GLMA Summary

Conference was great. There is nothing better than getting together with the GLMA folk - all ages, sexual orientations and gender identities... all intellectual, educated, and motivated to help make it safe to practice as an out doc and safer to be an out patient. Some people are hard core activists by choice, and some by necessity. Take Janice who wasn't allowed to visit her same-sex partner as she was dying in a major academic hospital because they were both women. Her story (click here) was heartbreaking and it amazes me that less than a year later she can talk about what happened to hundreds of health professionals.

The transgender and genderqueer presence this year was spectacular, I feel. The programming also was excellent, as I said in my last post. Especially for trans health care this year. I went to several sessions on transgender health care and inclusion as well as adolescent transgender issues and gyn care. I also went to many of the plenaries which were very engaging. I networked and met clinic directors from places large and small, NY, San Fran and Boston LGBT-focused clinics and rural practices. One rural family doc told his story about being fired for being "too gay" after working in the same clinic for 33 years. He was told that his being out was slowing the growth of the practice. It still happens people! Read an article about it here.

The workshop went really well. I started out asking people to establishing goals for the session. Everyone is at a different place. Some may be the only out person they know at their whole institution and they need to find a way to start a group without jeopardizing their safety. Some people may be senior faculty at a major academic institution and need to know if gender and sexuality issues are part of credentialing requirements. Many want to know how to convince their colleagues/Dean that LGBT health concerns are important enough to take up lecture time. Some people may have awesome LGBT curriculum at their schools (UofM in the house!) but want to know how to conduct a survey to see if there are new needs or how the programming is received. I could go on....

But I'll spare you all.

Point being: There is a HUGE spectrum of need in this arena. I'm so glad to be of service for all these folks. I ran out of business cards very early in the conference. But the good news is, like I said, this is still a hot issue and there are a lot of folks like me out there who know how to help other people problem solve on this very topic.

The conference ended with the Gala Banquet which we had on a vessel that traveled around the bay with a spectacular view of the nighttime skyline. I MC'ed the event with a longtime MC who, of course, sang a couple show tunes. When you get a queen, a spotlight, a piano, a microphone and a captive audience, the only outcome is a showtune (or two). Of course some of the crowd was not ga-ga for Sondheim, but everyone was good natured and after raising $90,000 for the GLMA and the Lesbian Health Fund over the weekend it all ended with a fun dance floor party.

It's sad that I only see some of these folks once a year but it's awesome that I even get to do that! It's also sad knowing that some of the students may never come back, maybe because they are on rotation and won't be able to make it, or maybe because the cost of membership and conference is too much, or maybe because the excitement will wear off and they'll forget what a great conference this was and what a great time they had. As a board member I think my new goal is to figure out what GLMA can do to help slow the attrition rate.

Next post: News on the Cat, the Car and the fabulousness of the Sci-Fi Museum. Maybe.

You want an update? I got your update right here.

UPDATE: Reunion
Quickie update on being able to go to my 10 year college reunion. Remember my 23 steps to get a vacation? Well it failed at step 10. I got a phone call from the pediatric rotation liaison where she called and said, "We all discussed this switch at length and after much deliberation we decided: pppffffttt!" (okay, not a direct quote, but that's what I heard).

So I tried another tactic. Instead of swapping the week I proposed swapping out the entire rotation. It was accepted! So now I'm at the point where I need to request the week off. Here's the updated to do list for just this step (step 15 is where we are if you remember the old list).

1. Find coverage for my colposcopy clinic - DONE
   
2. Find coverage for my AM and PM gynecology clinics - IN PROCESS
   
3. Find coverage for my obstetrical patients.- DONE
   
4. Find coverage for my patients that may be admitted to the hospital while I am gone.
   
5. Find coverage for my in-basket and mailbox and any patient calls or concerns while I am gone.
6. Get signatures on the request from each person covering all the above
7. Submit this signed request to the chief resident.
8. Then on to the scheduler for approval.
9. Then to the clinic director for approval.

So much more manageable than the last list, don't you think? (Photo is actually of New Haven, but close enough...)

UPDATE: Band
This swap will also give me the opportunity to play with my band during the marching season. Which I'm totally excited to do! I'm really really geeked about the band. In fact, I think everyone (including the homeless lady outside of Starbucks) is really tired of hearing about it. We have two Christmas shows. I am on call for one of them but am trying to swap the call. I get to play the horse whinny solo in Sleigh Ride so it's definitely worth extra effort to go!

