Silversea Water Cooler: Part 3, Welcome!

 

Being on call and getting called while in company used to make me shrivel with embarrassment even though the company I was in would know I was on call.

I hear you. I hate trying to meet up with friends while on-call. It puts me in the impossible situation of having to keep an eye on the phone, yet feeling horribly rude while doing so. It's enough to make me not want to do anything else while on-call...but that is crummy too. Why should I sit home for a week at a time?

Terry, IMO the best reason to upgrade is the camera quality. I'm in awe of the photo quality on the new(ish) Galaxy S7. For some trips, I don't even bother with a camera.

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Terry, IMO the best reason to upgrade is the camera quality. I'm in awe of the photo quality on the new(ish) Galaxy S7. For some trips, I don't even bother with a camera.

YES! YES!! Appreciate J.P.'s excellent follow-up on the so much better phone cameras that Samsung and iPhone have been offering in recent years. Personally, I am not ready or willing to give up my Nikon SLR. BUT, many have done that. With good, legitimate reason. The photo quality provided by these smart phones can be amazing. Great point that I missed. Other reactions and perspectives?

THANKS! Enjoy! Terry in Ohio

Panama Canal? Completed Feb. 28-Mar. 15, 2017, Fort Lauderdale to San Francisco adventure through the Panama Canal with our first stops in Colombia, Central America and Mexico, plus added time in the great Golden Gate City. Lots of fun pictures!! Those pictures start on the second page, post #26. See more at:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2465580

I hear you. I hate trying to meet up with friends while on-call. It puts me in the impossible situation of having to keep an eye on the phone, yet feeling horribly rude while doing so. It's enough to make me not want to do anything else while on-call...but that is crummy too. Why should I sit home for a week at a time?

 

I'm old enough that when I did on calls in junior days that meant literally being on the end of a landline - usually, especially on weekends, it was easier just to stay in the department.

Then along came pagers which always seemed to demand my attention when equidistant from the nearest telephones. And the seconds it took to find a phone seemed to stretch to hours. It was really annoying when the call went something like - ''just to let you know that Mrs X has asked for meal/drink/biscuit etc but you have her down as nil-by-mouth until she's seen again. But she's recovered from the anaesthetic so can we give her a drink?'' ''No. Go away!''

I retired 10 years ago but by then I'd been on a mobile for a decade or so and, my goodness, was that liberating. The only downside, I felt, was the temptation to do telephone consultations which I'm pleased to say I always resisted unless the question was plain stupid. One of my pet peeves, phone consultations - maybe I'm old-fashioned but to me there's no way to give an opinion without having the real live person at your fingertips!

TTS,

I understand your reticence for telephone cosultations but I find them liberating and given the right circumstances much prefer them. I guess as a doctor you can stay in a consultation room and your patients come to you so it isn't much of an inconvenience. But the other side is travelling some distance and waiting for your appointment in an enclosed waiting room with no windows open and half the people are coughing and sneezing and there's always kids screaming and running around for what is often a few moments that could be done on the phone. My GP not only has ten minute ppointments but now 5 and you have to be really careful what jas been booked for you. He is extremely helpful and everything is wonderfull during quality reviews but everything dries up immediately after. Many years ago they abandoned taking blood and sending them off so routine blood checks involves another journey and queuing up for what is sometimes two hours in a small hospital. However when doctors are paid for certain checks it sometimes feels more like that is the motivation and patients are treated like a crop to harvest. I know a couple of the nurses in the center we use and one of them was complaining that the husband and wife team that run the practice earn £500k between them

And then if you need more thorough series of checks in a hospital, can they organise them all on the same day? Of course not.

What I don't understand is if in a small rown there are say four or five medium GP practices, why can't they all centralise at our local hospital so that everything is under one roof and a 24 hour service could be provided at a much less cost than managing say five centers? That would also ease A+E considersbly because they could instantly refer all those that don't need A+E to the inhouse GP service.

My whole experience of the NHS over the last few years leaves me with the very clear feeling that it doesn't see the patient as the reason why it exists and I feel quite vulnerable in that it seems more like a lottery than certsinty about the quality of care and treatment. I mean no disrespect to individuals, and I accept that my experience might be atypical, but it remains what I strongly feel.

TTS,

 

I understand your reticence for telephone consultations but I find them liberating...

Depends a lot on the nature of the consultation. In my case, as a surgeon, it is all but impossible to give any meaningful advice without having the patient to hand. Most particularly with maxillo-facial trauma and its consequences - even video-consults can't replace one's own hands and eyes. Given that the GP is often dealing with repeats, trivia, malingering (it's a huge problem) and so forth I can see the attraction of phone medicine. But when you look at it from the practitioner's view you would see that enough patients are unreliable in their history that, certainly for anything that is in the least diagnostic, you need them in front of you.

I'm not getting into the NHS thing since I never had the misfortune to work for it (other than a bit of moonlighting in the early days). But I agree that it would undoubtedly be more efficient without the interference of all these sick people clogging it up.

What I do find I struggle with is that the whole of the UK's public health services are overseen by politicians who have no medical background and are motivated to a greater or lesser extent by political expediency. Yes, they have specialist advisors, of course, but the big decisions seem to be based on politics as much as need.

Thanks TTS, yes, as you were/are a surgeon and anything other than a face to face consultation isn't practical.

I don't know how long you're memory is, but you may recall me mentioning when he passed away recently that I use to work for Sir Len Peach before he was "lent" to the NHS on a short term loan, and much to everyone's shock and surprise he was promptly promoted to run the NHS for a while and during the period we kept in touch and he'd sometimes return for the odd lunch the plan being thta he would return properly to the fold

I think that it is now an organisation that no one could manage and fundamentally improve. It seems the challenges seem insurmountable and all you can do is make small changes. He tried to bring in business processes like reviews and appraisals and MBO etc rather than overly simplistic targets but I think he was eventually overwhelmed by resistance.

