From Lord of the Rings: “Not all who wander are lost.”

From the Old Kingdom Series: “Does the walker choose the path, or does the path choose the walker?”

Pro tip: if there’s an Aldi near you, get the Benton’s sandwich creme cookies. They’re so much better than Oreos and way cheaper.

Other people have given me a hard time for using that as the metric for when they’re done. It’s not my fault they interpret it as me drowning the cookie.

If they are very lean, yeah, it can be a problem. Having a bit of adipose to absorb some of the formaldehyde and retain some moisture helps to keep the tissues from drying out. Once the body tissues dry out, they’re basically mummified and dissecting them would be about as useful and easy as dissecting jerky.

I’ve worked in ERs where on a really busy night patients with chest pain and a cardiac history that came in by ambulance went out to the lobby because their EKG was mostly okay and literally the only room open was the resuscitation bay. We kept checking on him in the lobby and did repeat EKGs until a room was available, but if there’s not space and they’re not dying, they’ll just have to wait.

American ambulances are usually an EMT and a Paramedic that can start some pretty advanced care en route. Paramedics can intubate, defibrillate, and give medications on their own authority or with clearance from the EMS medical director.

I have also worked at a Level 1 Trauma hospital, and I think it depends on the distance from the hospital and the degree of specialty care needed. Also, since Covid, there have been more and more staffing and capacity problems in ERs. Taking a critical patient to an ER with no available resus bays that is also boarding ICU patients due to a lack of ICU staffing is going to be less effective and less safe than going the extra distance to a hospital that does have the capacity to care for the patient. Studies from before 2020 are just not relevant anymore.

Eh, for some significant trauma, the ambulance is better because they know which hospitals are equipped for the emergency in question and which hospitals have resuscitation or trauma bays open. They call ahead too which also allows for the ER staff to prepare and have people standing by to receive you.

Wishful thinking? Entitlement? Main character syndrome? Some kind of nonsense.

I don’t understand it either. I think it’s usually the corporate owned and run ERs that have those billboards and the community hospital ERs just triage people as they come and offer no guarantees about wait times.

There are a lot of people who call ambulances for inane, non-emergency bullshit. I’ve seen people come in by ambulance for minor complaints that have been ongoing for months or even years.

I did my cadaver dissection last year in medical school, and you’ll probably be a better cadaver than you think. The worst one to deal with in the class was in the tank next to ours. The cadaver was 102 years old at time of death without a scrap of fat anywhere. The muscles dried out and fell apart almost immediately on dissection, and started growing mold over the winter break. The lab manager had to keep removing portions of the cadaver to try to limit the spread of the mold until all that group was left with was a head in a bucket of formaldehyde. The head, neck, and brain were the last dissections we did, so it worked out okay-ish, but I will never forget the absurdity of them ending up like a Futurama president.

Taking an ambulance to the ER does not ensure that you will be seen faster. A decent chunk of ambulance patients go right out to the lobby to wait like everyone else because everyone is triaged based on their illness or injury, not their mode of transportation.

If you don’t fit the typical mold of “perfect” you have to step outside your comfort zone and take some risks if you really intend to pursue your goals in spite of arbitrary rejection.