My long absence is unexplainable. With apologies, here's what I've been up to:

* I went to Cincinnati for a course in Advanced Laparoscopy (advanced video surgery using small incisions) and got together with my med school buddy John and his sweet wife Laura. We dined at Brio tuscan grill on the Levee, a terrific place for Italian. The beef Carpaccio (read: 2.5 oz. of raw beef layered like carpet on a large platter) served with field greens, capers, mustard aioli, and flaxseed crackers was surprisingly delectable. Dessert was at a Cincinnati staple - Graeter's Ice Cream.
* This week I started work as the Transplant chief resident with five transplants and a liver resection.
* Lately saw United 93 and The New World; see the side column for brief thoughts.
* Just started reading Crunchy Cons and Voices from Chernobyl.
* Finished reading Critical Condition, and have concluded that perhaps (to paraphrase Rod Dreher) absolute power corrupts just as much in Big Business as in Big Government. The "business" of health care in this country has become more beholden to Wall Street (i.e. shareholders) than to patients. It is not a good thing that the not-for-profit insurer or hospital has gone the way of the dinosaur by being snatched up into for-profit empires like HCA and Aetna. Maybe I'll post more on this later, but there is a profound gap in the goals of the patient-safety initiative and the cost-cutting, profit-maximizing capitalism of health care juggernauts.
* Spent last Saturday at some friends' lake house at Lake LBJ near Austin waterskiing, jetskiing, eating, drinking, and being merry, as part of a going-away fete for our friends Ryan and Shauna.