Our department got tasked with a short fuse tasker, this is military talk for "go home this minute and pack" I had to cancel cases and clinics and show up in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to catch a ship in less than 48 hours from notice. The ship was an LDH which carries Marines, called the USS BonHomme Richard. The secret special mission was to be aboard the ship during the schedule POTUS (that's president of the US) visit to Malaysia and Indonesia. Yes, that's the diplomatic trip that was postponed then eventually cancelled b/c our Pres was in hot pursuit of getting his health bill getting passed. This used to happen on a smaller scale at Bethesda when I was a resident. The President would come by for something minor, like a routine xray or colonoscopy, and all the people on call would have to stay at the hospital just in case the President was in need of their services. To digress further, the radiology night resident's call room was painted and carpeted the day before the president arrived for a scheduled MRI, just so he could use it as a dressing room. After the president left, people came in and pulled up the carpet and hauled it away. I promise you, I can't make this crap up!
It was an interesting and not altogether bad experience. Two weeks of minor sea sickness, having nothing to do but eat and sleep and read, to the point that I was scouting for orthopedic patients and did some didactic teaching for the ship medical department. Internet access is iffy, and so slow. E.g. too slow to shop online. The fun part was I got to spend a couple of days in KL, a beautiful city. Then a day and 1/2 in Singapore, a truly pretty city, very clean and safe, it lives up to its reputation. I also met some nice people from Yokosuka Naval Hospital and a group of folks from Air Force Hospital in Alaska.
A Harrier jet (below), these do vertical takeoff and landings, as well as normal flight. I got to see this while hanging out at the air traffic tower on the ship one afternoon. It was pretty cool. They are also really really loud, actually frightening loud. My stateroom, which I shared with 2 other females was right under the flight deck.
Eating here with, Kevi, a general surgeon from Yokosuka Naval Hospital. Our last night in Singapore, it got too hot, so we ate at the nice restaurant at the hotel.
No comments:
Post a Comment