Booknerd

[PeterSwede]

Thank you hennar for the information, Yea i think i will wait for Netflix too

[PeterL22]

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This book is most certainly unique, Peter. I write about it with some degree of ambivalence. The reviews, while mostly positive, substantiate my impression. I don't know that I'd recommend this book to someone completely removed from medicine. Some parts of it, many parts of it would seem macabre and cynical to the average person. I started out liking the protagonist, Roy Basch, but as I read further I began to detest him. The best character in the book is “Fats” or fat man. His narration of how to use the hospital bed is hilarious and, to some extent, very true. He's the one who defines what a “gomer” is (get out of my emergency room” with the female counterpart the “gomere”. “Turfing”, “Buffing” and “bouncers” are described in detail. I won't define them here so as to not disillusion the reader re the practice of medicine in a large institution (Hospital).
It seems the author and I underwent very different experiences as interns. Perhaps he should have completed a surgical internship rather that one in medicine. I say this because of his melodramatic descriptions of life/death situations in the hospital. To be sure, losing a patient because of your best efforts (or worse as the book describes) is traumatic. Does every doc expect his patients to miraculously survive his efforts?! There is a very tragic scene described where an old physician returns to the hospital with terminable cancer and painfully dies in Roy's arms. This is a savagely written scene that brings the question of euthanasia. No, he doesn't offer to his friend but does so later on in the text to another suffering patient. He details how many patients suffer from the “care” of the doctors and who's conditions worsen after their (the docs) efforts. I've seen this myself so it IS true. Docs are human and they do make mistakes,sometimes inexcusable ones. He describes how LOL in NAD (little old ladies in no apparent distress) are often over treated and succumb to the well intentioned care of the staff. In one instance a LOLNAD is admitted and subjected to a dementia work up. She had various skull films taken but the dye used cashes her kidneys, the study of her kidneys overworked her heart, the heart med made her vomit, which threw off her electrolytes which increased her dementia and caused bowel problems for which she was given a “bowel run” which dehydrated her further and shut down her kidneys so she ended up on dialysis which led to an infection and convulsions and then complete stillness as she slowly expired. I've seen similar events that cascaded out of control to the detriment of the patient, all well intentioned of course.
His description of a “large breasted girl guiding us through the maze of paperwork” at the initiation of his internship, her admonition re the parking situation and her caution re the gangs that brought bolt cutters to steal bicycles implies that the hospital was one in New York where such things are commonplace. He describes the “Straight Bendover Nursing Maneuver” which is used to display the nurse's ass at its most attractive. There are many sex scenes which was new to me as I was a MOR (marriage on the rocks) when I was an intern. Apparently the author's experience was something like a Lothario in a house of disrepute or as in the movie TOM JONES. Nurses were “accommodating” but not to the extent he describes in lurid detail. He continues to describe the women of the social cervix (social services) and what their characters are. We are also introduced to the “slurpers” (ass-kissers) and privates of the hospital staff. One of the most hilarious descriptions is that of the gastroenterologist who can establish the dx of steathorrheac malabsorption, bowel carcinoma, superior mesenteric insufficiency giving rise to ischemia and diarrhea and lastly long standing gas passing a fecal impaction. All of these can be dx by the olfactory nerves and flatulence.
As the book gets blacker with sarcasm and attempts at humor it mercifully ends with our “hero” protagonist selecting between the NPC (no patient care) specialties, gas (anesthesia), rays (radiology), pathology, dermatology, ophthalmology and psychiatry. No surprise to me he selects psychiatry.
In summary, the book purports to demonstrate the humanity of the patients and the doctors/staff treating them. My impression was that it was written by a naval gazing liberal not suited to medicine but to psychology/psychiatry. In the end I was exculpated as he DID end up as a shrink. Do I recommend this book? Yes, sort of. It's not your everyday read that's for damn sure.
I would sure like to have some input from Dr. Dave on this one.

