breathing, staying calm, but thinking about all the inconvenience. Court date? Lawyers fees? Fine? A Saturday morning in driver re-education school? It has been years, but have experienced each of those. Not surprising with the hundreds of thousands of miles accumulated commuting every day.

He walks back slowly, holding something in his left hand in addition to license and insurance card. Prepare for the bad news.

“You a doctor?”

“Yes”

“Where”

“About 30 miles from here.”

“You get either the ticket or the speech. Today is your lucky day. You get the speech. There are lots of deer around here, running across the road. You’re not careful, you’ll hit one. And that won’t be your luck day. The deer will win. That’s why the speed limit is what it is. From now on stick to it. No second chances.”

“Yes sir.”

“Here are your ID’s back. And in case you were wondering, this is paperwork I have to fill out with every traffic stop to show that I am not doing any racial or other profiling.”

“Thank you and have a good day, Officer.”

Sticking to the speed limit now, especially on local roads. Drivers behind get aggravated, get edgy. But taking it slow. Glad that middle aged, well-dressed, white docs tooling around in a yuppie car in an upscale Chicago ‘burb, don’t get profiled. Otherwise it might be Saturday school…or worse.

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Today marks four weeks since E-Day, the most startling election in my lifetime, surpassing even my surprise loss in a youth group election in 1970. The pollsters had that one wrong too.

My loss had very little consequence, Mr. Trump’s victory has all the consequence in the world. I have not been reassured in these past 28 days, as I hear, see, and read less and less that convinces me of the stability I seek as I enter my pre-Medicare years. What would make me a little more sanguine? I know the President Elect (can I call him the PEPOTUS?) likes pledges, maybe I could ask him to sign the following declaration–and yes, my dear Republican friends, I would have expected the same from Hillary.

I, PRESIDENT ELECT DONALD TRUMP, DO SWEAR THAT:

1. In order to defend the Constitution, I will actually read it, or at least listen to the audiobook while jetting around the country/world.

2. I will treat electronic communications with due diligence. I will not install a private server in my office. Anyway, who needs a server when you have a Twitter Account?

3. I recognize that while business is business, being President is NOT business as usual. There are goals and objectives beyond making the most money, having the most property, and having the highest rated TV show. Also, bankruptcy is NOT an option.

4. I love my family. For the next four years I have committed to love my country more. If I don’t like that order, I never should have run for this office.

5. I love to keep them guessing, However, I realize this is not the best way to deal with foreign leaders who have devices that can wipe out civilization in less time than it takes me to comb my hair.

6. For every wall I build, I will also build a bridge. And in honor of Governor Palin, my bridges will lead somewhere.

7. I will work with Congress, even though I can’t understand why the Democrats re-elected that crazy Pelosi woman as Minority Leader. California can’t fall into the sea fast enough for me.

8. I will stop talking about illegal voters. In fact, I will stop making things up entirely. But what will happen to my Twitter account?

9. I won’t put my Presidential election opponent in jail. Yes, Ms Stein, this mean you. But I think your recounts should be illegal. I won.

10. I swear to be President of all the people, all the time. So help me God.

    As it is written, so shall it be.

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Last night was a special evening, celebrating as an Honoree of the Israel Bonds Medical and Dental Division. The cold, snowy, evening was brightened by the friends, relatives, and other supporters of Israel who attended. My co-awardees, Dr. Donald Hoffman and Dr. Lee Shulman, both spoke movingly and eloquently of their involvement and advocacy of Israel.

Following a lovely introduction from Barb, I delivered the following remarks:

Thank you Barb, and thank you to the friends and family who have gathered here this evening, and to the many more that could not attend but pledged to buy Israel Bonds. And thank you to Adam Grossman, the Herbstmanns, and the rest of their team for planning this wonderful evening and for honoring Lee, Don, and me. It is quite humbling to be part of such a distinguished trio. I hope to long remember this evening.

