ED

Working on a research project in the Emergency Department (ED) for the next 3-4 weeks. Pretty much until the end of my tenure with UVA's School of Medicine. I love the school of medicine - it's ideals especially and it's pupils, the long wooden hallways, high ceilings, sunlight pouring in the windows, giant doorways leading out to Hospital Drive and the Lawn. I love medicine for what it can do for people. I love it for how interesting it is. I love UVA for how it embodies some of the best and most beautiful things about Virgina. At it's best it's felt safe and calm here. Steady. Some might laugh (including me) at that statement given there have been some very trying times in my tenure here. But, I made it through and I'm still able to enjoy the best of things here. Medicine, among other things, provides a framework within which you can rise through the application of diligence and intellect.

Working in the ED, however, is like working in a cellar. The halls are cluttered with beds and monitoring equipment. People moving in and out of rooms, checking computers, talking on phones, answering pages, giving report, standing around, beeps and bells, techs pushing gurneys, patients dozing off, nurses taking vitals, housekeeping wheeling their mops and room sanitizers, patients family members wandering about, house staff bustling about. There is noise all around you, bright florescent lights, little to no privacy and not a single window to the outside world. In every room is some kind of car wreck or chest pain, GI bleed, or ectopic pregnancy. It's odd. Hours can pass and you have no idea if it's night or day, hot or cold, sunny or raining outside. I want to go home, pack, experience the last days of Virginia's intense summer weather, and get ready for the move.

UVA and Medicine and what they stand for have been a big part of my life thus far and I will feel off kilter for awhile, I think, without this complex and deeply rooted sense of place.