I started to read it for the comedy and jokes (especially the in-jokes) and then got hooked on some of the characters. The other thing to say that the defensive medicine that is described in a lot of the pages was alien to me training and working in the UK. Having said that the game playing amongst trainees in a large teaching hospital to get ahead wasn't too alien. I think the disillusionment of Basch as the time goes on does fit with a lot of doctors and medical students. The fresh idealistic first year students I was involved with were completely different animals from the GP Registrars (2 - 3 years Post qualification) and not comparible at all to those guys just finishing their training as consultants in any specialties. You are right to a certain extent that this is an uncomfortable read for non-medics, but there is a certain verite in it's content. From what you have written,I would advise you against bothering with Mount Misery - it would probably just irritate you.


On a different book, I am three-quarters through "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman - which I started after seeing the first season of the TV series on Amazon Prime. It is a good read, and it is different from the TV series so well worth a try!

[catalina2]

I started to read it for the comedy and jokes (especially the in-jokes) and then got hooked on some of the characters. The other thing to say that the defensive medicine that is described in a lot of the pages was alien to me training and working in the UK. Having said that the game playing amongst trainees in a large teaching hospital to get ahead wasn't too alien. I think the disillusionment of Basch as the time goes on does fit with a lot of doctors and medical students. The fresh idealistic first year students I was involved with were completely different animals from the GP Registrars (2 - 3 years Post qualification) and not comparible at all to those guys just finishing their training as consultants in any specialties. You are right to a certain extent that this is an uncomfortable read for non-medics, but there is a certain verite in it's content. From what you have written,I would advise you against bothering with Mount Misery - it would probably just irritate you.

Peter, don't misunderstand. I enjoyed the book immensely. That I didn't like the protagonist is irrelevant. The book is very much true as it relates the facts of medicine in a large teaching hospital. There IS a hierarchy, there IS defensive medicine and the “privates” are viewed, for the most part, as incompetents. Everyone IS, like “fats”, looking for the “anal mirror” to make a “fortoona”. I loved fats and had a similar character when I was an intern. He bought a Mercedes when he finally made senior resident. What wasn't mentioned but implied in the book was MRE (maximum resident experience). This occurs in the book when an obviously dead patient's chest is cut open to perform open chest cardiac massage. A procedure which Never works but gives surgical residents a chance to open the chest. It's a macabre procedure and totally useless now that we have closed chest massage that is just as effective if not more so. Watching the nurses skirts move up to their hips while performing it Does happen and is oddly exciting to see. Now THAT is dark. I did have One death while I was a resident rotating through anesthesia though it was not my patient. I was administering anesthesia and there was this commotion next door. It happened that one of my co-residents was doing a case on a young man when he went into malignant hyperpyrexia. If you recall it was a mystery at the time and still is somewhat. It happened only to certain patients who had been administered Halothane and succinylcholine. The only prodromal was a slight irregularity of the heart rhythm and then an exponential increase in body temp that cooked the brain. I have many other “stories” that would fill a book but, then, I'm sure you have as well so I won't bore you. Should we ever meet we'll bore each other with war stories that would curdle a civilian's blood.

[catalina2]

addendum: Peter, surely you've seen THE HOSPITAL written by Paddy Cheyevsky. He's one of the most brilliant playwrights of all time. If by chance you haven't seen it, make every attempt to get the DVD. It's worth every single penny.

[catalina2]

