Happy post-call day!

I mean... Thanksgiving... yeah...

This is horrifying. Few of these things actually sound appealing in any way. Luckily, while I'm post-call on the actual day, stay tuned for some Friday Ersatz Thanksgiving goodies that don't include "casserole" in their names!

Kernels of truth

I never know whether or not to post when I cook something I'm really excited about, but which comes directly from someone's blog or cookbook without significant alterations. For instance, I made this a few weeks ago. It was so moose-huggingly delicious that we ate virtually all of it in one sitting, but it felt plagiaristic to post just to say, "Oh, hi, someone else came up with a wonderful recipe requiring very little talent that I faithfully reproduced!" So when I initially saw this recipe, I was all, "Here we go again."

Never fear, however, for instantly the changes flowed in. First of all, I wanted a lighter, less coconutty broth. I added an ear of corn in addition to the husks, a jalapeno, some scallions, and extra spices in proportion to volume to the broth and boiled it down to about four cups of fresh, corn-scented goodness, then just finished it off with lime, Sriracha, and coconut milk (the combination of which turned it kind of pink). The dumpling mixture got beefed up with some ancho chilies instead of jalapeno, a little extra scallion, and sea salt.

One must trim one's cornsilk before using it to make broth.

Fresh sweet corn is one of my favorite summer foods, raw,
cooked, or anywhere in between.

Again, devoured most of the sixty (!!!) dumplings this ended up making. The recipe was time-consuming, so I could see making fritters or quenelles out of essentially the same ingredients as the dumpling filling and floating them in the broth, or making a creamed soup--strained, of course, to smooth it out--from all these ingredients*. I probably could have saved a couple bucks by using queso fresco or queso blanco instead of cotija, too.

*Actually, that sounds really good. Yet another use for fresh corn before the summer is out.

Can't unsee.

It's official: we're joining Andy's family at the end of June for a beach vacation in North Carolina! I haven't had a true vacation in... well, a very long time. I haven't gone swimming in even longer, and the house we're staying in has a pool. Luckily it's also near the ocean, because the CDC MMWR had to go ruin my fun with this. Yes, yes, I know we're constantly covered in a fine patina of dried skin, cockroach feces, and dirt, but that doesn't mean it's fun to be reminded that every time you swim in a pool, you're taking a bath in a nice, warm, highly dilute lake of sewage.

I returned to this recipe, since nothing says comfort like massive amounts of cheese and onions.

After way too much cheesy onion bread and popcorn while out with friends, though, I semi-atoned with this vegetarian Cobb salad with honey mustard dressing:

Yes, that salad is in a wok.

It's not the lowest-calorie of salads, but damn is it delicious. Protip: soak the onion in ice water for 15 minutes or so to remove the thiol funk. I tossed the tofu cubes in paprika, salt, and a bit of cayenne before baking, but I bet tempeh would work perfectly fine as well. There were some thyme and brown sugar sweet potato home fries at one point that disappeared into someone's gullet too quickly to end up on top of the salad.

Honey mustard dressing
1 egg yolk
1/4 to 1/3 cup olive oil
1 tbsp honey (more to taste)
2 tbsp Dijon mustard
ground mustard to taste
1 big clove garlic, minced very fine
juice of 1/2 lemon

In a medium-sized bowl, whisk the egg yolk a bit. Add the olive oil a little drizzle at a time, whisking all the while; the goal is to emulsify some oil in the egg yolk without making a true mayonnaise. When the oil is in, add the remaining ingredients slowly, whisking constantly. I like my honey mustard more on the spicy side, so I added nearly a tablespoon of ground mustard for a serious kick.

Let's talk about this thread on reddit. I've got the good fortune of exercising in the male-dominated basement gym of one of the med school's dorms. Say what you will about the notorious redditor personality disorder (RPD), even people in my relatively limited community can be, well, creepy. I've only gotten sporadic direct comments that make me feel uncomfortable, and a few that don't ("Hey, I saw you in the gym yesterday. You've got mad high reps" is a great gender-neutral comment to offer a woman if you really want to say something, gentlemen!). But over and over I hear groups of guys having conversations that range from mildly misogynistic to prurient to just gross. Whether or not the rear end in question belongs to me is immaterial when some jerk four feet away from me is talking about the nurse he plans to manipulate into sleeping with him. I wish I were exaggerating. It's uncomfortable to hear, and it makes me wonder what gets said when I or the lady next to me aren't around. The point is, the combination of med school gym commentary and Internet evidence is making me very, very nervous about attending a Real Person Commercial Gym about one year (!) from now, particularly since Andy and I may not be in the same city for at least my first year of residency.