The fall concert went swimmingly. I hear there's a CD of the performance, maybe a DVD - not entirely sure. I am still singing the songs we played. If something shows up on YouTube and isn't entirely embarrassing I will definitely post it here. The turnout was great - a few hundred from what I hear? I played horrifically out of tune for the very first portion of Thriller and was inspired to improve in my tuning and pitch. It will be really helpful for the ballad-y holiday pieces we are playing like Imagine. So I bought a KORG tuner. An awesome invention and totally fun and I will probably talk about it more another time.

UPDATE: Sive's health
For those who don't know, Sive has been having a bit of a peeing issue. She had this issue a little after I first moved out here. Now it's back and it started looking a little more serious. She had gross hematuria at the vets office and even passed some clot (that's medical talk for peeing blood and blood clots). We had an X-Ray done which was a little ambiguous and some lab studies. So about $500 later and after a specialist read of the X-Ray we still aren't sure. It doesn't look like frank stones, no evidence of obstruction, no massive tumors. Her bladder had some sludge in it and her urine culture is still cooking. So we'll see what bugs grow as it is likely she may have an infection as well. (Sive watching TV)

UPDATE: What am I doing right now?
Right now I am at the GLMA national conference. I serve on the Board of Directors and presented again this year on LGBTI curricular change and integration. What's amazing that this is still a very hot topic. It's great to think how far UofM came in just my four years there. So many schools are trying to go through the same changes and its an honor to serve as a resource for all these medical, nursing, naturopathic, social work, PA and other students, residents and faculty. Blah blah blah education blah blah advocacy and all this stuff that is really awesome and I've been talking about this whole weekend...

So now for a snippet of the pure fun that was Friday night out at Seattle Trannyshack (filmed by the iPhone of the guy standing next to me). Strung out Judy Garland and some stage diving below:

I wish I had a video of Ben de la Creme - the BEST performer - a robot strip dance with light-up body parts... excellent performance art. And she's a local drag queen so maybe I'll get another chance to see her!

Weekend on Whidby

The weekend I spent on Whidbey Island with my father was fabulous. I was thankfully able to swap out my weekend of back-up to have the freedom to roam off of TFM boundaries. I even turned my pager off. Our ferry landed in Clinton, we stayed both nights in Langley and also visited Useless Bay and Coupeville.

As my Dad put it, we "ate our way though Whibey Island". The highlights of the weekend were:
1. The Food - Penn Cove Mussels in Penn Cove, the most incredible chocolate mousse in a a chocolate tulip (pictured), the most amazing caramelized kettle corn from the farmers market and a tasty salmon omelet breakfast are just a few highlights.

2. The Digs - A gorgeous two story beachside residence with a to-die-for panoramic view of the water. Warm, cozy, with a gas fireplace and flat screen TV. Luxurious down comforters and a pile of pillows I could get lost in.

3. The sunrises. See picture, taken from our window.

4. The beaches. Each with their own smooth volcanic skipping stones, bleached driftwood, washed up jelly fish, views of cliffs, mountains.

And there was so much more... It was peaceful and restful. The weather was cooperative all day Saturday (though certainly brisk - great hot chocolate weather). The place we stayed in Langley was called the Boatyard Inn. Check it out.

We rounded off the weekend with a nice dinner with the Seattle cousins and then it was back to work on Monday for me. Amazingly I was able to have some breakfast with Dad before he head off on Tuesday morning and we had the BEST Tacoma breakfast ever at Southern Kitchen. Definitely a place I'll have to return to. The fried catfish breakfast looked incredible but I had to have the cornmeal pancakes. I won't even get started on their famous beverages. Click on the link above for a great review.

As when family usually visits I had a bit of a low afterwards. Thankfully I had band practice and Shilo planned Tuesday and Wednesday respectively. A difficult call on Thursday (thanks to our new live in-patient electronic medical records) and a busy workday today rounded up the week and here I am back in action. I have my concert tomorrow with the Rainbow City Band. I'm a little nervous. The woman sitting next to me in the trumpet section said that she thinks we sound the worst we have ever sounded at a dress rehearsal... but you know what they say about bad dress rehearsals, right? Of course I have invited everyone and their mother. A couple of my resident friends, Shilo's mom and my faculty advisor plan to be there if they can make it. Hopefully we won't suck too badly.

On a side note, today a clinic patient about 10 years older than me exclaimed as I was introduced: "A doctor! But she's a kid!" I'm flattered that to some people I look half my age, but it gets tiresome. Maybe I should spend more time in the sun and get more wrinkles, of course skin cancer isn't fun either. I actually had one patient say to me "You don't look old enough to be qualified to be a doctor!" Qualified? Even Doogie was qualified. Hm. I should start thinking of ways this may work to my advantage... maybe people will sue me less than other doctors because they think I'm so young?

So I'll leave this lengthy post with that last reflection and this hilarious pictures of cat "costumes" Pet Smart tried to market to me.