But memory is a tricky thing.  Neuroscientists can tell us what molecular transmitters are being invoked, and what areas of our brain will light up on a PET scan when we try to recall something from our past. Movies like “Memento”, “Inception” and “Arrival” twist the way we think about memories and time, asking if we can remember what has never happened, or even remember today what might happen tomorrow. We fear diseases that rob us of our memory and are saddened when those with whom we have shared memories pass away. With my parents and my sister Linda gone, no one will remember with me the many Sunday evenings waiting in line for kreplach soup at the Ashkenaz Restaurant on Morse Avenue in Chica

Memories may be fleeting, restricted to short term. Or they can be deeply embedded in our long term memory, staying with us throughout our lives. These memories influence our actions, our beliefs, and our behaviors. Although I was only a seven year old at the time, I share with many of you strong memories of the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the events of that weekend in 1963. I remember Lyndon Johnson declaring in 1968 that he would not seek or accept another term as President. I remember Neil Armstrong and the first footsteps on the moon.  All Americans of a certain age remember those things, and have used them to forge their concepts of what this country is.

Yet I also remember things that are not part of the consciousness of all Americans. I remember sitting in my Hebrew school class at Congregation B’nai Zion in Rogers Park when the Six Day War raged. And I remember attending Holy Day services at the lovely North Shore Congregation Israel with a college friend, as news of the Yom Kippur War reached us. By the age of 17, I understood what it meant to have a Jewish homeland, and how tenuous the existence of that homeland could be.

I can’t claim that that understanding was the driving influence in the next phase of my life as I matured and married, becoming a family man. The memories from those days are from weddings, from births, from bar and bat mitzvahs. These were followed by graduations, and another round of weddings and impending ones. Yes, there were nights at JUF physicians dinners, and always contribution to the fund, but it was automatic giving, without real thought as to where the needs were greatest, what the money was to be used for.

Finally, eight years ago, Barb and I, accompanied by old and new friends, made the voyage to the State of Israel. We toured the country and we saw the cities and the historic relics. We kayaked down the Jordan River. We met some, though not enough, of the native people. It is remarkable how this blessed land of milk and honey has survived, despite the curse of being at the crossroads, and in the crosshairs, of so many civilizations and religions. Israelis have the resourcefulness and creativity that have made the country a leader in patent production and tech start-ups. Dr. Zarka will tell us of the advances in medicine, and in techniques for the preservation of life and limb, that have emerged from a nation that must always be in a state of defense.

Our children Michael and Laury, as well as their spouse and soon-to-be spouse Becca and Alex, preceded us in visiting Eretz Yisroel. So when Barb and I made it there we completed, in reverse, my favorite Hebrew phrase—l’dor vador—from generation to generation. And we pray this will go on for many generations to come.

Good enough reasons to support Israel and the Israel Bond project. But of course there is more that we must always remember As Barb mentioned in her introduction, the first time we met we were watching a local professor speak of holocaust denial; nothing less than an attempt to eliminate the existence of, and our memories about, six million Jews.  A few moments ago I spoke on the fragility and quirkiness of memory—because of the existence of Israel the holocaust is one memory we will never forget.

As we know, we cannot predict our changing national mood and behavior, making it all the more important that we, and the whole world, knows that Israel thrives. Israel Bonds is a great way to support the state of Israel while sharing that knowledge. I thank you all for this honor, for your attending tonight, and for making Israel Bonds an important and ongoing part of your portfolio.

It was a wonderful night, and if any blog readers are moved to purchase Israel Bonds, an interest paying investment that also makes a great gift, then drop me a line at les.raff@post.com. I will connect you with the proper people to make the sale. It will warm you up on the next cold Chicago winter night!

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If you build it, he will come–Field of Dreams

Yes friends, we are now in December. That means our house is currently in month 13 of construction. I suppose I can consider it a teenager, and we all know what that can be like.

“Why is it taking so long?” you might legitimately ask. In a year, HGTV could buy, sell, renovate, remodel and re-market about 200 homes, and we are still working on one. Based on her advertising claims, there is one realtor in the Chicago area who has sold just short of 4 million homes in the time it has taken us to get this far, with the end zone still a bit beyond the horizon.

If we had to pinpoint one factor getting us stuck in the mud it would be subcontractors. They come, they go, they leave behind a mess and an unfinished job, promising to be back “soon”. Others are more consistent, but slow, which we hope means craft-worthy. And yes, there have been a few mulligans and redos. Some are based on design changes we have initiated, some have been the creative decisions by architect Jefferson (or is Hamilton the architect-I keep forgetting), some related to out-and-out subcontractor errors. Why oh why would the stucco guys change the stucco color in the middle of the job? And then there have been the unexpected add-ons like a radon remediation system that is now a local requirement.

