cutting one more tie to Hudson County

After a disproportionate amount of deliberation and hand-wringing -- this is me, after all -- I dumped the ER job this week. I have one last shift in the middle of this month.

It's been a long time coming. The solid, respectable lineup of managers that I originally reported to is gone. The hospital administration is outwardly hostile to the emergency department, and the institution itself appears to be in the process of slowly self-destructing. Not my fight; not my problem. I have other priorities, like hyperventilating about school.

I printed out the Teaching Across Cultures course outline today. I already have an idea how the project's going to look: I am going to enlist three of my Hispanic friends to be my "patients" for the videotaped teaching session, which will probably be about avoiding lower back injury. I am not above bribing them with food and alcohol at the venue of their choice. It's time to get the project in the pipeline, though.