The first update for 2004 - sit down, get a coffee and listen to me bitch!
The Bridle Track photography and track review has had a few more photos added to it.
Check out Hill End and back via the Bridle Track.
North Sydney in the late afternoon sun with whats left of Luna Park in the foreground.
Image specs:
Camera: Canon EOS 10d, Lens: 35 - 80mm Canon
Shooting mode: Manual, Shutter speed: 1/125, Aperture: 11, Focal length: 68mm, ISO: 100, camera mounted on tripod.
For months now all I hear on the news is health system this, health system that - patients die due to lack of beds or inadequate treatment. Day in and day out I witness the lack of diagnostic and treatment skills by our so called "doctors". For those of you that dont know, I work as a radiographer, my work involves alot of diagnostic and interventional treatment of patients, so I get to see them when they come in through emergency, while they are in the wards and alot of the time when they return for more xrays after their stay in hospital.
So whats my problem? Every day I come across "doctors" who think they are the ants pants and own the world, from the orthopaedic surgeon who thinks he is Gods gift to the emergency intern who has no idea about what is going on but will still swear blindly that he has it covered.
Here are a couple of examples of incompetance that have happened over the last few weeks:
Firstly a baby swallows a safety pin, I take the xray and it seems to be closed which would mean there is no danger of perforation of the babys bowel. Thinking this doesnt look right I take another xray at a different angle which shows that the safety pin is actually open. I rush over to emergency to let the "doctors" know what is happening, after searching for 10 minutes I give up on finding the refering "doctor" (mind you its a small emergency dept) so I walk over to the most senior "doctor" who is rostered on this particular evening and show him the xray. Dumbfounded he looks over at another doctor and says "hmm this looks like an interesting case", a few other doctors overhear and walk over to have a look. What happened next shocked me, the senior doctor didnt know what to do, who should he call, "the surgical reg wont want to be called in for this" was what he said. This 8 month old baby has swollowed a safety pin and has a huge risk of perforating its bowel and these guys dont know what to do. I shook my head and walked off. An hour later the baby was taken to the childrens hospital.
Second example is a young lady comes in with a swollown hand from a fall, the emergency "doctor" who in all his/her skill and super long 4 years of study decides to be technical in the request form and wants an xray of the patients left metatarsals. For those of you who arent familiar with medical terminology the metatarsals are also known as the bones of the foot - yet this patient a swollen left hand - so now I have established that emergency doctors dont know what to do when babys swollow needles and they dont know thier anatomy, isnt that a confidence booster!
Finally, an elderly lady who is very unwell comes to the xray department 4 times within the hour for firstly an xray of her chest and ribs, secondly for an xray of her right shoulder, thirdly for an xray of her right elbow and finally for an xray of her right wrist. All this to work out she has a fractured right wrist - the doctor was so stupid that he couldnt see the disfigurment in this patients wrist and had to narrow things down by sending the patient down a few times to get her arm xrayed. Imagine you were the patient and every time you get comfortable back in the ward the incompetant doctor who is looking after you sends you to xray to get moved around and put through more discomfort 4 times over. The scary aspect of this is that the doctor was one of the senior doctors in that particular ward.
Everyday I xray people who dont need to have an xray, doctors forget that xrays are radiation and what we want to do is minimise radiation dose, I am sure if a doctor had a sore knee but had suffered no trauma to it or was not of the age where degeneration of that knee was a common cause of pain he or she wouldnt xray it - do you know how hard it is to break/fracture a knee? Very difficult. I have xrayed patients abdomens in relation to angina, angina results in chest pain!
What can the government do? For starters we need doctors to have appropriate training, I am sure Bob Carr wouldnt let an intern canulate him if he rocked up to the emergency department with chest pain! There is a shortage of ancillary staff such as nurses and radiographers - why dont they give people incentive to get into these professions, I am sure if I got paid more I would care alot more and work alot harder, in the overall picture when I take an xray I am being the inside eyes for the doctor, without xrays 99% of the so called "doctors" wouldnt have a clue on how to diagnose a patient. If we looked at the overall picture of the "failing health system" in Sydney you will see that there is a small number of people at the top of the scale who get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to pretend they know what is going on, if they got of thier back sides and smelt the cheese they would see that its the people who are at the bottom who are making the place work - if they werent there the big shots at the top wouldnt be there either. We need better doctor training and better renumeration for the people who do the hard work.
Telstra to Sack 450 Software DevelopersThey have done it again, while everyone else is trying to buy Australian the teleco giant is going to sack 450 Aussies and get thier software developed in India. Why? Because its cheaper to pay someone $2.50 per hour in India than to pay $25 per hour to someone in Australia - no wonder the IT industry is falling to pieces and people cant get decent paying jobs in the industry.
I have always said this about the IT industry, there is no standard involved in it, you dont need a degree or some form of formal qualification to be an IT expert, all you need to do is say, you pay Mr X $20/hour, I will do the same job for $10/hour and you will have a job. If there were industry standards I am sure this wouldnt happen as people who are tertiary trained expect to get more $$ for thier work as in most instances it is better quality.
FinallyEnding on a good note - I did have a pretty good chrissy and new year, hope everyone else did aswell. I have been getting away as often as I can - I passionatly hate Sydney, so with this happening you can expect alot more photos. With a bit of luck the photography section will up and running soon.