So what is the status of the final “product”? The exterior and landscaping are close to complete, just lacking rear sod, stone walkways and a bit of carpentry. On the interior, floors are finished in most rooms, all base cabinets are in, the stairs are complete, the tile dude sings and grouts on. One of our biggest frustration is with the HVAC installation, which just never gets finished off. Come on guys, it will just take you one more day.

We are still looking forward to the installation of countertops, hardware, handles, light fixtures, and all those appliances that ABT has been holding for us since before the the Cub’s season even began. Patching here, electric work there, and a whole lot of final painting are still ahead. It will all come together, just not right now. And interest rates tick up, up, up. Time is truly money.

We will love our new home, with its open design, great entertaining spaces, lovely views and peaceful pond. The neighborhood is great, every home with friendly dogs and even friendlier dog walking neighbors. And no more long commutes down Half Day Road in energy sapping afternoon traffic. We are just so eager for the move…

In the meantime, we prepare for the holidays in our rental. The chillier weather has blessedly sent the skunks into hiding. It has also revealed two massive hornets nests in the now bare parkway trees. But as my dad used to say, “This too shall pass.” At least we know we will be long gone before the trees are green and the hornets buzzing once more.

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Hey–if you haven’t read our blog about pathology reports and your health, or have not taken our brief survey, please click here. We are collecting important data.

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Ever have surgery? If you have, and if any part of you has been removed or biopsied and “sent to the lab,” or if you have even had a Pap smear, you are the proud owner of a pathology report.

I have written a few times about being a pathologist, describing how bits and pieces of the human body are examined and a diagnosis rendered. But what happens next? The reports my colleagues and I generate, filled with descriptions, diagnoses and technical mumbo-jumbo, find their way to your doctor, either in a paper form, or more likely these days, as a digital report in your electronic medical record. Your doctor reads it and acts upon it, or mentally files it away for future reference. And perhaps he or she reviews it with you.

Yes, you certainly have a right to that path report. Your provider may give it to you, or in many instances it is available through an electronic patient portal. If you read the report you may come across a straight forward diagnosis, but you may also run into unfamiliar measurements (is a millimeter a lot or a little?), weasel words of uncertainty (is “consistent with” the same as “suggestive of”?), lengthy protocols (is “cold ischemia time” the same as “cold brewed”?), and double negatives (is it good or bad that residual tumor is “not unlikely”?) Ideally your doctor will review the report with you in enough detail to answer any questions you might have and explain how it will influence your future health care. But that can be time consuming for all involved, and unless you are taking notes, you may not recall everything that you have been told.

Is there a better solution to help you parse your pathology report? You can always send a copy to your friend if he or she happens to be a pathologist. I get a few of those a month and am happy to do a favor for a buddy and give them a “curbstone consultation,” explaining in general terms what their report means and what the implications are. But I rarely tear into the report and explain every word.

Of course you can look things up on the Internet. But to take your report and do a Google search on every medical/technical word is a frustrating endeavor. When you add everything up you would probably have something as unintelligible as instructions on a made in China alarm clock.

One nationally known pathologist has come up with another solution. His reports include a link to an online FAQ page. It can answer some common questions that might relate to your report–or it may not.

Is it really important how well you understand your report? Isn’t enough that your doctor is in the know?  Of course that’s up to you. But knowledge IS power, and when it comes to your health, don’t you want all the power you can get?

I am interested in discovering how many people actually have seen their path/biopsy report and how beneficial it was for them. If you would like to provide that information, please click this link to fill out a very short questionnaire. You will be transferred to SurveyMonkey to complete the survey. Thanks for your participation, and please pass this blog on to friends and family and ask them to fill out the survey too. I would like to gather as much data as possible.

PLEASE PASS THIS BLOG AND THE SURVEY LINK ON!

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The post election Democratic Party is a mess, its coalition in tatters now that the white male center has fled.

The Republican Party is in no better shape, unable to take advantage of its unexpected win. The transition team has fumbled as badly as Jay Cutler on a strip sack; the blown hand-off from Chris Christie to Mike Pence revealing poor signal calling from the start. “Draining the swamps” will have to wait until someone figures out how do do a public works project that works for the public. And some of the rhetoric is very, very scary.

