Teammates, for life. April 15, 2022.
Rooting for Wordle
It’s so refreshing that the latest viral phenomenon is Wordle, a homegrown internet minigame about guessing words.
No one can really predict the virality (virulence?) of a concept, but Wordle sure has the makings for uncontrolled community spread. It’s a well-structured minigame. It’s simple to understand and play, its only prerequisites being English literacy and an internet browser. It comes in digestible daily chunks for periodic and anticipated engagement. It has balanced difficulty: 4 letters could be difficult to localize but 6 letters may enable too much variation; and 6 guesses allows enough space but applies tangible stakes. Its instantly recognizable green emoji sharing format with the gray, yellow, and green boxes is the perfect infectious vector. And, of course, it’s free without ads.
Katie and I play too. We solve crosswords weekly, and this Wordle craze is like the spiritual successor to our NYT Spelling Bee phase last year. It’s often my last activity before bedtime. We got started three weeks ago: “Have you heard about Wordle?” Katie had said. “Everyone at the office is talking about it.” A floor at a major bank abuzz about the hot topic of an internet minigame? How marvelous!
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Radiology Workflow Shortcuts
Modern radiology practice is one of high-volume, high-precision visual inspection. Our moment-to-moment visual attention is our singularly essential sensory resource, and we should design our workflow to conserve it. Visual distractions, no matter how brief, should be minimized. Push notifications, invocations of popup menus, glances down at the keyboard, saccades up to a toolbar, and even visually localizing the text cursor in a report all should be avoided.
Example: we have to switch our primary click tool constantly, say from a selection cursor to a 3D-localizing homing tool. I’ve witnessed one of our venerable attendings accomplish this by the following: right click to invoke the tool palette, pause, mouse toward the tool palette expansion command, click, pause, mouse toward the 3D localizer tool, click, mouse toward the X button to close the tool palette, click; then left click to actually use the 3D localizer; and then once again right click, pause, click on the default tool, then click on the X. A tedious and distracting six-second side quest that could be executed with keyboard shortcuts in a near-instantaneous sequence of keystroke, click, keystroke.
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Podcast Roundup
Here’s a roundup of the podcasts to which I’m subscribed. These shows comprise the media that I consume regularly as I don’t watch television. They tend to be educational, scripted, high production-value shows with only a few unscripted interviews sprinkled in. I listen while commuting, running, or cooking. Most shows I play at 1.5x speed on Apple Podcasts, but the music-related episodes I play in real time.
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2021 in Retrospect
Coronavirus, year 2. We’re ending on a sour note, in contrast to the burgeoning promise from last year’s end. I got my first Moderna vaccine dose on 12/31/20 and with it the hope we’d never see a crushing spike in cases again. Depressing that this is the new normal, huh? That this blasted virus can roll around and just ruin plans over and over again. I especially feel for my emergency medicine, internal medicine, and family medicine colleagues who continue to bear the burden of the pandemic on behalf of all of us. Not just in the realm of the hospital, but on behalf of the country as a whole. Thanks, guys.
All right, here’s my annual habit of public reflections. Not much to say.
Radiology
Firstly, I officially declare my radiology class the best class.
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Hawaii Trip
Katie and I spent our two-week vacation in Hawaii. It’s a popular in-country destination now, but I had no issue joining the bandwagon. We stayed for four days in Oahu, four in Maui, and six in Kauai. Some highlights:
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Tiny Desk Moments
NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts are spectacular. They’re a YouTube series of small-scale, exquisitely produced sets from the NPR music office in Washington DC which focuses mostly on quirky indie rock. In its long run since 2008, Tiny Desk has hosted a deep roster of musicians, both small and big names, and the intimate setting facilitates unique takes often lost in hyper-refined studio album versions or live stadium sets.
Tiny Desk has broadened my horizon of music, far beyond the comparatively staid classical music from my childhood. I’ve hardly listened to them all (they’re thrice weekly now), but let me tell you about five memorable moments:
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The Toll of Radiology Nights
Radiology night shifts are a frenzy. Maddenly, absurdly difficult. An older internal medicine doctor once asked me “oh, do you get to sleep during your call shifts?” and I scoffed. Sleep?! We hardly have time to go to the bathroom!
Labeling radiology nights as “call” is misleading, suggesting that we only spring into action when some rare clinical circumstance occurs (like checking if a baby’s bowel is twisting itself off). “Night float” gets closer, implying a skeleton night crew takes over to cover overnight emergency issues (like if a patient in the scanner requires special attention). I mean, we do those things too, but the commodity of modern radiology is incorporated real-time into many diagnostic workups, so we’re basically ALWAYS needed.
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