Trumblog

I had dinner last night with a few friends. One, a radiologist was telling me about reviewing CAT scans, x-rays and other diagnostic records in order to determine what was ailing people. I usually prompt him for stories about household objects found inside patients and House-like wonders of deduction. He did his best to regail me with examples, but then he said something that surprised me. While some of the radiologists that he works with thrive on those sorts of “cases”, the ones that gave him the most pleasure are the clear cut, textbook examples where he can give a definitive answer. It’s not that he doesn’t like a challenge, a fracture where one would rarely turn up seemed to give him satisfaction too. But seeing a perfect tripod fracture that gave him the opportunity to tell someone with certainty what the problem was and to not have them undergo more tests or wait a few months to see how that uncertain image changed, that was what really floated his boat.

Move the chairs around and I was talking to his wife, a children’s book illustrator. She is working on a new book about an ostrich searching through New York City. What excited her about the new book is that it gives her the opportunity to work intensely with perspective; the ostrich’s point of view looking down a manhole, through a window, up a skyscraper. That’s an extended challenge for her that is giving her work on this book and additional burst of creativity and enjoyment.

My wife has been editing podcasts this week so she described getting lost in tweaking the audio to get the most clarity from a bad recording. Doing this took up hours yesterday, and she would have gone on until the producer put the emphasis back on content not audio quality.
Different aspects of work that bring job satisfaction; certainty, exploration, exactitude. I’m on vacation for the next week and a half. I’m excited to spend time with the whole family since they’ve been away, see old friends and enjoy the urban (San Francisco), wild (Yosemite), and luxury (Calistoga) locals, but I’ll also be thinking about what brings me work satisfaction and how to get more of that when I get back. Wish me luck.

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