No, this post isn’t about blogging … I’m not pulling a Randall! 
I haven’t been blogging as much of late because I’ve been dealing with a lot issues in my personal life. One of those “issues” is a joyous one, of course … the arrival of my fifth daughter. One of the other issues I’ve been dealing with, however … not so joyous.
I tendered my resignation to Pekin Hospital on Friday, October 10. I will continue my duties there until my contract expires on November 28.
I will keep my reasons for resigning to myself, other than to note that I am the fifth primary care physician to partially (Mike Honan, Gail Williamson, Page Settles) or completely (Greg Moskop and myself) sever their ties with Pekin Hospital in the last year.
I am deeply, deeply saddened to have to make this move. I have many wonderful families in my practice, and I’m so sorry that they’ll now be forced to find a new pediatrician. I’m sad to leave two wonderful colleagues - Terry Tosi and Erika Hunter - and a fantastic group of nurses and support staff in Suite A (the office I share with Dr. Tosi) and on 5 South & 8 North (Peds & OB, respectively). Finally, I’m sad to leave this community. Pekin has been my home for the last two years, and I feel strongly that this is a wonderful place to live and raise a family. M’lady, the Little Dragons and I are very sad to leave the friends that we’ve made here.
However, I’m also excited about the new opportunities offered by my new practice at OSF Holy Family Medical Center in Monmouth, IL. I will be the only pediatrician in Monmouth, since the previous pediatrician left in August due to family circumstances. In fact, I’ll be the only pediatrician in all of Warren County. As a part of the OSF Medical Group, I’ll have built-in connections with the Children’s Hospital of Illinois and the pediatric specialists there. Monmouth is an hour drive to Peoria, 10-15 minutes to Galesburg, and less than an hour to Macomb, Burlington (IA) or the Quad Cities. It’s all a little frightening, but very exciting as well.
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2008 goes to …
Francoise Barre-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier, researchers at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, for their discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
Harald zur Hausen, currently at the German Cancer Research Center, for his discovery of human papilloma viruses (HPV) causing cervical cancer.
Congratulations!
BJ Stone asks … what the hell happened to John McCain?
Answer - hubris, the same tragic flaw that felled Achilles in the Iliad.
John McCain is no Achilles. He didn’t stand a chance against the overwhelming power of his own ego.
I missed this piece on WHOI until someone mentioned it at work today, and I’m very excited.
I hope, hope, hope they’re coming to help Jake Grys!!!
If you want to volunteer or donate supplies, please contact Extreme Makeover at illinoismakeover@emhe.tv.
Religion, uncontaminated by power, can be the source of a great deal of private solace, artistic inspiration, and moral wisdom. But when it gets its hands on the levers of political or social authority, it goes rotten very quickly indeed. The rank stench of oppression wafts from every authoritarian church, chapel, temple, mosque, or synagogue – from every place of worship where the priests have the power to meddle in the social and intellectual lives of their flocks, from every presidential palace or prime ministerial office where civil leaders have to pander to religious ones.
Philip Pullman
Read a banned book this week!
Hat Tip: Andrew Sullivan
I’m still watching the presidential debate, but my jaw dropped earlier and I had to post on this …
Did anyone else hear John McCain acknowledge that the Bush administration supported the torture of prisoners? He cited his opposition to the torture of prisoners as an example of an area where he opposed President Bush.
D’oh!!!
Addendum: I love how Obama absolutely PWNED McCain on his hypocrisy regarding government spending. How can someone claim to be a cost-cutter when they’ve supported the budgets of George W. Bush, the man who has overseen and encouraged “an orgy of spending” and a massive expansion of the federal government.
Double D’oh!!!
[...] the idea of American exceptionalism doesn’t extend to Americans being exceptional. If you excelled academically and are able to casually use 690 SAT words then you might as well have the press shoot video of you giving the finger to the Statue of Liberty while the Dixie Chicks sing the University of the Taliban fight song. The people who want English to be the official language of the United States are uncomfortable with their leaders being fluent in it.
Maureen Down, New York Times
What we are witnessing may be the greatest destruction of financial wealth that the world has ever seen — paper losses measured in the trillions of dollars. Corporate wealth. Oil wealth. Real estate wealth. Bank wealth. Private-equity wealth. Hedge fund wealth. Pension wealth. It’s a painful reminder that, when you strip away all the complexity and trappings from the magnificent new global infrastructure, finance is still a confidence game — and once the confidence goes, there’s no telling when the selling will stop.
Steven Pearlstein, Washington Post
The economy is fundamentally sound, Senator McCain? Forget Sarah Barracuda. It’s the economy, stupid!
What does it say about your presidential campaign when Karl Rove, he of the black “love child” rumors during the 2000 South Carolina Republican primary, thinks you’ve gone too far?
Everyone who has read my posts knows that I can’t stand the current incarnation of the Republican Party. The modern GOP is a far cry from the Party of Lincoln. Their fiscal conservatism is a joke, and their slide toward theocracy is frightening.
However, I’m also quite disappointed in the Democratic Party, especially in Illinois. I remain a strong supporter of Barack Obama for president, but the corruption and arrogance of the Blagojevich administration disgusts me. The petty power struggles and gamesmanship in Springfield disgust me. It’s never good when one party has a lock on power for too long, and the Chicagocrats have been way too comfortable in their seats for way too long.
The Modern Whig Party may offer us the middle road that I think a lot of Americans are craving. I’ll be watching closely.
Hat Tip: Peoria’s Blogfather.
If you fire the governor’s chef and then charge the state a per diem for every night you sleep in your own house, does that make you an agent of change or Charles Rangel’s accountant?
Gail Collins, New York Times.
Governor Sarah Palin my have signed the final death warrant on the already moribund Ketchikan to Gravina Island “Bridge to Nowhere”, but she still supports a project that would cost even more - $400 to $600 million for the Knik Arm Crossing. This project would benefit … (drumroll) … Sarah Palin’s hometown of Wasilla, offering residents there quicker access to Anchorage.
Hat Tip: Andrew Sullivan.
The United States lags way behind many other industrialized nations in broadband quality. In a recent study sponsored by Cisco and carried out by researchers at the University of Oxford and the University of Oviedo, “broadband quality scores” were calculated based on measurements made in May 2008 by Speedtest.net. The United States ranked 16th in the world in broadband quality, just ahead of Russia and Bulgaria and just behind Finland. Here’s the top ten:
1. Japan
2. Sweden
3. Netherlands
4. Latvia
5. Korea
6. Switzerland
7. Lithuania
8. Denmark
9. Germany
10. Slovenia
You’ll notice that we’ve fallen behind three former Eastern Bloc countries (Latvia, Lithuania and Slovenia) who just 20 years ago were still mired in Communist economic doldrums. We need to get it in gear if we want to remain competitive.
←Older