The other day, I was describing to a friend the use of non-antibiotic empiric therapy in simultaneously diagnosing and treating vague or inscrutable combinations of symptoms. He pointed out that most people would be unhappy if their doctors proffered this option. Who wants to feel like a guinea pig, much less a guinea pig whose doctor appears to be out of ideas? Despite having sworn to myself that I would not lose sight of what it's like not to think like a doctor, I didn't anticipate his discomfort with this concept (perhaps because he's a rather analytical person); after all, empirically administering a relatively safe medication saves the time, monetary costs, and risks of performing various diagnostic procedures that may or may not be definitive, and might be able to direct the physician to the most helpful diagnostic procedure. From my perspective, it's not tinkering at all, but I took a step back and realized that I'm no longer being careful to ensure that my patients don't feel as though we're playing fast and loose with their parts for our own curiosity, entertainment, or scientific satisfaction. I'm somewhat disappointed in myself.

Therefore, it is with the utmost solemnity and respect that I link you to this.

You complete me.

Look, a big heap of complete protein!

There are few dishes more simple or delicious than beans 'n' greens, or more thoroughly nutritious. For the vegetarian, beans are a convenient (if digestively challenging) source of protein. Most legumes, however, contain low levels of the essential* amino acid methionine (garbanzo beans, for some reason, may also have lysine as a limiting amino acid). According to a delightfully nitpicky website I found, kale contains about 8 mg methionine per ounce. The daily value is about 10 mg: yet another excuse to chow down on as much kale as I want. My favorite green to use in this dish, broccoli rabe, has even more, about 16 mg per ounce. For a redundant source of complimentary protein, though, why not serve this with a little brown rice to soak up all that tasty broth?

Allie Brosh of Hyperbole and a Half has published part two of her first-person account of severe depression.  It's incredibly honest, raw, and revealing. Understanding what it is like to be deeply, intractably depressed can be nigh-impossible for someone who's never felt that way. From this misunderstanding are born offensive and totally unhelpful suggestions**. In my fantasy world, given the prevalence of major depressive disorder alone, these posts should be required reading for... well, pretty much everyone.

Beans 'n' greens

I will sometimes use fresh basil in this, if I happen to have it in the house, but honestly I think the dish does best without any spices whatsoever. Ditto re: Parmesan.

3 or 4 cloves garlic, minced
2 to 2 1/2 lbs broccoli rabe, kale, or similar green, with the woodiest part of the stems removed
about 1 oz white wine
olive oil
2 15-oz cans cannellini beans, rinsed, with about 1/2 cup canning liquid reserved
juice of one large lemon
black pepper
red pepper flakes
optional: 1/2 cup vegetable broth
optional: 3 to 5 oil-packed anchovy fillets, finely chopped (to taste)

Chop the stems of the greens and set the leaves aside. Warm some olive oil in a very large pot, and briefly saute the minced garlic therein. Add the chopped stems, lemon juice, wine, liquid from cannellini beans, and broth (if using; water is fine, too). Meanwhile, chop the greens into one- to two-inch pieces. As soon as the pot's contents are simmering, add the greens and toss. Turn the heat to low and cover the pot. Simmer just until the greens or tender, 5 to 10 minutes, tossing the greens once or twice. Add black pepper and red pepper flakes to taste; you will only need salt if you don't use the anchovies. Add more lemon juice to taste.

*Meaning your body needs an exogenous source of it.
** "Just stop it!"

Soft embalmer of the still midnight

I usually try to practice what I preach, medically speaking. Things like "don't smoke" and "eat dessert only a couple times a week" and "try to cut down to one dime bag a day" aren't a problem, but I consistently fail at "biting your nails can increase your risk for paronychiae" and "if you're interested in improving your sleep without the use of medication, here are some tips for good sleep hygiene." Case in point: my desk chair isn't all that comfortable, so I usually do my work recumbent in bed.