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Get ready to be “triggered” all you SJW'S (social justice warriors), snowflakes, lefties, feminists, BLM's, establishment types both democrats and republicans, Muslims and alt righters, Milo's first magnum opus has been published. Yes, the indefatigable Milo Yiannopoulus is now in print. Milo, a homosexual, male, lover of black penis, anti-feminist, provocateur REPUBLICAN who calls President Trump “daddy” is back from the slanderous assault labeling him as a pedophile. He, a pedophile, a gay man who was seduced by a priest and molested for years. HE was the supposed pedophile. What hypocrisy of the left and the mainstream media, but, that's what they both deal in – character assassination and lies, lies repeated so often the softest minds begin to believe them because they Want to believe them.
Milo begins his opus by stating, in reference to the smear campaign, that “the only thing that can stop him is a mirror”, that he “does not torture kittens, he kills them quickly”. Humor and truth are what Milo is all about. You pc bastards won't find any “safe rooms” or “spaces” with Milo. Call him a faggot, he is, call him a racist, he loves blacks (literally), call him an iconoclast, he is, call him a grand-stander, he is. He's all of these things but he is also a truth teller – a crime in this age of hurt feelings and political correctness, of sobriety, of “what's presidential”, of “that's who we are” and all the other banalities spouted by Barack Obama and even idiot republicans like McConnell and Paul Ryan, yes, even such cretins as McCain and Romney. He is “a fire-starter and troublemaker who started out as an obscure British tech blogger (yes, he's not even an American) and rose to infamy as one of America's most in demand college speakers on college campuses. The appearance of my expensive shoes and frosted tips and the sound of my laughter ringing across university quads has caused university professors, journalists, directors, activists, musicians and feminists to realize something no American liberal has understood in a long time: EMOTIONS DON'T TRUMP FACTS (bold type mine).” He is the “Ken doll” from the underworld. Left wing journalists call him an alt-right racist, misogynist bigot while the neo-nazi's call him a “degenerate, white kike-faggot”. Oh, I forgot. Yes, he's JEWISH as well. He writes “conservatives are no longer the cultural elites censoring the left wing media. It's the leftists who have become the elites censoring dissident conservatives”. Give it some thought. Who torpedoed Bernie Sanders on the left so she could win the primary? Who paved the way for Hillary to win years before the primaries? Who accepted her silence during the primary campaign? Who carried water for her to this day? P.J. O'Rourke whom I have referred to in earlier book reviews, stated “At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child, miserable – as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill disciplined, despotic and useless” and this is from a Libertarian!! Milo continues, the left once represented the working classes. They could have continued this noble cause, which is why My father was a democrat, but they chose, instead a very different coalition – “the latte dripping Metropolitan voter, fairy tale dwelling anti-war activists, ugly women and minorities”. They left the working class behind. Barack Obama, that sonofabitch, epitomized this with his comment with regard to middle America “clinging to their guns, bibles and fear of those unlike them”. White men are the cultural counterpart to the economic bourgeoisie class in classical Marxist theory. “Heaven help you if you are a white, literate, straight attractive man who behaves like a man”. The “intersecting axis (new principle of the left)of privilege, domination and oppression will assure your marginalization and demon-hood. The iron law of victim hood is a zero sum game. Someone has to lose and someone has to win. So we have blacks fight gays fighting Muslims fighting..... and so on.
Milo describes what is called “third wave feminism”. I know you've heard of this. Allow me to “splain” - oops, I'm “man splaining”, or I'm “man spreading”, egg plant emoji's (they too much like erect penis's) yes, and even air conditioning because men can stand colder temps better. Does it get more insane than this?? Milo points out quite ironically the conundrum transgenders present to the feminists who reject their existence. So much for the nurture vs nature argument that women are “programmed” by society. Next he elaborates upon the next inexplicable “Gordian knot” of feminists defending Islam. If you've any education whatsoever re this religion you KNOW how women are treated yet, there they are with signs written with the words “my legs are spread for immigrants”. I'll leave the feminists with one last diatribe – the concept of “affirmative consent”. How about it guys. You're on a date, before the first kiss “may I”, before the first base “may I”, before second base “may I”, and so on and on and insanely on. As Milo calls it, it is “Kafkaesque”. Milo does have a way with words.
I could go on and on but why spoil the fun for you. Milo's solution to Islam is to make it “uncool” and as to “cultural appropriation” he points out that it is what made this country a melting pot, but I continue so I will stop spoiling the fun for you. READ THIS BOOK is you have anything between your ears. It will entertain you, make you furious, made you sad, make you happy, make you contemplative. One thing it will Not make you is Bored.

[PeterSwede]

I actually just bought This book, But their aint no english translation so its a little hard to recomend it. But its about Swedens history back in the 1600-1700 century. About Swedens Great Power, all the great Kings and the great wars.
I dont think its an english translation. But the title would be The Invincible.

[PeterSwede]

I just started reading a book by Fjodor Dostojevskij, and i was told that its is very heavy reading. And i totally admit. Its a very boring book. I get tired after reding only a fiew pages. Im on Page 139 and i started to read it last week. Plus i dont understand What im reading too. Its alot of russian names that is really hard to read plus all the name of the character only is a big mess. I think give up reading This shitty book. Throw it in the fireplace.

