This year, I have:

• been granted (provisional) Australian citizenship
•  completed my first year as a specialist
• officially graduated from the ICU college
• continued to work on my Masters
• finished off the marathon Potassium study (publication still pending)
• started work on a project to introduce non-technical skills training for the hospital’s emergency response team
• racked up my 200th retrieval job
• became an Advanced Life Support instructor
• took on more ultrasound training
• been honoured as Jamie’s godfather
• got one foot on the property ladder
• rehabilitated my back with some intense and directed physical training
• given in to Magpie Syndrome and acquired more geeky gear
• finally got our lemon tree to bear fruit

This year Regan has:

• commenced a PhD
• done more consulting work
• donated time to numerous boards, committee and NGOs
• won a South Australian Tourism award
• cycled in the Tour Down Under free-for-all

This year, together we have:

• spent 2 weeks holidaying in New Zealand
• returned to the UK for our second prodigal trip since coming over here
• had our horizons broadened at the Sydney Mardi Gras
• caught up with friends in Canberra
• ran the Mother’s Day Classic charity race again
• done lots of (perhaps too much) wine tasting

There’s plenty more planned for 2012 though perhaps less travelling. As mentioned earlier, this blog will be updated only sporadically. Naturally the novelty and gloss has worn off but I’ll keep spamming everyone with the more salient events.

Have a happy new year and best wishes to all for a productive, and hopefully more peaceful, year ahead.

We have a comprehensive wireless network within the house. A total of 16 devices link into this network and many of them are accessible to others. The printer, for example, reports to any computer. The network drive stores all of our music, videos and work accessible from any device anywhere. This makes it very easy to work as documents can be retrieved, edited, saved and printed from different devices. The term cloud computing has only recently entered the zeitgeist but we’ve been running a domestic cloud for the best part of 10 years. In fact, at one point we even ran an externally accessible server here which meant we could obtain the same services from anywhere in the world.

Versatility is key to the interaction of our kit. And the geek can have endless possibilities. For example, the amplifier can read the media library from the media computer and the network storage and then play music or video without needing any direct input from the user to either of those devices. This laptop can wirelessly beam it’s AV output to the amplifier allowing it to also be used as a media centre. The amplifier responds to an application on my tablet so I can control music within the house without needing to be in the same room as the amp. Radio now streams seamlessly across the internet to a variety of devices allowing us to listen to Radio 4 for a reassuring dose of the Today program and to find out what’s going on back in Blighty. A VPN token for the Health intranet allowing me to effectively “sit” at my office desk while at home.

But there are plenty of future options I would like to explore. A dedicated home server so that we can be completely independent from webmail, web-hosts and other online services. White goods with a network interface. Wireless speakers in an acoustically perfect home cinema. A unified tablet interface for everything in the house. 3D video without special glasses. Having the media player in the car access the home network. Wireless IP cameras covering the exterior of the house.

Regan is, of course, utterly unimpressed by all of this. Which shows the different ways our minds work. Mine is obviously intrigued by the available options and hungry for more. The obsessive compulsive type A in me thinks nothing of spending hours fiddling around with equipment getting it to work … just so … even though the modification may be little different to the standard. Time well spent … indulging the inner geek.

Quite a delay since the last instalment.  Mostly due to laziness on my part and a distraction that seems to be occupying every minute of my spare time and most of my mental stamina. I’d like to report that it was a hobby, social life or other lifestyle activity, but unfortunately we’re well within the “work-related” category.

In the year since I started at the ‘Mac, various possibilities have passed in and out of my attention. Many have been relegated to the too-hard-basket, others have been de prioritised but one or two have remained fixed at the top of the agenda. The most pressing of which is “The IMPACT Project”. What started off as an interesting concept has, like many such ideas, snowballed into a barely controllable monster.

The original notion was to introduce some team-working training for the hospital’s service which attends medical emergencies. If a patients keels over, tries to expire or suffers some other catastrophe, treating staff can summon the cavalry and all will be well. Or maybe not so well. Unfortunately while medical staff, doctors in particular, are very good at sticking pointy things into people and giving powerful mind-altering drugs, they’re generally pretty crap at the basics like talking to one another coherently.

Aviation is a similarly pressurised working environment that seems to attract similarly obsessive type A personalities. The general public decided long ago that having planes fall out of the sky was “a bad thing”, so experts looked for reasons why it happened. Boeing, Airbus and others dusted off their lawyers, expecting the blame ball to be firmly chucked in their direction. However, it transpired that the weak link, the causal factor in most crashes was the squidgy thing sitting at the front. So, airlines started watching pilots intently and noticed that when things go wrong that they still remembered how to fly the planes. So it wasn’t that. Instead, when sufficient scrutiny was applied, it transpired that aspects such as communication, cross-checking, team-working and psychological flaws were responsible.

