h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've just had an up-close-and-personal look at the snow. Fine stuff is falling, but it's close to 30 degrees F and so it's packing wet. The smallest cat was up to her neck and was soon exhausted from floundering.

I have no choice but to try and shop on Sunday or Monday; when the snow stops, the roads will soon be clear -- we have an excellent and efficient road crew out here. And right now they're just about the only people on the road. It's a matter of when the snow will stop. I'll be walking to the post office.

I think that if you want to ensure that there's a steady supply of doctors for jobs and that the proffession doesn't demand stupidly high pay like GPs are getting at the moment the best things for everyone is to have a oversupply.

If you just have enough and 60% are female (as is the case at the moment) what do you do if say half of those want to work part time for a few years in their 30s. Also if you just have enough what about the totally useless you've got a choice between employing them or no doctor at all.

It's a way to ensure there's a cheap supply of doctors on demand.

The best thing for everyone apart from Doctors that is...

Mind you, considering that most of those that don't get jobs will emigrate it's probably a good thing gobally as well.

[Hati]

Morning all.

Monring Zomnker. Sleep well?

Z, you should talk to my friend Andrew, who is doing med school here at UCLA. He's going into social medicine, and part of his program is that he is *required* to volunteer for a month an year for Doctors Without Borders. He rather likes the idea, since he did a pre-med equivalent for 4 years.

But the system you have there, and even the new system, sound a whole lot better than the one here. 4-5 years getting a degree in science (usually biology, with pre-med emphasis), then 3 years med school, 1-3 years interning, and then and only then are you actually "a doctor". Don't quite get that, actually....

Really:

It depends what you call proper doctors, an intern/resident is still able to prescribe and treat - just not independently.

The UK system did take a lot longer in the psat anyway - and now takes the same amount of time. I think the ability to set up your own practice is less important in the UK - some consultants will do some private work once or twice a week, but the bulk of patients in hospital are looked after by 'training staff'. Even though most of the training invovlves 'doing stuff and providing a service'.

Most of the patients admitted under the care of my Consultnat wouldn't be seen by him at all - most would be seen by a Registrar at some point and nearly all by an SHO.

I got nearly 12 hours of much needed sleep kelli.

[-B4-]

Hello again, B4.

A friend and I went to see "Children of Men" last night. Oooof. Afterwards, we needed several to mellow out because many of the scenes in the movie were very upsetting. I recommend it, but with reservations: don't go if you're already depressed about something.

My capped tooth fell out, so I have a hole in my face today. AND the tooth fairy didn't come last night.



Mol

Oh dear, Mol.

You can't trust those tooth fairies. As soon as they unionized, service went downhill.

Just kidding, folks. I actually am in favor of unions. Besides, we all know that fairies are too flighty for collective barganing.

I'm going to plant my tomato and pepper seeds today so they'll be ready to set out in the spring.

Morning all.

Morning GDZ
Well it's morning for me as I was working last night and have only just surfaced, even though the sun has set over here.

[BB]

I wish I could ignore commercials. I usually watch the telly with a sudoku book open in my lap, and advert my attention back and forth... but now I am all bent out of shape of one of the numerous weight-loss commercials that burgeon onto the screen after the hols.

This one says it works by taking advantage of "favorable metabolic signalling." That's what the man in the white coat says.

Isn't it favorable metabolic signalling when you have a pulse?

Good observation.

I, too, hate the weight loss commercials. The ones that really gall me are the two where you must eat "their" food to lose weight.

I get a kick out of the "natural male enhancement" commercial that features wood planks next to the product. Gee, that's...subtle.

That's gotta be better than the "Bob" commercials. The really annoying guy who has the "I just got lucky from 4 different supermodels at the same time" grin. I hate that commercial.

I think it's actually the same commercial...enzyte or something like that. I'm seriously thinking about paying $10 month extra to get the digital cable with tivo-like capabilities...no more ads!

Currently cleaning out my kid's room. So far, 3 full bags of trash and 3 full bags of stuff for charity. I cleaned out my storage room last night and got rid of only 1 bag of trash, but now have a stack about 5 feet wide, 2 feet deep, and about 3 feet high of stuff I'm taking to charity.

Amazing, what happens when you decide to let go of the past. Very...freeing. And rather messy, honestly. I'm still trying to figure out if I can get someone to come pick up all this stuff, rather than trying to haul it somewhere...

We've been going through something similar at Teuchter Towers, in preparation for getting the builders in.

I agree that getting rid of stuff you don't want, don't need and wouldn't miss is very therapeutic.