The Resurrection of Paper Bird

And then a shaft of light spread the sky. Paper Bird descended on a cloud. The whole heavens were resplendent with singing, the lambs danced in the fields, and the sick of DHMC stood up and were healed.

So was the second coming of Paper Bird. This last week I returned to my daily stair well to find him hanging out atop one of the stair cases resting on a hand rail. No mural can hold him back now. He sits where he wants to sit. He's Paper Bird.

I'm not sure where he disappeared to for a few weeks -- maybe flew south to Conneticut? -- but I am happy he's back. Paper Bird, don't you ever leave me again. Hurray for Paper Bird!



In other news. Back in November it was 11/11/11 at 11:11. We had a party at work. I took a photo that I wanted to share:

Not to be discouraged I quickly shot off another one:

What's perhaps more sad is my staff -- who also wanted to snap a screen shot full of 11's -- wasn't even paying attention when it passed, and my resident on service took a picture at the right time, but had the date displayed as November 11, 2011. What an amateur.

Needless to say it was the failure of the century.

The Death of Paper Bird

Dartmouth Hitchcock Memorial Hospital is a classy hospital. Between the pianos, artwork, gardens, more pianos, and periodic impromptu classical guitar concerts some would say it's the classiest of hospitals. It's so classy in fact that the class spills over into the stairwells. And that's where I first met Paper Bird.

In most if all not all stairwells the walls are lined with murals on most if not all floors. They are idyllic paintings of the native wildlife and pastoral farms of New England. Some are beautiful, some are clearly done by volunteers. For the first few weeks of work I enjoyed looking at them while running around the clinics and wards, but I didn't pay them much attention as I usually had places to go and Lyme disease to stomp out. One day, however, while walking up the same daily flight of stairs I always hike upon arrival I noticed something was different. A bluejay seemed to be out of place. No longer perched atop a picnic table, it was now sitting comfortably on a nearby collection of pumpkins. Or maybe I was just crazy -- probably too much chronic brain Lyme. The next day, however, my suspicions were confirmed when while again walking into work I noted that the bluejay was no longer perched above the pumpkins but now sitting outside the picture frame entirely, resting immediately above the upper right border of the painting. Clearly I wasn't crazy, the bluejay was alive!

Shortly I found out that, no, the bluejay was in fact not alive, but rather made entirely of tape when I discovered him one day lying flat on the ground and being, well, composed entirely of tape. He had fallen from his roost atop the painting and was now resting face down on the floor, lying in his own filth. It was very sad; a dark day for Paper Bird. Thankfully the following morning he resurrected and for the next few months led a good life sticking to the various walls of the various murals, sometimes sitting on picnic table, sometimes atop one of the gratuitously placed pumpkins, once hanging upside down like a bat from a branch in a tree. It was always a pleasure seeing Paper Bird and where he'd be sitting that particular day. Life was good for the both of us. Then, one day, he disappeared.

Although no one knows where he disappeared off to -- some believe he flew off to paper bird heaven -- it is understood that he will not be coming back. By most paper bird standards he had a good life. The average life expectancy of a paper bird is only two and a half months and most paper birds are born into relative poverty forced to adorn pediatric clinic offices and elementary schools to earn a working wage. Paper Bird on the other hand got to, well, sit on pumpkins. I'll never forget his permanent paper smile or... I guess mostly just that. He was a paper bird, and for that we'll miss him. Goodbye Paper Bird!

Memorial services will be held in Auditorium D after the holiday break.

Snowy or Extra Snowy?

Portland gave me the finger.

Actually they were much more polite than that. No one gave anyone the bird. I just got an apologetic phone call and a formal letter a few days later. And that was that. I was not going to Oregon Health Science University (OHSU).

By then I had also visited the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCoW) in Milwaukee which, I learned, is not spelled with an "a" after the "l", and received word from Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC) that they too would like to invite me out for a quick chance to turn me down. The Milwaukee interview was standard as far as interviews go, and the program was myeh. In short: it was snowy, the people were nice, I flew home. I was going to say I finally saw the Great Lakes, but then I remembered that I had seen them the year before in Toronto. Truly a remarkable experience.

Milwaukee from a snowy pasture somewhere.

Dartmouth, on the other hand, was something a little different. The obvious name recognition aside, the program had an explicit global health focus in addition to a sound foundation in the infectious disease basics: HIV, wound infections, and beaver bites. They additionally made no apologies for the snow instead boasting of the numerous winter activities you could partake in virtually year round. The staff were similarly friendly, the hospital remarkably modern, and the city was charming in the sense that it was roughly the size of a small truck stop assuming it was a small truck stop run by affluent, well dressed white people. And, to top things off, their anticipated call rotation the next year was once six weekly. Truly a magical place. Both institutions offered me a job.

Hanover from... well... anywhere.

The next week I signed the dotted line over the phone and began the process of separation from the Air Force culminating in much paper work and even more merrymaking. Of all my three options, OHSU included, I believe I lucked out with Dartmouth as I was only informed of their availability literally a day or two before I was to sign a million dollar, multiseason contract with MCoW. It is the best combination and balance of education, interest, and free time. A place I look forward to going to. Shortly thereafter I got an email from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City -- an institution that had arguably been my number one choice earlier in my search -- stating that they too had spot and were wondering if I wanted to visit for an interview....

God sure gets His jollies in weird ways sometimes.

I just hope that when they dig my body out of the New Hampshire snow hundreds of years from now they find some interesting things in my pockets.