So let’s say we muddle through the next four years. By 2020 I assume Trump will have had enough of the scrutiny and the in-fighting with a party he foisted himself upon.  He will want to enjoy the fortune that multiplied exponentially during his presidential tenure. Call him One-Term-Trump. Mike Pence will be available as a candidate, but can he survive four Trumpean years without being tainted? So Republicans may need a new man at the head of the ticket. And as for the Democrats? The bench is EMPTY.

What will the parties be looking for? Someone young and fresh, but with a little bit of experience, maybe 4 or 5 years in the Senate. Someone who understands wealth and is comfortable dealing with big business, but also has a family tradition of having a heart and caring for the poor and downtrodden. Someone who has been tested in war and can be a hero to those who want a strong military. Someone who has the courage to face Moscow down, but won’t be too quick to pull the nuclear trigger. A natural debater, and a eloquent speaker whose words can inspire. Perhaps in a religious minority, with understanding of what being a minority means. Someone with style and elegance, because when you are a world leader, those things DO matter.

Someone like that might have some baggage. So attractive, so well-groomed, many would be attracted sexually or romantically and not all would get turned down. Maybe family ties would be a little too strong at times, with that being the first test of loyalty. Maybe chronic war time injuries would be swept under the rug. And it might take some back room politics to get elected.

But it would be laid on the line, our service to the country would come before the country’s service to us. And whether this candidate is a man or a woman, black, white, yellow or brown would not matter.

The saddest truth is that we had that person He was assassinated 53 years ago today. I look at our leaders now, and I weep.

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Ice skating makes some people happy. How do I know? First I saw an overwhelmed sitcom mom having fun on an ice rink. Then I listened as an audiobook protagonist, grieving at his mother’s funeral, cheered up when he remembered skating on a frozen pond as a boy.

Now my experiences at the long gone Rainbo Arena Ice Rink in Chicago were mostly spent laying prone on the ice rather than speed skating across it, so I can’t consider ice skating a joyous activity. But the coalescence did make me stop and think about things that had made me smile over the last week or so. After all, it hasn’t been all Trump Tremors.

1. The Supermoon. We had a beautiful view of it rising above our construction site. And I got a laugh reading the article in the New York Times that dissed all the attention as being not particularly scientific. Come on–sometimes you have to think with your heart, not your head.
2. International Pathology Day. Yes, to my surprise, yesterday was a special day for my field. Of course it was totally ignored. I would have been the easy winner if it had been the topic for ‘XRT’s “3 for Free” but unfortunately the contest is off the air with Lin Brehmer in Italy. Oh well, maybe next year.
3. Our anniversary. Barb and I had the opportunity to celebrate our 38th attending a downtown wedding. We danced to “Shout,” sang along to “Don’t Stop Believing,” and of course took notes in preparation for next year’s Laury-Alex extravaganza.
4. Our anniversary, part 2. A video of our granddaughter singing “Happy Anniversary” to Nana and Baba. I won’t post a link here, but if you are a Facebook friend of Barb or me you can find it there.
5. Our anniversary, part 3. A gift book from Barb, “Hamilton: The Revolution” by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter. All the lyrics, with annotations by Lin explaining all the musical and historical references, as well as the back story of how the musical was created. A great way to indulge my Broadway passion, and prepare me for the next time we see the show (yes, there must be a next time.)
6. Some progress on the house. What is completed looks great, there just seems to be so much more to go. My smile comes when I drive to the site and see a row of tradespeople’s trucks lined up in front. I don’t get as much of a thrill when all I see is an empty house begging to be finished.
7. A surprise visit. I learned that Barb’s cousin from California will make the trip to Chicago to attend a dinner I am being honored at for Israel Bonds. Very sweet of her to come in for the event. And maybe a chance for her to spend some time with her son and his family who live here too. A definite win-win. Oh, and if anyone wants more information about the dinner or Israel Bonds, email me at les.raff@post.com.  All inquiries appreciated.
8. Buddy Ball. A great Sunday spent with good friends. Lox, chili, Password, and tears of joy (this means you, Gary) over the Cubs. Oh yeah, we watched the Bears-Buccaneers game. I promise not to spend any more Sundays this year with that.
9. Kate McKinnon on Saturday Night Live. Her rendition of Hallelujah brought a smile and then some tears of my own.
10. A Patrick Kane goal. Since we started talking skates, let’s finish the list that way too. Patrick Kane demonstrated his award winning skill against the Canadians Sunday night with an incredible falling down goal. Here’s hoping that Kane’s future is all highlight reels without any more news about predatory “locker room” activity.