Bear with me while I get to the relevant part of this story. So there's a girl who lives on my floor and periodically leaves large bags of clothing by the industrial-sized recycling bins down the hall. The clothes are always neatly folded and usually in pristine condition. Many of them are quite expensive to boot. I usually harvest what I want/what fits me and donate the rest to Goodwill or use the worn-out shirts for rags. And then a few days ago she left a pair of shoes, some assorted turtlenecks, and this:



Andy and I were mystified at first as to how one might use this. At first we thought it was a massage chair, but it has wheels*. We kept it hoping that when Andy's parents arrived on Friday, they'd be able to identify it, and sure enough, it's a kneeling chair. You put your rear on the higher platform and knees on the lower one. I look like a total dork in it, but it might be the most comfortable chair I've ever sat in. I'm already feeling its magical productivity powers; no more reclining in bed browsing Tastespotting and NEJM! I will sit at a desk like a real grown-up and Do My Work, then go to my bed-that-is-used-only-for-sleeping and have an unprecedentedly good night's rest!

Making garlic soup for dinner. Forecast tonight: 35 deg F, overcast, 0% chance of vampires.

*Awesome idea incoming: wheeled massage chairs. "Get your cardio in while giving your loved ones the massage of a lifetime!"

Unexpected indecision

My orchid is in full bloom again!



I swear, it can tell when I'm happy. As soon as Step 1 ended and ER started, the buds popped out, and they've held up ever since. Maybe I'll go buy it some plant food as a reward. After all, the guinea pigs get ample treats; why shouldn't it?

Emergency medicine is awesome. Too awesome, in fact, for someone who was pretty positive that she was going to match into neurology and then do an ID/immunology fellowship. Updates on raging inner battle to follow.

Also awesome: Quorn burgers. I got a little spooked after I Googled them and the first ten hits were about horrible reactions to the mycoprotein therein, but Real Scientific Papers don't seem to back up the anecdatal fearmongering, so I'll continue chowing down. They're a mere 100 calories each, so I feel justified eating them with rich, buttery homemade hamburger rolls and plenty of aioli.

Horse meat not included.

Tips for baking excellent hamburger rolls: use bread flour, don't
overknead or overproof, and brush with ample, ample melted
butter before sprinkling with sesame seeds.

I also made a ridiculously good (if I do say so myself) gruyere macaroni and cheese that I couldn't photograph because Andy ate it all by the time I got home from a late shift. Just use your favorite roux and add 6 oz white cheddar and 14 oz gruyere. Tonight, for a slightly healthier option, I made miso ramen.



The picture's a little busy. I started with some (well, lots) of my last batch of frozen mushroom broth and boiled it with about half a tablespoon of garlic, a little over a tablespoon of ginger, one sliced chili, and a large spice bell full of bonito flakes. Into that went about a quarter-cup of white miso, a drizzle of soy sauce, some cooking sake, and a little extra ginger for the road. Meanwhile, I soft-boiled some eggs, cooked some bean stick noodles, and sliced up carrots, mushrooms, bell pepper, edamame, scallions, and nori.

The setup.

 Pour some broth over noodles and top with ample veggies, scallions, baked tofu, halved eggs, and nori. Sprinkle with toasted sesame oil, sriracha, and sesame seeds, and finish with bean sprouts, ground ginger, and black pepper.

It's shockingly filling. Even Andy couldn't finish a whole bowl. As usual, I didn't measure anything exactly (up to and including the broth), so please taste throughout the process and adjust the proportions prn. The broth wasn't up to my umami standards. I suspect the secret ingredient is meat.

Spittin' kitchen

Dammit, Deb. You had to go and post on your food site--Smitten Kitchen, only one of the most trafficked of them all--a recipe for the exact idea I had on my own: apple and honey challah.

Andy can attest that I've been plotting this for a week now. Sure, she's apparently been incubating this idea for nearly a year, but somehow I still feel vaguely usurped. By the professional. Totally. Yeah..



I just filled the braid with apple slices and speckled the top with more, then brushed the whole shebang with an egg white and honey glaze. Also, check out this impending storm!

Hippy dippy

A quick perusal of the past two weeks of blog confirms that, yes, I forgot to mention that my rather fabulous PI from this past summer took me and my research compatriot to dinner at Tom Colicchio's Riverpark as a summer wrap-up. It's fun to walk past a grubby stretch of First Avenue into a charming, elegant dining room, and needless to say, the food was delightful. I had mushroom consommé (while coveting the oxtail), creamy and perfectly balanced mascarpone ravioli (while coveting the duck), and a black forest sundae that included these amazing brandy-soaked cherries (while coveting absolutely nothing else, because I was too busy devouring chocolately lushness). Aside from the unlikely location, there's another lagniappe to the restaurant: its oh-so-virtuous "backyard" garden right behind the Alexandria Center. Today, after doing a little work in the mouse room*, my PI and I had coffee at the newly de-walled garden, and I took some pictures:

There were three varieties of eggplant.

