A Locums’ ScrapBook: “You Doin’ Alright” vs “Yeah-Yeah-Yeah”

Editor’s Note:

To view the entire “Locum’s ScrapBook” series- click here

My life is Family First and then Perfusion.  I switched from staff perfusionist to becoming a Locum’s traveler to make sure my kids and family would have a solid place to call home.  I travel because it puts me in charge of my life, it is challenging, and I enjoy learning new techniques, other ways of doing things, as well as getting exposure to alternate approaches and paradigms.  

So I took my show on the road.  As such, every once in awhile I will be dropping a few notes and pictures of places visited, and observations made.  In a sense, the beginning of a scrap book on Open Heart Surgery in America (and other places if possible).”

Enjoy 🙂

Frank

I was having a conversation with one of our Physician Assistants at a hospital in Wisconsin, a place where I’m currently doing a Locum’s assignment, and while we were talking, Steve (yeah- he’s my buddy now) kept saying “yeah-yeah-yeah” as I was talking about something, making a comment, or interjecting.

Here in Wisconsin, I began to pick up that almost every-one uses some variation of either a quick delivery of two- “yeah-yeah’s”. or a longer staccato like “yeah-yeah-yeah’s”, depending on how vociferously they agree with you.  The longer (trails of yeah-yeah-yeah’s” and the quicker they are repeated = stronger or more passionate agreement to your position or POV.  At first I just thought it meant- “Ok- you made your point- get on with it” (implying they were either bored- or I was too pedantic) so I was kinduv bummed until I realized it was idiomatic and just the way people here express themselves.  They walk really fast here too.  And I’m not a slow walker although I will saunter now and then if I’m just relaxing and not in a hurry.  But most often, is a rapid pace of clicking heels you hear approaching from the rear, and you might as well move over to let them pass, cuz they will without any remorse or sympathy, pass you by and leave you in the dust.

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Comparing this to Texas, a place I was a staff perfusionist for 7ish years or so, is almost like night and day.  Having lived all over the US, but being raised in the Midwest, I have been exposed to a lot of cultural differences in vernacular and speech patterns.

So in contrast to Wisconsin, when I arrived in Lubbock, I would approach people people walking towards me down the hall, and they would always ask”You doin’ alright?”  It wasn’t really a question (although at first I kept wondering if I looked sick or physically  ill to them) rather a form of saying hello that required the same response, “yeah, I’m ok…  YOU doin’ alright?”.  Either way, no one would ever really say or admit that their day sucked, or they weren’t “doin’ alright”, but that’s how it was in Texas, and people walked about as fast as the drawl in “Y’All”.

I won’t even get into my immersion in Cali (California) where I definitely shocked a few of my instructors (as a student) with Southern California “surfer dude” colloquialisms gleaned from 6 years there in the Navy as well as my undergraduate education while living there.

Have an excellent Thursday 🙂

Frank Aprile