So ten smiles in a week isn’t too bad! How about you–what has been making you smile? Add a comment, share the blog, let’s ind out what makes people happy!

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To subscribe to downsize,m maybe! just enter your name in the box on the right margin. Or drop me a line at les.raff@post.com

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The ice caps will melt, the oceans will rise. The storms will be violent, the droughts will be endless. Yes, I fear it is all coming. But what all the meteorologists and climate scientists and other doom-sayers have missed is all the bizarre things already taking place in the world. I don’t think it is related to the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, but in the last year or so we have seen:

• Leicester City beat 5000-1 odds to win their first English Premier League title, 132 years after the club was founded. Since this is soccer, the truly odd part is not that Leicester won, but that any Americans even heard about it.
• Keeping our sights on the UK, we have Brexit, in which the Brits stunned forecasters when they decided they don’t like the rest of Europe. Maybe not so odd in retrospect.
• Much to educators surprise, Americans are learning American History–at least as much as can be learned in 2 1/2 hours of the hip-hop musical “Hamilton.” And who should steal the show but that hilarious old mad man King George III. Again, in the world of the weird, “Rule, Britannia!”
• The Cubs World Series Championship. Who predicted that as a prelude to global warming hell would freeze over?
• Trump Trump Trump. No one foresaw him wiping out the Republican challengers and then mopping the floor with Hillary. On the other hand, the Secretary’s downfall was envisioned in the Book of Revelations where it is written “From Ilarkyork will arise a mighty wind, only to falter in its quest for world domination on the altar of baggage and emails.”

Are other odd things in store? Gazing at the Super Moon, I made the following prognostications:

• Angelina and Brad will bury the hatchet, and not in each others skulls. Professing undying love and devotion, they will retreat to an uncharted island in the Pacific and never be heard from again. The truly unusual part of the story will be that People Magazine will not ask Jennifer Aniston to comment on the reunion.
• The Ricketts’ family will buy every professional sports team in Chicago galvanizing White Sox, Bulls and Blackhawk fans. The Bears will continue to lose.
• The number one box office hit over the holidays will be a lovely romantic comedy without a superhero or spaceship. The producers will admit the CGI guys were busy the day they were supposed to add in the meteor crash.
• The cure to breast cancer will be discovered, but under TrumpCare will only be available to angry white men. Other cancer victims will be given a “Make America Great Again” baseball cap.
• Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Keith Richards and Mick Jagger will go on a Rolling Beatles World Tour. Their contract rider will insist on dinner for the performers at 4 pm, and the soup “shouldn’t be too hot.”
• Canada will build a wall to keep out stampeding US citizens. Those Americans who make it through will have one serving of poutine, change their mind about Trump,  and head back for home.

It will be a mad, mad, mad mad world.

If I missed anything, or to subscribe to Downsize-Maybe, drop me a line at les.raff@post.com

Dear Mr. Trump,

Congratulations. Over 59 million people chose you to be this nation’s leader for the next four years. A virtually equal number cast their ballot for Secretary Clinton but it was your vision that spoke more loudly across the country, and the presidency is yours. That’s President of the United States. You will be the 12th President in my life time, but the first one that I have been moved to write to personally.

Your supporters will expect a lot from you. Your slogan “Make America Great Again” struck a responsive chord. My life has been pretty great so far without you, but I have no problem with the slogan if we can just tweak it a bit to read “Make American Great Again for Everybody.”

You have made some pretty big promises,. You have spoken of walls and mass deportations. I don’t know if you really believe in those things, but many of your supporters do. Maybe you can convince your constituency that the wall was a symbol, a bit of election rhetoric, and that there are reasonable ways to accomplish your goals of lawful immigration and secure borders.

You have stirred people to your side with a promise to bring back jobs. That is a noble goal, and I hope you are successful. But it is not a simple goal, you cannot wave a magic wand and bring back steel mills, bring back factories. Convince your followers that the nation’s  investment in education and training is the long term solution, and that we can provide support for them in the interim. Don’t let them find scapegoats. Don’t let the brutish minority of your supporters take prominence, don’t become an administration of haters.