Teeny baby kale!

The adorable little kale reminded me that I have been meaning to try this recipe for "hippie hot pockets," a.k.a. empanadas stuffed with leafy greens.

The crust looks better than this in person.

Kale and arugula caprese-esque filling

And as long as I was baking with olive oil, some coffee olive oil brownies were in order.

Caffeeeeeeeine....

Hey, NYUSoM second-years: Which cranial nerves allowed me to enjoy the taste of my brownies and empanadas?

Hippie Hot Pockets, adapted from Feasting Freds
Olive oil crust
1 cup all-purpose flour
2/3 cup whole-wheat flour
1/3 cup cornmeal
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup very warm water
3/4 cup olive oil

Stir together the flours, cornmeal, and salt. Add the olive oil and warm water all at once and mix with a fork or your hands until it comes together in a ball. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes and bake as needed.

Arugula and kale filling
10 cups raw arugula/kale
1/2 onion
2 cloves garlic
2 plum tomatoes
1/2 cup mozzarella
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1/4 cup loosely packed fresh basil
1 tsp red pepper flakes
2 tbsp capers
1 egg, beaten

Cook according to the directions in the linked recipe!

Olive oil cocoa brownies with a crunchy caffeine surprise
2 eggs
1 tbsp water
1/2 cup light brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup dark cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup coffee beans
1/2 cup olive oil

Beat together eggs and water. Slowly add sugar, beating until the mixture is thick. Very, very slowly add olive oil, beating all the while. Gently fold in dry ingredients and coffee beans. Bake at 325 for 25 to 30 minutes or until just moist in the center.

*Once again, I've concluded that mice are evil. While it was interesting to be able to examine a mouse spine and ribcage, the way I imagined doing so did not involve a juvenile female whose brothers had ripped out her throat and upper chest and eaten out her lungs.

Novelties

In the interests of using up all my refrigerated products before The Big Move on Friday, I found myself staring a large number of radishes in the face, wondering if there was an alternative to just slicing them and gobbling them down raw as the world's most monotonous salad.

Still having trouble making these horizontal. Have to go through
a laborious Picasa Web Album process to make it so.

Yes, yes there is. I've never had cooked radish before (except for the boiled Asian radish served in udon soups and so on), and these slow-roasted radishes were a good introduction. After a very long time in the oven, tossed with olive oil and rosemary and an onion and some cloves of garlic, they get soft and almost buttery. Here's a cooking tip for you: as soon as you get home for your lunch break, throw the radishes into the unheated oven and turn it to 450. When you leave 30 minutes later to go back to lab, turn off the oven, leaving the radishes inside. Instaradishes. Of course, as soon as I had made dinner, I sat down at the computer to eat and almost immediately found this recipe. I am intrigued. More radishes are in order.

Oh, and here, white beans with spinach tossed in a yogurt, mint, and lemon sauce. Think this, but with no tagliatelle, and with spinach instead of peas. I considered making tagliatelle, but somehow, even though work is a 9-to-5 sort of thing (mostly) and I don't have studying to do (mostly), I find myself running around like a crazy person. Perhaps next week. I've still got all that semolina, after all...

And... action!

Recently, a friend introduced me to the "My Drunk Kichen" videos of Hannah Harto, the most adorable person ever to attempt to cook while schnockered. I am honored to share her first name. While I could never match her adorableness, her wit, or her state of profound inebriation, in honor of the unveiling of my homemade orange-coffee liqueur, also known as 44 cordial, I have made a video of myself tasting the results for the first time. Sláinte!

I should note that I rarely drink any alcohol, and when I do, it's the equivalent of a glass of wine. This whole midday cocktail thing is new to me, thus the silly faces.

I have something crucial to tell you.

I'm so dysfunctional that, alone in my room not long ago, I removed a dirty article of clothing, pitched it across the really miniscule length of my quarters*, succeeded in getting it to land smack in the middle of my hamper, and promptly did a bilateral victory fist pump while pivoting on my toes in a happy circle. If you can respect me enough to continue reading my blog after that... well, I suppose I can muster enough respect for you to keep you as a reader**.

Thus, my current passionate argument in favor of legalizing gay marriage, and why said legalization should not even be an issue, is this: someone let me get married (in jeans and a T-shirt, no less). Read the above paragraph again and tell me you're not convinced. And stay tuned for future passionate arguments in favor of gay marriage, hopefully featuring the words "equality" and "human" and "rights" and so on.