I often wonder if the NHS hasn't outgrown itself in the sense that we are applying 1947 ideology to 21st century problems. As for artificial targets, I can see the attraction to anyone used to producing widgets but some of the box-ticking that is expected is just plain daft. I defy anyone to measure mathematically the efficiency and output of a Maxillo-facial surgery department in, say, Cardiff with a similar unit in Oxford or Belfast or Glasgow - yet targets pay little attention to regional, socio-economic, geographic or other variations. It's just too big. (Iknow that NI, Scotland and Wales have some autonomy in their distribution of services but the core principles remain.)

Hi from rainy Florida:eek:.......

Well, counting down for the cruise..........2 more weekends home:D....anyone else countdown that way?...LOL

I fly out on Sunday, August 6th..........

Hello Lois from Tennessee:D

Yes, we are also counting down. We fly out 2 weeks from this Thursday for 4 nights in Venice prior to boarding the Muse on the 8th for 12 nights to Monte Carlo. Got all documents; beginning to pack and getting excited.;p

Hope we both have a great cruise.

Hi Ernie:).....oh I agree, hope we both have fantastic times! This is my first Silversea cruise:D

Good morning Coolers .... Lamb Methi Curry today from the Pot and Pilau from the Zoji.

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Greetings Coolers!

OOOOOH! Another creation from the Pot! Looks yummy J!

Excitement building for lucky Coolers with upcoming cruises! Enjoy and savour the anticipation!

Have a great day all!

Yum. It's kedgeree for us tonight.

Jane

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Hi All,

Just stoking a request for extremely urgent help from Reprieve .. .... which is self explanatory .. so far just under 20,000 has signed and each signature helps as public opinion seems to matter almost more than anything.

14 people that were sentenced to death for protest-related offences in Saudi Arabia have been prepared for execution and could be beheaded at any moment. 18,000 people have already signed our petition, and there are signs international pressure may be working. Can you add your name to the campaign and help keep up the momentum against these appalling executions?

 

Sign the Petition https://act.reprieve.org.uk/SaudiProtestExecutions

 

Among those facing execution are Munir Al-Adam and Mujtaba al-Sweikat. Munir was born with impaired sight and hearing. In their efforts to extract a "confession" from him, Munir's captors tortured him so badly that he was rendered completely deaf in one ear.

 

Mujtaba was just 17 when arrested at the airport on his way to take up a place at Western Michigan University in the US. He was burnt with cigarettes and tortured so savagely that his shoulder was broken. He was denied medical care and sentenced to die on the basis of a forced "confession".

 

The world must tell the new Saudi Prince that these executions are unacceptable and cannot be allowed to go ahead.

 

Sign the Petition https://act.reprieve.org.uk/SaudiProtestExecutions

 

If these upcoming executions go ahead, it will be in grave violation of international law. Those set to be beheaded were sentenced to death for standing up for issues we all care about - now it's our turn to stand up for them.

 

Thank you for your support,

 

Maya Foa

Director

Reprieve

 

Thanks.

Done.

Penny

Thanks Penny.

Sea bream .....

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Lovely fish nestled amidst the sea of peasssssss

Some photos from our recent trip to Vermont to leave Bromley in her final resting place.

DD named her after Bromley Mountain and one of the cabins she was in at her childhood camp in Vermont.

We visited the camp and pretty much nothing has changed.

We also scattered Brommie's ashes mid mountain at Mt. Bromley.

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Spins, thanks for sharing your memories of Bromley. Reminds me of my attachment to "Cholita" in my childhood. If I understand correctly, you and Mysty (or is it Shots?) will be enjoying a cruise sometime this month. Safe travels and happy sailing!

Jeff, as usual, your food pictures are a feast for my eyes.

Cam

Thanks, wish we were off soon but we are not going until the end of September.

Our trip was bittersweet for sure.

This also was my first experience with Airbnb. One of the places we stayed in Londonderry was just delightful. A cottage that has been totally redone and so much charm!

The next place was in Branford Connecticut and was a nightmare. The host was scary and the place was scary. Exposed wiring in the bathroom, dust everywhere and clearly cats had used the furniture for a litter box. She left us milk in the mini fridge which was sour, sent up a tray of muffins on a tray covered in crumbs and a used toothpick.

Fortunately there were 17 windows that opened and a cross breeze and the cats hadn't been on the bed. Nevertheless I reported the host to Airbnb. We didn't spend much time in the room and had we an option would have gone elsewhere. The takeaway lesson here was that the host got rave reviews on Airbnb! I don't understand how.

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Spins....what a beautiful place for Bromley to rest...your pics are so lovely....what a bummer on the second location...sounds a bit like a Hitchcock set!

I still have my beloved T Bone here in his wee casket and have been thinking about laying him in my garden now and planting a bush or similar as l know I'll not be moving from here.

Cruise time is just nine weeks away....so the countdown is on!!

Jeff, that fish looks so delish....just how l like it...plaice and Dover sole is my favourite.

It's been a busy week in the garden of 'weedin' but finally coming to the end now.

Happy Day 😊

Sophia

The Hitchcock analogy isn't far from the truth...

:-)

Greetings Coolers!

Lovely photos of your sojourn Spins. It looks like an idyllic place to lie for your beloved Bromley. Nasty experience with the second Airbnb! The trouble with ratings on those sites is that there is no verification that the rater actually stayed there.

Cam....we have to plans to sail in the near future. Unfortunately! Maybe you're thinking of Miss S? I think she sails in September.

Have a great day all!