[PeterL22]

I just started reading a book by Fjodor Dostojevskij, and i was told that its is very heavy reading. And i totally admit. Its a very boring book. I get tired after reding only a fiew pages. Im on Page 139 and i started to read it last week. Plus i dont understand What im reading too. Its alot of russian names that is really hard to read plus all the name of the character only is a big mess. I think give up reading This shitty book. Throw it in the fireplace.

You probably got 100 pages further into it than I did Peter. Long Russian novels are not really my thing!

[PeterSwede]

But i just started to read Crime and Punishment by the same author, its seems more easy reading. Starts good.

[PeterL22]

But i just started to read Crime and Punishment by the same author, its seems more easy reading. Starts good.

Good luck Peter - sorry not many pictures in it!

[stickyvicky]

I just ordered this book on audible and started listening to it on my run today.

How to enrich your life and destroy doubt in 5 seconds.

Throughout your life, you've had parents, coaches, teachers, friends and mentors who have pushed you to be better than your excuses and bigger than your fears. What if the secret to having the confidence and courage to enrich your life and work is simply knowing how to push yourself?

Using the science of habits, riveting stories and surprising facts from some of the most famous moments in history, art and business, Mel Robbins will explain the power of a “push moment.” Then, she’ll give you one simple tool you can use to become your greatest self.

It takes just five seconds to use this tool, and every time you do you’ll be in great company. More than 8 million people have watched Mel’s TEDx Talk, and executives inside of the world’s largest brands are using the tool to increase productivity, collaboration, and engagement.

In The 5 Second Rule, you’ll discover it takes just five seconds to:
Become confident
Break the habit of procrastination and self-doubt
Beat fear and uncertainty
Stop worrying and feel happier
Share your ideas with courage
The 5 Second Rule is a simple, one-size-fits-all solution for the one problem we all face—we hold ourselves back.
The secret isn’t knowing what to do—it’s knowing how to make yourself do it.

So far I'm loving it! I'll probably end up running 5 miles each morning instead of 3 just so i can listen longer!

[hennar2017]

Vicky, I can't believe you have trouble with any of the five things this book addresses except maybe procrastination! We all do that at one point in time, I know I do but my thought is there is always tomorrow and if not oh well! I think you have all kinds of courage unless you put on a big show. It seems to me that you don't take any shit from anyone but you are sensitive to other peoples feelings. Now am I a good psychologist or not! lol xoxo

[stickyvicky]

You know how many times I get great ideas and then don't act on them and then just forget about them later? They slip by.. your brain squashes them... self doubt says "oh that would never work..." This book teaches you, do something physical in the first 5 seconds to put that idea into play or else it won't happen! I love it! My new motto in life! 5 seconds to act! 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 do it!

[hennar2017]

Vicky, the best way is to write your ideas down so you can refer to them later. We all have those kind of lapses but your motto may work!

[WalterB]

I thought the 5-second rule was if I get to it first, I get to eat it and the dog goes hungry.

Vicky is right. Do it when you think of it, or you won't do it at all. I'm sure most of you can remember things you thought of, but never put into play. Things that probably would have been enjoyable had you acted on them. Life s full of missed moments. There are so many things that go by us so quickly that if we don't act in that moment, the chance is gone.

5 seconds to act! 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 do it!

It probably took me 5 seconds to think about it when Vicky announced she was going to dance in Wichita. 5 seconds to realize "I need to go see her." 5 seconds that changed my life and brought me here today.

[PeterL22]

I used to be indecisive, but now I'm not so sure!

[PeterSwede]

I have a new recomendation of an erotic author name Sylvia Day. All her books is really good, very sensual and erotic. Turns you really on when you read her books. And the good thing is that both men and women can read it. Like i get very inspired how to impress or satisfy a woman sexually.

[stickyvicky]

I'm now reading books about spanking, hehehe...

[Anthony_JK]

I'm now reading books about spanking, hehehe...

What's the better turn on for you, Vicky....you being spanked or you doing the spanking?

[PeterSwede]

Have you readed 50 Shades of Gray Vicky?