You will have a lasting legacy via your Supreme Court nominations. I know that your choices will have a conservative bent, but I pray you see fit to name those who will not trample on the hard fought for rights of our women, our minorities, our LGBT family and friends. We are a better nation when all of our people are established as  full citizens, entitled to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Your biggest challenge may be setting how the country interacts with world. Where to support our allies, where to intervene, where to turn away. We live in a very inter-related time; when a butterfly flaps its wings in China we truly do feel it here. It is not an “I win-You lose” world.  If there is an element of Radical Islam that wants to destroy us it must be corralled and defeated, but the entire world of Islam is not our enemy. Other aggressors must also be contained, no matter  who their rulers are friends with.

I am both a producer and user of healthcare. I know the ACA and MACRA have many failings. But make sure what you replace them with makes our nation healthier. There are wonderful therapeutics being developed, but they are extremely expensive. Let’s look at what we can save with some emphasis on preventive care too.

The issue that the entire election ignored was climate change. It is not a hoax. There is no point in pretending it is. Barring a nuclear war (you won’t do that, will you?) it is the greatest threat to our civilization. Use your business man’s ingenuity to connect with the industries that can develop the energy of the future. Make America an exporter of that technology. Don’t just make America great, make it create–create the ideas of the rest of this century. Future generations will celebrate you for it.

I didn’t vote for you, but on January 2017 you will become my President. Please do these things for me, and for 300 million other Americans.

Lester J. Raff, MD
Son of Immigrants
Father and Grandfather to the Future

It is a Monday morning ritual. Every week at about 10 a.m. a head pops into my office saying “We’re here.” The head belongs to one of our Human Resource professionals, leading a group of dazed people, mostly young, predominantly female. These are the new recruits, the medical assistants, the billers, the nurse professionals, that are joining the UroPartners team. They are spending the day in our business office next door, being oriented, filling out forms and taking online courses on safety, HIPAA and other snooze inducing topics. The march across the parking lot to the lab is their only glimpse of sunshine for the day.

Why do we bring them over? With rare exception, these people are not future employees of the lab. They are hired to work in one of the 15 or 20 UroPartners offices spread across the metro Chicago area. But there are things I want them to know about the lab, about how we work, and I think the best way to get our point across is with some real face time and a lab tour.

Sometimes we start with a little history of the UroPartners; what we are, where we are, how the group functions.  Then we move on to lab specifics, beginning with how lab tests are ordered in the doctors’ offices and transmitted to us via our shared electronic medical record. It is at this point that I begin harping on my main theme, the proper identification of all specimens. My mantra, repeated at each stop on the tour, “each specimen label needs two identifiers, label the container, NOT the lid.” Barb swears I repeat this in my sleep.

I explain that the patients’ blood, urine and biopsy specimens are picked up from the various doctors’ offices every evening by our courier company.  I always see some eyes roll when I explain that the lab day starts at 5:15 a.m. when the specimens get to our door. Yes, we are an early morning bunch, but that is what it takes to get results out to the office in a timely fashion. By 6 in the morning, the place is really buzzing.

We walk through the lab, and I point out our various testing areas:

• Histology, where biopsy specimens are converted to thin tissue sections on glass slides awaiting our pathologists’ diagnoses.
• Microbiology, the olfactory challenging area where we look for bacteria causing urinary tract infections and also do bacterial cultures that help limit the risk of infection in prostate biopsy patients.
• Hematology and Chemistry, the home of blood counts, PSA measurement (you know how strongly I feel about that) and other important blood tests.
• Cytology/FISH, studying urine specimens in simple and more complex ways for the lurking cells of bladder cancer.

In each area, I give an idea of our turn-around time–the length of time from when we receive a specimen to when a report goes into the medical record. I explain how an abnormal result on one test can “reflex” to another. And I am always reminding about proper specimen labeling. We end the tour with introductions to our laboratory administrative team, the people who make the phone calls and ask the questions when something we receive doesn’t seem quite right.

How much of this information soaks in? Sometimes our newbies ask questions, their eyes shine, and I know they are listening. With other groups there is more of a blank, this doesn’t relate to my new job, look on their faces. My goal on orientation day is to convince everyone that sometime in there UroPartners career they will interact with the lab, and working together we can do what we need for our patients and providers. No magic about it!

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