Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Level up

If the fact that I have a blog on the internet hasn't already clued you in, I'm a bit of a geek.  And by "bit of" I mean "was raised on video games and Dungeons and Dragons in the way that most teens gossiped on the phone after school or threw balls at things for points"

So to this day, if you give me some sort of objective number to measure and strive for in order to do a job well, I AM ALL OVER THAT SHIT.  If you really want me to get revved up, there needs to be a level of complexity that I can analyze and figure out if option A or B is the way to make number X go up or down.

Hospitalist medicine thrives on these kind of metrics.  Length of Stay, Case Mix index, mortality rate, core measures, relative value units... you can make spreadsheets for days.

It's funny, back in the day "being a good doctor" meant that all your patients were happy, nobody died when you could help it and you kept your white coat clean.  Now, with pressures from patients, insurance companies, healthcare reform acts and your own hospital, it means:

"make the patient better as quickly and inexpensively as possible in a way that meets national standards and they stay healthy once they leave.... and while you're at it, document everything that you did in a way that will maximize the amount of money we get paid by insurance so we can keep the doors open and the lights on."

(For extra fun, try and say all of the above in one breath.)

But hey, I knew exactly what I signed up for when I got into this whole "medicine" thing.  Because I love it, and I do want to be a good doctor.  So we come up with better history & physical forms to make sure we've documented all our patients' multiple and colorful chronic ilnesses, so we can take better care of them and get more money at the same time.  And my numbers go up and I'm happy.

And then when I'm exhausted from all of the above, I put on my running shoes and flee from hordes of shambling zombies.

No, really.

As a blocker who is thinking maybe.... just maybe this jamming thing might be fun too, (Click here if you don't remember the difference) I've had to up my cardio and endurance training.   Given my crazy schedule, I needed something that could be done at almost any time with minimal equipment... which means running

I hate running.

But I love zombies.

Enter Zombies, Run!, a smartphone app that turns running into a pseudo role playing game - you run, and while you're pounding the pavement, the program breaks in with "radio broadcasts" as you listen to a playlist of songs.  Even better, it tracks how far you've gone and lets you pick up items to take back to your base to build up your defenses and open new missions.  So yeah, all of a sudden running is fun again.

Especially when you turn on the interval training mode and it forces you to sprint by playing sounds of zombie moans getting closer and closer... 

But it was the amount of data they collect on you that really got my motor running.  


Now I know which songs I run faster to, how steady my pace is over the run, calories burned and how I do on the sprints.

I should amend that the data in the first screen cap was on skates.  Turns out the only drawback to using this program while on 8 wheels is that you occasionally come to the end of a neighborhood cul-de-sac and even the fastest turnaround-stop means you get your brains eaten. (Hence why I only evaded 1 mob on that particular mission).

The best part, though?  It's kind of like having Eenie Meanie, the vet I always thought of as my derby mentor with me...or at least the zombie version of her.  (You thought doc-roller girl was a good combo? Try undead derby badass.)




Why I wear the badge holder.

I don't wear My hospital insignia on my badge holder, that ubiquitous piece of plastic that medical folks use to display their alleg...