Far North Queensland
24 July 2006
The Winter Solstice is past so the days are getting longer, but July and August are usually the coldest and wettest months in Melbourne. We have been thinking of friends in the US enjoying the Summer, the only sign of which here is the release of blockbuster movies and friends travelling to North America to visit Pride festivals and the like.
My days at work typically stretch from darkness to darkness in the Winter. Here I am on the way to work, walking through the Fitzroy Gardens. I thought the Autumn leaves in the early light were worth a photo. I change out of the gym clothes at work.
At the other end of the day I recently finished an afternoon list to find that I had to transport the patient to another hospital for Intensive Care as there were no suitable beds at St Vincent's. Once we were in the Ambulance our destination hospital called to tell us they had no suitable bed either so we drove around while I made calls on my cellphone to find a bed. We eventually arrived at the Austin Hospital where there were no bays available in the Emergency Department and after a 20 minute wait in a hallway (pictured) we finally delivered him to Intensive Care. I had a dinner engagement and the ambulance officers were kind enough to get me there quickly on their way to their next job.
Winter is not all gloom and rain. My Uncle John turned 50 in June and wanted a very casual celebration with a barbecue at a yacht club in Williamstown.
The weather was perfect; still and sunny and not at all cold. Here he is (in the hat) with his father, his two sisters and their husbands (including my parents) and also Jay.
Over the Queens Birthday long weekend, Jay and I went to North Queensland for a few days. It was warm and fine most of the time, though it rained when we visited the Daintree Rainforest. We also went to the Barrier Reef.
Here are some reef fish Jay caught with a disposable camera at the outer reef. We also visited the rainforest with an indigenous guide who showed us some of the sacred sites. When we got back I tried out iWeb on my MacBook and made a photo album of the trip so you can see more pictures if you like.
Jay decided to take the plunge and get Lasik surgery in June to correct his nearsightedness. I spent some weeks asking each ophthalmologist I worked with for their opinion on who to go to and he went with what seemed to be the consensus which was to see a specialist corneal surgeon who did some vision correction rather than one of the full-time Lasik guys. It went without problems and he now has uncorrected vision a little better than it was with contact lenses.
I was a little surprised a few weeks ago to be allocated a "work experience" student for a week. I didn't realize that the hospital offered the opportunity for school kids to come and see what we did and if so I didn't expect that an anaesthetist would be the first choice of someone to take them around. Tom was a year 10 student, 16 years old, who seemed surprisingly unfazed by accompanying me for my week which involved two days of open heart surgery (pictured), one day of neurosurgery and some more general work. At the end of it he still seemed keen to be a doctor.
Our friend Brad is very interested in the Rugby, so we all went to see Melbourne Storm. Brad is in the middle in the picture, between Jay and Jason. You can tell who is smiling for the camera and who has just spotted Shane Webcke, his favourite player. Storm defeated the Brisbane Broncos and remains at the top of the NRL table.
It is ten years since I was working as a resident doctor in Warrnambool, 250km West of Melbourne, so I took Jay there for the weekend to see what had changed. We visited the historical recreation park there, Flagstaff Hill, and this picture was taken outside the Undertakers; I was asked to look solemn. After Sovereign Hill we decided to skip the evening sound-and-light show. We saw whales off-shore at Logan's Beach and also visited the site of the psychiatric hospital where I worked for three months and which has now been demolished to make way for housing.
Last week we were invited to an evening viewing of the Picasso exhibition which is currently at the National Gallery. Luckily my afternoon cardiac case which would normally finish very late was cancelled so we were able to go. Here we are outside the gallery. The exhibition covered the period 1935-45, focussing on Picasso's relationship with Dora Maar and included a lot of sketches and photographs which provided insight into some of the final works.
For the rest of Winter we have plans to try changing around our gym work. Jay is also working for himself on some software which might be of interest only if you're in the visual effects business and at Atari they are in the final weeks of perfecting Test Drive Unlimited which I can say is looking really good even with the limited hardware spec of the PlayStation2.
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My days at work typically stretch from darkness to darkness in the Winter. Here I am on the way to work, walking through the Fitzroy Gardens. I thought the Autumn leaves in the early light were worth a photo. I change out of the gym clothes at work.
At the other end of the day I recently finished an afternoon list to find that I had to transport the patient to another hospital for Intensive Care as there were no suitable beds at St Vincent's. Once we were in the Ambulance our destination hospital called to tell us they had no suitable bed either so we drove around while I made calls on my cellphone to find a bed. We eventually arrived at the Austin Hospital where there were no bays available in the Emergency Department and after a 20 minute wait in a hallway (pictured) we finally delivered him to Intensive Care. I had a dinner engagement and the ambulance officers were kind enough to get me there quickly on their way to their next job.
Winter is not all gloom and rain. My Uncle John turned 50 in June and wanted a very casual celebration with a barbecue at a yacht club in Williamstown.
The weather was perfect; still and sunny and not at all cold. Here he is (in the hat) with his father, his two sisters and their husbands (including my parents) and also Jay.
Over the Queens Birthday long weekend, Jay and I went to North Queensland for a few days. It was warm and fine most of the time, though it rained when we visited the Daintree Rainforest. We also went to the Barrier Reef.
Here are some reef fish Jay caught with a disposable camera at the outer reef. We also visited the rainforest with an indigenous guide who showed us some of the sacred sites. When we got back I tried out iWeb on my MacBook and made a photo album of the trip so you can see more pictures if you like.
Jay decided to take the plunge and get Lasik surgery in June to correct his nearsightedness. I spent some weeks asking each ophthalmologist I worked with for their opinion on who to go to and he went with what seemed to be the consensus which was to see a specialist corneal surgeon who did some vision correction rather than one of the full-time Lasik guys. It went without problems and he now has uncorrected vision a little better than it was with contact lenses.
I was a little surprised a few weeks ago to be allocated a "work experience" student for a week. I didn't realize that the hospital offered the opportunity for school kids to come and see what we did and if so I didn't expect that an anaesthetist would be the first choice of someone to take them around. Tom was a year 10 student, 16 years old, who seemed surprisingly unfazed by accompanying me for my week which involved two days of open heart surgery (pictured), one day of neurosurgery and some more general work. At the end of it he still seemed keen to be a doctor.
Our friend Brad is very interested in the Rugby, so we all went to see Melbourne Storm. Brad is in the middle in the picture, between Jay and Jason. You can tell who is smiling for the camera and who has just spotted Shane Webcke, his favourite player. Storm defeated the Brisbane Broncos and remains at the top of the NRL table.
It is ten years since I was working as a resident doctor in Warrnambool, 250km West of Melbourne, so I took Jay there for the weekend to see what had changed. We visited the historical recreation park there, Flagstaff Hill, and this picture was taken outside the Undertakers; I was asked to look solemn. After Sovereign Hill we decided to skip the evening sound-and-light show. We saw whales off-shore at Logan's Beach and also visited the site of the psychiatric hospital where I worked for three months and which has now been demolished to make way for housing.
Last week we were invited to an evening viewing of the Picasso exhibition which is currently at the National Gallery. Luckily my afternoon cardiac case which would normally finish very late was cancelled so we were able to go. Here we are outside the gallery. The exhibition covered the period 1935-45, focussing on Picasso's relationship with Dora Maar and included a lot of sketches and photographs which provided insight into some of the final works.
For the rest of Winter we have plans to try changing around our gym work. Jay is also working for himself on some software which might be of interest only if you're in the visual effects business and at Atari they are in the final weeks of perfecting Test Drive Unlimited which I can say is looking really good even with the limited hardware spec of the PlayStation2.
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