Uh, yeah. So. I made gougères.

For those not in the know, biting into a gougère is like biting into cheese made from angel milk. That's not me trumpeting my culinary prowess. That's just what happens when choux pastry interacts with really, really delicious dairy products.



I served them with pan-roasted asparagus in a lemon and white wine browned butter sauce. Stops: pulled out. Dinner is early tonight because I'm going to attempt to get very, very last-minute tickets to a sold-out Steve Reich concert; I felt like a little extra elegance might have offset the plebeian hour at which I ate. At least, people keep telling me early dinners are plebeian.



*Seriously, if Shaq lay down on my floor, I cannot state with confidence that his feet would be totally in the room.
**Just kidding. I love you all. Deeply. Really. Please don't leave me. I get, like, 100 hits per day. I need you. Especially since I now have only eleven followers as opposed to my former astronomical number (twelve).

My dinner looks like a tree.

Before we begin, I would like to introduce you to this. As my best friend from childhood* said, it's like nobody involved in it had the moxie to speak up and say, "You know, we probably shouldn't perpetrate this on the world." Or, and this is my theory, a dark, malevolent cloud settled over everyone's aesthetic preferences during the nineties, occluding all judgment as to what is beautiful and/or good.

That being said, I've been singing this song in my head all weekend, interspersed with snatches from "Blessed Raspberry Songs."

And now, this is why dinner looks like a tree. It is green on top...

Steamed greens with fried garlic

...and brown on the bottom.

roasted mushroom soup

I found myself using a tiny, sharp knife to shave off thin slices of garlic, which I then fried until golden brown in olive oil and tossed with the lightly steamed mixed greens. It was like this scene from Goodfellas, except not as convivial. And with less lobster.

We were good fellas, you know, wise guys.

*I avoid using names other than Andy's, for a variety of reasons. This lovely lady will from now on be referred to as BFfroC ("BEE-frok").

Assassins' creed

I have ideas sometimes, which is dangerous, not because they're either brilliant or dangerous in the sense of oh-hey-a-novel-explosive-device, but because they tend to be dangerously cheesy and/or pun-filled. So naturally I'm going to act on the one I had a few days ago. My inner dialogue went kind of like this.

Me: Hmm, Andy wants you to make Milano cookies.
Me: Great! I wonder if they're actually associated with Milan.
Me: Wikipedia says no. Wouldn't it be cool if they were invented at the behest of the Milan royalty or something?
Me: Totally... hey, let's pretend they were invented by the Sforzas* in order to commemorate some birth or assassination or something.
Me: I have an even better idea! Let's make a series of desserts commemorating famous assassinations.

And so it goes, ladies and germs, that I bring you the first installment of my assassination dessert series:

La Sforza del destino
(Milanos, with almond extract-flavored cookies and orange chocolate ganache)

Once upon a time, there was a duke of Milan named Galeazzo Maria Sforza.

The Sforza did some good for the city, and Galeazzo was himself a great patron of music, but he was in all other ways kind of evil.



So three angry and probably more righteous officials, led by a guy named Giovanni Lampugnani, viciously stabbed him to death.



Lampugnani was immediately captured by a mob and gruesomely killed and put on even more gruesome display, a fate that later befell his compatriots as well.



And so ends the reign of the naughtiest of Sforzas, as well as the first entry in what I'm going to call my Komm, süßer Tod series.




*Turns out the Sforzas are actually somehow named in the game Assassins' Creed? I swear I didn't know that until I made this post!

Lettuce go then, you and I

It's been a salad kind of week for this MD stomach, which is a good thing. Yes, folks, it's time to ditch my winter love handles in anticipation of NYUSoM's impending spring break!

Because this is totally my idea of a good time. Yeah. Woo.

Which I will spend in dank Boston, curled up on Andy's futon, lackadaisically reviewing renal for the exam occurring the week after break, occasionally getting up to refresh my mug of hot drink.

This photo brought to you by my new favorite spot on the Internet,
Behind the Gallic Fumes, with its tasteful URL of frogsmoke.com

Diet-friendly though they may be, lettuce salads are boring*, so in addition to the lettuce-free panzanella and eggplant salads of yore, here's a green bean and pickled red onion salad with fried almonds, also thanks to Smitten Kitchen. Well, sort of. First of all, I roasted the green beans, because I didn't feel like blanching (much less blanching and shocking) anything. I ditched the sliced fennel because I didn't want to pay for it and toasted some fennel seeds with the almonds instead. Sacrilege? Maybe. Delicious? Absolutely.

