Helplessness

First post with some substance in a while, and it's gonna be a heavy one about work. I'll try not to divulge too much in the interest of not being too specific about the patient's case but I'll try not to be vague-city either.

I'm working with the ICU team right now so I help deal with calls from other units when their patients are in trouble. There was a guy we were called about last week who wasn't really responding to anything. At first I think the nurses just thought he was having a deep sleep but over time it became clear he wasn't responding to anything. He was generally high functioning and independent before coming to hospital for a totally unrelated issue. A young grandfather and a husband. I met his family. For the better part of an hour or two we really had no idea what was going on. He had a huge work-up done yesterday for a similar issue and nothing came back remarkable. Labs so far showed nothing either. Besides him being essentially comatose (GCS ~4), he was otherwise stable. I actually had to leave in the middle of transferring him to ICU to go to clinic in the afternoon.

Later that evening I decided to look up the CT of his head because I had an inkling he had something neurological going on. He had a massive intracranial bleed with midline shift and herniation. I was floored. I don't think I've been shocked about a test result for a patient in a long time. He had imaging the day before which was pristine and overnight for no reason he bleeds.

It made me think that despite all the training we get, the hours we put in, as much as we label ourselves "experts", when something like this happens to somebody, we're completely helpless to do anything. There was nothing that was significant in his history that could have caused it, nor could it have been prevented. In a profession where we are constantly searching for answers or remedies to ailments, mother nature pulled a fast one on us where all we could do is look and not have an answer.

On the Zimmerman trial

I don't normally comment on that many current events on this type of forum but I felt compelled with this particular case. The reason is that it illustrates to me the difference between what is 'general knowledge' in the public and a further, deeper understanding of the story behind the title.

The Zimmerman trial just wrapped up yesterday with the well-known acquittal. Not surprisingly, it resulted in an immense amount of outrage among those that saw it turn into a symbolic battle of racism and civil rights in the US. As a superficial follower at that time who really didn't know much about the case, it seemed odd to me that this guy who shot this unarmed teenager got away with no sentence at all. So I read deeper...

The defence's case had a number of flaws, as outlined in this New York Times article...

1. The only witness (Ms. Jeantel) of the incident had her credibility torn apart by inconsistent testimony
2. Outside of Ms. Jeantel, nobody else witnessed the actual altercation clearly. Yes, Zimmerman was following Trayvon Martin, seemingly on a vendetta, but did Martin lunge at Zimmernan first? There's some reasonable doubt there. 
3. Florida's self-defence laws when it comes to trespassing are terrible, at best. From the same NYT article: 

The laws allow someone with a reasonable fear of great bodily harm or death to use lethal force, even if retreating from danger is an option. In court, the gunman is given the benefit of the doubt.

As a result, it's not really a surprise the jury could not come to a "guilty" verdict. What that requires is they have to have evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that manslaughter or second-degree murder was committed. Was Zimmerman out to prove a lesson? Probably. He pursued the teenager against the police's instructions not to do so. Was he profiling Trayvon Martin? Probably. However, was there reasonable doubt surrounding the sequence of events and in the context of Florida self-defence law?

Unfortunately, yes.

Friday night music: some "hip hop jazz", versatile dream pop, and new but 'classic' JT

Hey folks, I know it's been a while but I've got a few gems for you.

The first band, who hails from Toronto, is, as Wikipedia puts it, "an instrumental hip hop jazz" group. That last sentence had a lot of commas. Anyways I heard them on the radio the other day on my drive to work and a quick Shazam later I find out who they are and am currently digging their stuff on bandcamp. They're called BADBADNOTGOOD, and in a way I wonder if it refers to their skills at using they keyboard because they clearly don't know how to turn off caps lock.
In some respects they remind me of the late J Dilla and of course they have that jazz element to them that I like. Of course I'm a fan of both of the aforementioned so it's not a surprise I'm currently trying to decide which album of theirs to buy first.



The second band I wanted to talk to today I actually heard from Aaron Paul, of Breaking Bad fame. They're a duo from the Big Apple who actually cut through a couple genres. Sky Barbarick's vocals fit the dream pop mold pretty well, but the accompanying instrumentals vary from a single guitar and percussion to a more electronic vibe that fits better in one of those downtown lounges. Either way, they sound great, especially for those clear summer nights when you're up late just chilling and chatting with friends over some drinks. Have a listen.




Lastly, JT is out with a new single from his 2nd part of his 20/20 Experience album... because having the highest selling album of the year so far wasn't enough. Some vintage JT here... that's what I like.