The Genesis of a BLOG

Across the Water Becomes a Man …

Welcome to Circuit Surfers!

When I got into the field of Perfusion, the newest technology was the membrane oxygenator (The Maxima from Medtronic) and a new voice mail system put into place by the founder of a tremendous perfusion group called PSICOR.

90 T’s (Datascope Balloon Pumps) were pretty cool, CPS was an exotic adventure to hell and back, and VAD’s were legendary if you actually had a patient on one.

The dynamics of technological growth mixed in with the heady feeling one gets when realizing that you (and that means all of us) had just dipped your feet into a pond with a water fall attached to it- and the rush that that implies.

Mike Dunnaway had a vision- and he went pretty far with it.  Others have followed and broadened the scope of things.

This was the beginning of data collection, when anything that had a serial number or some sort of coded identifier was logged and check marked.  The dreaded Checklist had emerged as the primate champion of quality assurance.  (oh BTW- the cool thing about this blog- is that if it’s underlined… it’s a link.  Check it out)

Perfusion Records

and the structure of them dominated corporate meetings.  How many things could we measure?  There were few things about the patient that escaped scrutiny and subsequent documentation.  If it moved or was attached- it became a number that translated to a scribble on some sort of chart- got extrapolated to an  EXCEL bar chart, and then was let out to breathe at the next major meeting- popped up as the little bother PowerPoint presentation on a big white screen in some very expensive hotel conference meeting room.

Oh yes…  The Checklist 🙂

What did the Checklist do?

• It checked you out.
• It made sure that if you weren’t sure- it was going to let you know that.  Then you could do something about it.
• Many were the times, that I breathed a sigh of relief after signing off on that particular monster.  The hill had been climbed- and it was all down hill from here… NOT.
• The case still needed to be pumped.

The Cell Phone

The next major seismic event was the advent of the cellular phone.  Talk about a major league upgrade for anybody cool enough to have one!

Of course technology trickles down.  Eventually the have-nots (staff ccp’s) got their own phones and beyond that, went on a bender and started buying computers.

That was in a time when owning a computer meant you were probably a rocket scientist, or closely related to one.  Those monolithic beasts resting on your desk implied serious street cred and suggested an underlying supremacy of raw intelligence.  Basically a smoke and mirrors game.  We weren’t that smart-

The Personal Computer (PC)

I had one, so yeah, I guess I was in the game.  Now I could start making my own checklists, and designing newer and shinier pump records.

And there were battles to be had.  The question of who could design the better IABP record is still unanswered and yet to be settled.

But anyway the question is – Why a Blog?

Why something that sounds so odd?  Pajamas in the basement in your parents home is the usual image that is painted.  But it’s really only a 4 letter metaphor-  and just that- a misconception.

The reply should be:  WHY NOT A BLOG ?

Here is what you get…

• An Internet presence…
• A voice…
• No Time delays…
  
• Interaction …
• Instant Communication (if you want it)…
• A place to vent…
• A Library of experience from your peers…
• A home of sorts..
  
• I suppose that’s how it goes 🙂
• Honestly ?  Why wouldn’t you want to be a part of it?
• No different really from the  chatter we engage in as we get our ice.