The consumer's guide to global hospitals

Today I went to the hospital for the first time to remedy an acute illness. It was quite nice to see how the hospital works here, I went to the emergency dept and got it all worked out, 75 AED copay and the prescriptions were included for free. Very nice. I like the standard line of questioning, "Are you married? Yes? Would you like to take a pregnancy test today?" Um, no thanks.

The hospital wasn't quite up to the standards of Kaiser Permanente, like for example the emergency room is just a bunch of beds separated by curtains (no actual "rooms" for patients), privacy is much lower, they make you carry your pee-test bottle through the lobby from the bathroom, and you have to explain your difficulties to the admitting nurse at the reception counter not 16 inches away from the large family waiting on the bench. On the flip side, customer service was much better- maybe this is how it works when you have an insurance card that you can take to any number of competing private hospitals. They apologized to me for having to wait a long time (I waited way less time than I ever have in the Kaiser urgent care clinic) and were very very concerned about pain management. They offered me an injection for pain, which I declined citing the minor-ness of my pain, but in retrospect I wonder what exactly this injection was, and whether it was something really boom-bang like morphine, in which case perhaps I made the wrong decision.

All this got me to thinking about my experiences in hospitals, and I can definitely make some completely scientific rankings of the hospital-quality of various countries based on single visits to individual emergency rooms I've had, by extrapolating that those experiences are 100% representative of health care in the given nation as a whole. Here are my conclusions, with 1 being best and 6 being worst:

Quality of care received:
1. America: We can say for sure that we beat the middle east and latin american nations
2. UAE
3. Cuba
4. Belize
5. Guatemala
6. Honduras: You're miscarrying? We're on break! Go somewhere else if you don't like it.

Bedside manner:
1. Cuba: Our nurses are required to calm 150 fussy babies into dreamless sleep before graduating
2. Guatamala
3. UAE
4. America: If you want to talk about your feelings, we'll write you a referral.
5. Honduras
6. Belize: Stop being such a f*cking wimp, it'll only hurt excruciatingly for the rest of the day

Wait time:
1. Belize: There's never a wait, mon, can't imagine why.... you f*cking wimp.
2. Cuba: Our motto - Fast if you're Foreign.
3. UAE
4. Guatemala
5. Honduras
6. America: Come in with a hang-nail, leave with gangrene. What are you going to do, get a new employee-sponsored health plan? Ha.

Use of modern technology:
1. America: The fish in our lobby tanks are genetically modified to never die and to never look depressed
2. UAE
3. Guatemala
4. Honduras: Now fully exploiting the wheel
TIE!
6. Belize: Let us grab our wrench, we can knock that right out
6. Cuba: We used to send a guy over to raid the Sputnik medical kits, but now we use FedEx

Movin' up in the world

Feels nice when your maid says you only need 3 hours of weekly cleaning instead of 4 because "your house is not much dirty."

Today's adventures

My pals picked me up this morning for a jaunt around the Northern Emirates, and we started in arty Sharjah, at the heritage district, replete with museums, an old souk, a fort and a lot of authentic-looking people milling about.

At the souk I bought myself a pashmina, an old gold candle-lantern and a red & silver perfume bottle, all for around $28. Then we went to this cool old gulf-architecture 2-story desert house, with lots of old rooms and furnishings and things, and we were the only ones there.

The strangest thing happened there; there was a room with a sign on it that said 'Ahmed bin Obaid' in arabic, and I asked this emirati guy who Ahmed was. So he told me...this guy then a few minutes later scoped me out in the room with all the information about traditional gulf architecture and struck up a conversation by asking, how do you know how to read Arabic? And I said well, I've been practicing. And he said, over the course of about 20 minutes, well, my brother is married to an American and she quite likes it here and how do you like it here? And I'm so sorry it is Ramadan otherwise we could offer you some tea and dates. And please step in to my office, I will give you a book about this house, and please take my phone number and name because we would love to have you back after Ramadan. And after I accidentally walked off with his pen and then tried to return it, he said no no you keep it so that you will remember. Well, I'm sure he was just being polite, but I was certainly flattered.

