California Dream'n
I've just returned from sunny sunny L.A. to dreary dreary St. Louis as of 9:30 last night, but other than the flurry of schoolwork and work to catch up on and the weather, I have no complaints. It's actually really great to be home.
We (Missy, my boss and I) left for the SHEA conference Saturday morning. As part of the Wash U. Infectious Disease department, we presented two abstracts on patient falls. That's right, I said patient falls. The research is where the money is, and this year our money came from a patient safety grant. It's all correlated in epidemiology anyway. There really isn't any difference in tracking rates if it's a fall versus any other hospital endemic.
The first thing I noticed when I arrived at the conference was the homogeneity of age and profession. Well over half of the SHEA members are physicians or ICPs (Infection Control Practioners) and the mean number of career years is well over 10, thus making pretty much everyone about 20 years older than me. That was quite intimidating.
I was very proud of the fact that Washington University was well represented in terms of research publications and the number of people who were familiar with much of our work. It was surprising (and nice) to be commended just simply for wearing a Wash U. name badge. Maybe someday I'll actually aspire to live up to its name.
For four days we essentially attended seminars regarding "hot topics" in hospital research, mostly about nosiocomial infections and anti-microbial resistance. I was in heaven. Finally, a place for nerds who love science to congregate.
I also had some non-work related experiences that were equally as exciting, such as visiting Santa Monica pier and seeing Danny Devito (yes, he really is very short) and Alicia Silverstone shooting a scene from a movie. Everyone walked on by like it was no big deal, but Missy and I were absolutely star-struck. We practiced some self-restraint in that we didn't climb over people to get a picture of them, but we were mesmerized for quite awhile. In fact, everyone in our group saw someone famous over the course of the weekend, including Jon Lovitz and Jay Leno. L.A. runs rampant with famous faces; I think it's probably hard to avoid them.
We also overcame our egos and did the "touristy" things such as visiting Mann's chinese theatre to see the stars' imprints out front, as well as visiting Rodeo drive. The running joke throughout the trip was that this was really just a chance to stalk Matthew McConaughey, that dreamboat of an actor, especially after I had found out that he had once been in the hotel that we stayed at (multiple pictures were taken).
Initially I thought there might be some awkwardness on this trip, but it turned out that a friendship really grew out of it, as Missy and I are one the same wavelength in terms of humor. It was impossible not to laugh when we were on Muscle Beach and a very muscle-bound gymnast tried to show us how to use the rings. He handed us what appeared to be crack-cocaine in a ziplock bag, saying it would "help", he promised (he claimed it was chalk). But who is that excited about swinging from a set of metal rings all day? Not to mention the fits of giddiness during the long seminar sessions, inducing us to make up names for people, such as mean yamaka guy, phantom swimmer, and of course, crackhead gymnast guy.
On Monday we finally presented our abstract and poster, and it went quite well. But, I'm an optimist, so as long as there was no bloodshed or tears involved, I call that a victory.
After four pretty long days, I conflude that L.A. was fantastic, but St. Louis is more fantastic. It's nice to come home to a place where (for the most part) body parts are real and un-airbrushed, and we can be plain old Midwesterners without excuse or want of something more.
posted by Sheila @ 4/13/2005 09:54:00 AM
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