I can't even deal with the idea of an ill person having to wait for WEEKS to see a doctor.

After all, that only happens with socialist medicine.

Hil, WTF.

Dana, lots of ~ma for your grandmother.

I had an appointment to see a doctor in Durham this morning, but I had to cancel, because I couldn't find my zipcard, and no zipcard, no Zipcar. On the plus side, Zipcar canceled my reservation with no fuss, and they're mailing me a new card, and the doctor's office at Duke rescheduled my appointment without a fee (so nice!)

Also, new co-worker lives a few blocks away and works the same schedule as I do, and just offered to carpool with me. No more two buses to work, hooray!

So I came in to work on time this morning unexpectedly because I canceled that doctor's appointment, and I'm leaving early because I unexpectedly made another one, with my GP. Seems my Horrible Head Wound From France(TM) has gotten infected again when I wasn't looking. (I'm never looking. It's on the back of my head, covered by a ton of hair.) Anyway, it's suddenly THERE again, and my doctor, wisely, wants to see it. I hope it's not MRSA. I fear the MRSA.

After all, that only happens with socialist medicine.

The practice I go to is a Geisinger clinic, which is one of the systems (along with Keiser Permanente, Intermountain, and the Mayo Clinic) usually pointed to as examples of what we should try to do with health care reform.

Group Health which I go to also. So glad this is the direction we are going instead of single payer health. Cause with single payer health we might run into waiting lists and red tape.

Hil,

what you might want to do if you haven't already, is see if you can get on a first available waiting list with the specialist. Sometimes openings show up and they call you to see if you can make it.

With my doctors I have to call them periodically to see if anything's opened up, but when it's important, it's worth it.

Which is reminding me, I really need to talk to my doctor. Dammit. I am beginning to despise my to do list.

(along with Keiser Permanente, Intermountain, and the Mayo Clinic)

Intermountain, as in Intermountain Healthcare in Utah? Wow, that's my health system! Many of the people who make the "Yes, that's covered" decision should be staked out over red ant hills, but I love 99.5% of the doctors and nurses we've worked with. Then again, that might be because the Cardiac Care Unit was seeing us so often for a while that they sent us Christmas cards signed by staff whose names I recognized.

didn't Cass get it and cough forever?

For.Ever.

I was just thinking this morning that I was glad I recently updated my tetanus vaccine (it was easier to get the DTP combo than a single and, because no one could tell me for sure that having pertussis meant building your own immunity for x years, I had no compelling reason not to have them all) because I moved a picture to clean it and the wall yesterday and gashed my hand on one of the nails. But also because I never want to go through whooping cough again. That was rough.

Yep, intermountain in Utah. I've seen several articles that looked at the cardiac unit in particular (along with neonatal and something else I can't remember right now) as a model of good healthcare management, from both a patient outcome and a cost perspective. There was a really interesting article in the ny times a few years ago. I'm on my iPad now and can't link, but it should be easy to find with search.

Hello.

I took a sick day today. I'm very much behind with tons of things, but it's a sick day, so screw that.

I can't even deal with the idea of an ill person having to wait for WEEKS to see a doctor.

Sounds like our (collapsing) universal health system. We have strikes every other day, and not enough doctors and nurses. I'm still waiting to see an eye doctor. He's no specialist, and I have to wait about two months to see him.

ION. Thinking, seriously, if I should emigrate to another place this summer (and if the little experiment we call a country here won't collapse by then. New bills and laws are frightening). I'd like to leave with the MLIS to make transition easier, but I'm not too sure I'll have the luxury of time with the power driven maniacs in charge.