A follow-up to my ER experience yesterday: I thought more about the patient I mentioned who said that she had considered lying so that she could get home to her kids. She had a history of anxiety issues, but "had that under control" with lifestyle changes and meds. She had symptoms that were indicative of heart trouble, and she was... well, I guess "posturing" is the word, although that sounds so negative... she was trying to be engage with the doctor at as high a level as possible and with as rational a mien as possible. But she broke down crying at one point, and I had to restrain myself from reaching out to grab her hand; I didn't know how the resident I was tailing would take it if I did. It's just that the patient seemed so lonely, and so scared. The doctor hadn't asked her name, and while she was respectful, she was also busy and distant. It's strange and troubling to me that while my first instinct was to comfort the patient, my next was to conclude that I'd have to suppress my empathetic impulses in order to be an effective doctor. I'd seem too mushy, too much of a bleeding heart; I'd waste time holding hands and patting shoulders when I should be doing my job. I'd like to say that I'm wrong on this one, that I can preserve a need to just make someone feel better no matter what the circumstance while also conducting my medical business efficiently. But honestly, I don't know, so I'll just say that I hope I'm wrong.

*I will note that everyone from Modern Family to quizbowl friends has been singing the praises of wedge salad. It's a wedge out of a head of iceberg lettuce with dressing on it. I'll try it one day, I guess, but it'll take a lot of mental activation energy to overcome the barrier resulting from the fact that this is basically an iceberg lettuce salad, except somebody was too lazy to actually tear up the lettuce and toss it with the dressing.

Rugae of steel

Yesterday, after I had poured red wine vinegar into my burgeoning panzanella dressing*, I noticed that it looked like this:

Aaaand I ate the salad anyway. Why? Because a. the vinegar was the last addition to the bowl, and I'd have had to start over, b. my only other option was rice wine vinegar, which is both too sweet and too expensive to go sloshing into an Italian-esque dressing, and c. I figured that it couldn't kill me. Now, the reason I waited until today to mention this was, simply, that I didn't actually know whether it would kill me (or lead to a fun night of emesis). But it didn't. I had a lovely five hours' sleep or so. I can gloat about my iron stomach. Consider yourself a gloatee.

Seriously, though, what the hell is that stuff? The Google machine told me that it's a vinegar mother, and it's harmless, and I could add it to my remaining Charles Shaw crapbernet sauvignon to make vinegar. I'm not going to do it, because homemade vinegar is more high-maintenance than homemade sourdough starter, but the knowledge that I could is enough.

All remaining fears thus assuaged, I used the vinegar again tonight to start some overnight red onion pickles, which will appear tomorrow. I also used a teaspoon of it tonight in eggplant salad toasts, from Smitten Kitchen.

I made a kale and apple salad with Dijon vinaigrette to go with this. Delicious. I had a few cloves of roasted garlic kicking around, so I rubbed the toasts with roasted garlic instead of raw; this was a good decision.

Posting is sort of late tonight because I was doing my first shadowing shift in the Bellevue ER. Events of note:

1. A man thoroughly mangled his hand while using a circular saw and came in, fingers dangling, a lot more calm than I'd be in his situation. When the hand surgeons showed up, they used this awesome portable Doppler flow meter to ascertain whether the more grievously injured digits were still getting blood flow. Cool, huh?
2. You know how in the computer game The Sims you could have your Sims host a party, complete with guests and clowns and so on, and they'd eventually get bored and just wander about their daily business, completely ignoring the craziness around them? That's the Bellevue ER, except instead of hosts, there are doctors, and instead of party guests, you have drunk people.
3. One of the residents was either extra hassled or just felt pity for the resident I was following around like a lovestruck puppy, so she had me check a woman for orthostatic hypotension, which meant I actually got to play with the fancy machines. Sure, this involved using a blood pressure cuff, pressing a couple buttons, and reading a monitor, but still.

I also saw a trauma happen, but to be honest, it wasn't as interesting as the row of totally stoned people brought in at once by eye-rolling cops, or the woman who couldn't decide whether or not to lie to the doctors about how she was feeling so she could make it home in time to fix dinner for her kids.

*I didn't notice beforehand because I was multitasking and pouring with one hand**, okay?!?
**Yes, I can open and pour a bottle one-handed. It's the height of badassery, I tell you.