A Letter to ‘Surfers

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From Brittany:

I have occasionally been reading ur posts since confirming ur friend request.

I must say I have never heard of ur site or blog before; nevertheless, my intrigue increases daily. Furthermore, I realized that u were located in Texas.

I recently relocated to OKC and am blindly making my way in the private perfusion world.

Anyways, I am very interested in knowing how and why u started ur blog? Also, how long have u been in perfusion and do u work for a university or private group?

Sorry for the series of questions, but just interested. I truly enjoy ur site, keep up the great perfusion coverage!!!

Brittany

Hey Britt …

First of all, thanks for the kind letter. It’s always nice to hear good stuff, (it’s better than the alternative), and it helps me think that maybe this nut is finally going to crack.

The hard exterior wall- of the perfusion community.

We are all so “on it” with our professional lives, sometimes we forget to be the people we started out as. Kindness and empathy are the basic essential ingredients, but taking that even further- the desire and ability to listen to each other- well that is huge…

And that was a defining factor, observed by others, of our character when we we interviewed for a slot in a perfusion class, for whatever program, somewhere, whenever. Our ability to listen and take input from others.

🙂

In answer to your 1st Question- as to why I started this blog?

It was actually a surprise to me that had been a long time in the simmering, but when it came to a boil, happened fairly quickly.

I had spent some time as the Editor for Perfusion Life (AMSECT Today), had started a couple of programs as a chief (which I pretty much sucked at– good perfusionist- inept with politics), I did the AMSECT committee thing (Ethics and Nominating), and did the database development thing.

I like the data side of perfusion- or more significantly- the relationship between perfusionists, new media technology, and spreadsheets. So I set out to develop the most robust data collection tool I could possibly deliver. 3 Years later, it had sucked a lot of time away from my family, my developing daughter, and if the truth be said, had taken me a step backward.

But I had a Database… ENDPOINT- Filemaker Pro driven, and ultimately an expression of a need within myself to be absolutely perfect., and cover all the bases.

Well that particular road tends to be barren (the road to perfection) and eventually I kept on with my career as a staff and/or Locums perfusionist.

Two things were very clear to me:

I loved Perfusion

And I needed to do more

I wasn’t willing to abandon my family again for some sort of new and improved database, so I decided that the body of work that I had collected was worth at least something- if nothing else- a personal record of LIFE in the profession.

I looked at what we had available to us:

Basically nothing. An old engine masquerading as a vibrant community of engaged perfusion souls (not).

A forum for discussion that had been abandoned by many just because of the coarse nature with which free thinking or independent thought was responded to.

A dot com site- that does what dot com sites do: make money.

So in the middle of the night, a year ago, I decided to write in the way I knew best. Short pieces with a philosophical / Lay person twist, some basic resource stuff, but my primary focus was to talk about us- our lives- our fears- our successes.

I also enjoyed photography and editing graphics. In my opinion, a good picture lends a flavor to an article like salt on pork. I figured that at least if people didn’t like what position I was taking- on whatever I was writing about, at least a few good pictures might be fun. 🙂

I wasn’t going to go 90 miles an hour proving I was the smartest thing that ever hit perfusion.

There are plenty of beat downs waiting to happen when you follow that road.

I just kind of figured that MOST of us are pretty real, and obviously have the same goals and basic skill sets. So why bother with the intellectual BS?

To sum it up- I had two choices for names for the blog.

ECCLog or Circuit Surfers.

I opted for the one that sounded fun… And had the bigger risk of raising some skeptical eyebrows. I mean “Circuit Surfers” REALLY?

Well at least it’s not a name that people forget- nor raises visions of Einstein 🙂

It’s a name that suggests the relationship you have to have to challenge a monster wave and compare it to the bold moves you may need to make, in order to survive unanticipated twists on bypass.

Both take experience and trust in yourself.