This all occurred 40 years ago when “human factors” dictated the need for “crew resource management” training. And ever since, air travel has been a darn sight safer. We’re statistically safer flying around the globe than driving to work. No matter what bad publicity Qantas might have garnered recently, you’re more likely to arrive alive travelling with them than any other form of transport.

So, bringing that back, how is it relevant to us? Well a couple of us got talking one day. The next day we started going along to attendances by our emergency teams. We noticed something striking yet worrying. For professionals who are supposed to capable of function and organisation at a high level, the tolerance of chaos was staggering. Perhaps such behaviour had become the “norm” and while embroiled ourselves, we’d not noticed. Interesting what a difference in perspective being the fly makes.

The solution seemed simple. Fly-boys have been training one another how to act and communicate as a team. Why shouldn’t we just borrow their tactics. The world will keep spinning and all will be peachy. Ah, if only it were that easy. Unfortunately medicine, more pertinently public sector medicine, demands proof. And so we’re now pushing through a multi-phase research  project involving the entire hospital. Naturally none of this comes cheap and some major scrounging is on the agenda for next year.

My computer keyboard has been glowing red-hot recently as it’s discharged 3 ethics submissions, 2 funding applications, multiple drafts of a protocol and numerous associated supporting documents. I think we’re almost there; in terms of preliminary work. The actual conduct of the project will be another 3 years of slog. But if this goes to plan we’ll save lives and maybe some of the hospital’s money too. Famine and war will still go on but there is the chance to do something truly ground-breaking here. This could be really big. Or it could flop. Sometimes researchers have to be brave.

It goes without saying that some of our colleagues work under very difficult circumstances and great pressure. None more so than those in the emergency department who have to deal with some of the worst of humanity and some who have been turned into the worst of humanity by deliberately ingested substances. For undertaking this thankless task they are offered … no thanks. At least not by their employers who clearly have never witnessed the barely controlled anarchy and chaos that prevails on an average Saturday night.

To add insult to this ambivalence, we now have the Minster for Health blithely dismissing the concerns of his employees. When told that the Code Black (*) rate is at an all time high, he denied that it was a problem and implied that the figures were inflated and exaggerated. In other words, he refused to back the people he is supposed to represent. I’m at a loss to explain why as, for once, this was not a problem that could be in any way blamed on him. Rather it is a sinister culture in which abusing and assaulting public service workers is considered acceptable by some. And that alcohol and drug abuse continue to ruin society. Neither are the fault of the Minister, so why didn’t he stand up for his staff, praise their efforts and put out a message to society that such behaviour is not acceptable.

I suspect that his capitulation and betrayal is symbolic of modern democracy in which elected officials are petrified of admitting that anything is wrong lest it be construed as an admission of the faintest shred of failure. As a result we wind up with an “ostrich” mentality and no action. During which time staff continue to be hurt and sick leave due to stress is commonplace.

Thanks a lot, boss.

————————————————————

(*) Code Black is the emergency request for assistance made in a situation in which staff perceive that someone presents imminent risk of serious harm to themselves and/or others

For example, and the reason for this update, it’s now a year since I started my full-time job. No longer am I “the new guy”. The past year seems to have passed quickly in the sense that I can recall very vividly my first day. But over that year a great deal has happened and I have had some mixed experiences. Looking back, while the year has in one sense gone quickly, at the same time it seems like quite a while ago. A very strange mental conflict that is beyond the ability of my dyslexic English to describe.

Indeed, soon it will be 5 years since we came to Australia. Those years seem to have gone at quite a pace, yet now looking back it does seem like another age. Again the contradiction. This has been documented elsewhere, but usually the phenomenon is one of a correlation between the passage of time and how fun that time is. My perception is that time, while unfailingly linear, not only does not run at a constant speed … regardless of what the atomic clock might say … but also passes at those variables rates simultaneously.

On behalf of the Government and people of Australia, I am delighted to advise that your application for Australian citizenship has been approved

Technically speaking I’m not a citizen proper as I still need to swear allegiance to beer, cricket and Holden at a ceremony next Australia Day (26th of Jan incidentally … one of the many Bradmanisms necessary to pass “the test” ). Then I’ll be a true-blue Strayan.

The only conflict I can foresee is working out which country to support in various international sporting events. It shouldn’t be too hard though, as I’ve decided that it will always be England in the Ashes. When it comes to (soccer) football or rugby I’m not that fussed given I don’t follow either. Thereafter Australia and England don’t compete against one another in that many competitions. The Olympics will be an interesting dilemma next year. Perhaps I’ll be the worst fan of all … the fair weather supporter. So it’s St George for the sailing and cycling and then I’m behind the Aussie boys for the swimming. Who knows, Australand/Englasia might win rather a lot of medals that way. Well, as long as one of them beats the bloody Yanks.

