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November 17, 2016

Homework is for Parents

Last week, as I was sitting at my desk, mindlessly scrolling through FaceBook, I read that a former colleague, just three years older than me, met an untimely, rather sudden death, leaving behind a wife and two small children. Numb, tears rolled down my cheeks. I couldn’t believe it. On call over the weekend, I admitted patients much younger than me and watched their grieving parents as I told them there was nothing left to do; I admitted patients much...

October 23, 2016

Win-Win

I grew up in a baseball house. The carefully oiled glove, the bat taped in a certain way, the dusty cleats lined up in the garage. The radio tuned to 700WLW, I can hear Joe Nuxhall and Marty Brennaman calling the Reds games as I lay across the back seat in my Dad’s old Pontiac Ventura. I can smell the leather of the brand new baseball and hear the crack of the bat. The sweet taste of Big League Chew...

October 13, 2016

Redemption is greater than Prevention

This election cycle is really incredible. I mean, seriously. It’s a wild mix of comedy and tragedy. Everyone hates everyone. Both candidates are so profoundly flawed. And our world is in turmoil. There’s Syria and South Sudan. Closer to home, there’s racial tension and sexual aggression towards women. Republicans and Democrats alike are convinced that we are doomed if our respective candidate doesn’t win on November 8. It’s the train wreck we just can’t look away from. We are so stressed about...

August 29, 2016

The Alternate Ending

Saturday night was definitely not supposed to turn out like that! Scott and I and our two older kids hadn’t even made it to dinner when our poor babysitter back home was texting, asking how to troubleshoot the alarm that was going off. Our sweet sitter walked all over the house, pushing buttons and checking doors and smoke detectors. No fires. No broken windows. Just a loud alarm. We were sitting in traffic downtown, totally unaware that there was a Colts pre-game...

August 6, 2016

Real Deadlines

I have had just about enough of this week. Getting four kids ready for school, in a new school, is wearing me out. That sucking sound? Yeah, that’s the audible hemorrhage from our checkbook…new clothes, shoes, and backpacks; computers, pencils, and Kleenex tissues…yes it specified Kleenex tissues. By Monday night, I could be heard saying, “Is this week over yet?” My car was at the dealer for an oil change, the dog was incarcerated at the vet for the weekend so we could go to...

July 6, 2016

Eyes bigger than time…The Buffet Phenomenon

Seriously. I want to do it all. Every morning, I get up, make my coffee, read, and head into work. I sit in the morning check-out conference with my Handy-Dandy notebook, full of Post-It Note lists of all the things I want to do. We have discussed this before. I want to schedule appointments (eye doctor and PCP and dog grooming), work on my research, arrange for a family picture, apply for a grant, go to the grocery; I want...

May 31, 2016

Which moments matter?

So…the movers finally showed up. We kinda have a plethora of worldly possessions because #fourkids, #married18years, #ikeepthingsjustincase. In typical Hartwell fashion, we allowed NO buffer of time to close on each house, move, settle, and go on vacation. We reserved the beach house before I even had a start date for my new job. And when we got a full price offer on the old house, we couldn’t let it go just because they wanted to close two days before...

May 15, 2016

Please, don’t call me a soccer mom!

After surveying the situation; the arrangements for the weekend; the logistics; a review of the calendar, the weather, the finances, and a map, it was decided that I would be the one to take Allie and her teammate to the soccer tournament in Cincinnati this weekend while Scott stayed home with all of the boys. While it was tempting (for about 1.3 minutes) to get two hotel rooms and have the whole family come, one flashing thought of my two youngest sons sitting running around the...

April 19, 2016

Do you see what I see?

I went to the optometrist the other day, when I was post call, as that’s when I had time to go. She’s new to me. Because…Reset. A super nice gal. Took a lot of time with me. Chatted up the new town we are moving to and gave me names for a pediatrician, an internal medicine physician, the babysitting service and the local moms’ Facebook page. She cheered me on when I was trying to read the very fine print on...

April 13, 2016

9-1-1: What Is Your Emergency?

While I am examining the tachycardic patient who has a host of medical issues and a curious, but likely, non-surgical problem, I get a little tachycardic myself. She won’t tolerate a surgery, but she is a sick lady. Did I make the right decisions for her? I decide to call the admitting service, to discuss the plan of care, but I realize I don’t know how to reach the admitting physician. Bzzzz…my pager goes off. “Your patient is asleep in...