So, regardless of the other negative things I might say about them, the incumbent government has at least made one good decision this year.

For the majority of this year I have been working hard to reverse a moment’s damage incurred last December. For the most part the effort has been successful with a marked increase in my torso strength and stability. And more importantly, relief from symptoms. Never let anyone tell you that kidney stones, childbirth or getting a precious part of your body caught in a zipper is the worst pain that a human can experience. All of those are eclipsed by the hypnotising agony of back pain. Life literally ends as any movement or activity just amplifies the already debilitating sensory overload. Back pain sufferers are easy to spot by the characteristic uncomfortable-looking yet rigidly-held pose.

Annoyingly mine came back while we were on holiday care of an overly comfortable sofa in Next. I thought I’d take advantage of the thoughtfully provided husband chair but a fragile ligament wasn’t so keen. Some careful avoidance of lifting and handling for the remainder of the holiday helped. But the acute on chronic insult became apparent when we returned and for the past month or so we’ve been in recovery mode.

It’s also a little scary how quickly condition is lost. We’d barely been away for 3 weeks and had hardly been slothful during that time. But coming back into intense exercise wasn’t easy. The body adapts and seems to be obeying commands. As a result my back is behaving itself again and mostly asymptomatic, save the odd niggle. And my running is coming along too. Someone who couldn’t go very far or fast without getting shin splints is now getting up to the 3km mark as a warm-up a few times a week and getting to the point of cruising at 8mph.

For the benefit of the guys, I’m working on those pull-ups. How are you going with the balls?

All will be revealed this coming Thurs.

We’ve been here getting on for 5 years and it’s about time I integrated more fully into this society. As such, I’ve started the ball rolling on acquiring Australian citizenship. My motives are not entirely altruistic as it will make exit from and entry into the country more straightforward. The rules regulating the movements of permanent residents are complex and, as a result, the residency status is not as permanent as the name would suggest.

Fortunately I can retain my British citizenship and have the best of both worlds. However, I’ve already decided that their are 2 scenarios in which I would shred my passport and send the remains back to the consulate in Canberra.

1. Britain drops sterling and adopts the euro
2.  Camilla is allowed to use the title “Queen” as and when Charles comes to the throne

So I’ve sent in the application and am now waiting to hear whether I’m eligible to take “the test”. If anyone’s interested in seeing what I have to know the answers to, try the mock for yourselves here. They’re not especially difficult, but some questions are deliberately written in a misleading way. Perhaps as a screening test of language skills rather than a real assessment of the finer points of Australian governance and jurisdiction.

I’ll keep you appraised. G’daaaaay!

Credit to anyone who knows where that line comes from. And no, not the George Michael song.

Although we’ve been away from the UK for less than 5 years there was still a sense of unfamiliarity. This is natural enough as Adelaide is now “home” even though we retain resonance with Blighty. Having feet in both countries allows some insight into some subtle inconsistencies that may not be apparent to those living permanently in one or the other.

For example, not long after coming to Adelaide I commented, not just once, on my perception of the dismal quality of driving in the city. I favourably recalled better standards from Leicester and elsewhere in the UK. Having now returned and clocked up a fair few miles around the nation, it appears that my memory was flawed. We witnessed many shocking displays of incompetence, negligence and ignorance. The gong goes to the clueless tradie who merged into traffic from a sliproad on the M25 and kept coming. He appeared not to have noticed that we were in the middle lane and if my reflexes hadn’t swerved us away from danger, we’d have been speared into the opposing carriageway.

A patent feature of the UK climate that we clearly never noticed while living there is the humidity. Stepping off the plane into the Turkish bath better known as LHR Terminal 3 was just the beginning. London was palpably tropical too. Perhaps we’ve been spoilt by the dessicated Adelaide air which feels far more comfortable by comparison at equivalent temperatures.

We also though the UK was supposed to be in recession. Tales of doom and gloom and images of people and business going to the wall abound in our media. Yet visiting Fosse Park or the HighCross in Leicester, we could barely move for all the people clutching multiple full bags … during the week too. Either the financial crisis is a carefully orchestrated piece of propaganda aimed at cooling an economy at risk of inflation or people are continuing to spend money they don’t have. I suspect mostly the latter which then begs the question “Who’s still lending all this money then?”. It might be better if that went unanswered as it implies neither lenders nor debtors have learnt anything.

By the end of our 3 week holiday, much though it was great seeing everyone, we felt relief walking through the door of our house here; mostly because we had a furry welcoming committee.