After that we drove to Ajman where the heritage museum was...closed. Then we travelled on to Umm al Quwain but took a wrong turn and ended up at Hamriya port, a very boring-looking blip on the map. Well, guess what we found at Hamriya port? Approximately the most awesome beach ever (pictured here) with no people, no hotels, no restaurants, and nothing around as far as the eye could see except for a bench or two and a whole lot of seashells. This was a very fortunate wrong turn, since I will definitely be back at this Hamriya beach in the future. After getting back to the freeway, it was on to original destination UAQ, where we stopped for lunch at the beach hotel (delicious) and drove up to the UAQ heritage area where everything was...closed. As long as we were that far north, we decided to hit the license-free liquor store before heading back to Dubai, to at least make it worth our while. Needless to say, the liquor store was...closed. :)

Pink!

lost in translation

I went online to the Dubai police website today to check if I had any traffic fines. Look closely in the blue circle. I wonder what they've got in that section?

Quirks?

So, I was "tagged" as they say, by Emily, my sister, of emilysculinaryadventures so now I am tasked with describing 6 of my "quirks".

1. I always wait to get more petrol (for some reason) until my heartrate rises and the possibility of being stranded on Sheikh Z road becomes a 50/50 proposition. 

2. I have been known to refuse to go to the dentist until I am in excruciating pain and in need of a root canal.  

3. I believe almost everything can be improved by adding Tobasco sauce.  Including the Seattle Seahawks.  

4. I refuse to pay more than 25.00USD for dress shoes (and only when the previous pair has fully depreciated), but will happily spend hundreds on dining and drinking.   

5.  I carefully examine each days political headlines from a wide range of publications, then read the individual articles, fretting or rejoicing endlessly over the way the contents are being consumed by the public in relation to what I believe is the "correct" and "impartial" way to view the days events. 

6. I memorize odd things.  Like almost all the national capitals.  Or quotes from Shakespeare.  Or from the Simpsons.  But I can never remember to take the clothes out of the washing machine.   

Eid Mubarak

We've made it to Eid holiday: 9 days of pure, uninterrupted... well, not exactly relaxation. To do;

Day 1: Shopping. Need a de-humidifier, an Oman/UAE travel book, a can of Comet, and a resupply of vacuum bags. Travel to cargo village to retrieve box of survival equipment Emily shipped us.

Day 2:
a) Hair appointment - the first in over 6 months. I'll post pictures. I'm going to try a place called Fadi Chedid, which looks way too fashionable for me, but the price is right. Plus, this guy Fadi looks like someone I wouldn't mind gazing at in a mirror for a couple of hours. Pics at http://www.fadichedid.com .
b) Lunch at Glasshouse with the birthday girl - Ms. Priya. We'll be expanding her culinary world with an introduction to some food which is not Indian.

Day 3: Shopping at the outlet mall with one galpal, or driving up to the Northern beach with another? My datebook is strained. The results, no one knows.

Day 4: Snorkeling near Fjords in Oman. Oh yes, Fjords in Oman - "Norway of the Middle East."

Day 5: Drop Dan at the Gulf Air terminal for a flight to beautiful Thailand. Tell myself over and over again that the Fjords compete.

Days 6-8: Pile a few friends into the car and head for the desert, destination flexible.

Day 9: Laundry

We'll see how it all shakes out.

An eventful weekend

This weekend was exciting in many ways. Thursday night I attended the Iftar dinner at school with Dan-O and we hung out with our pals there, and I got some henna done on my finger (right). 

On Friday we got up late and picked up a new galpal librarian at her place to go out for breakfast at More with another library-lady and her beau and another faculty member. We got the brunch and stuffed ourselves stupid; I was already pleased about the whole thing, however, because I didn't think More could be open during Ramadan. Turns out they can, somehow. I had some lamb that tasted for sure like it must have been cooked in wine, but it surely must have been grape juice.

After brekkie we rolled back to galpal's place to shoot the breeze and ended up staying all afternoon, until wandering at about 6pm down to Spinney's at Al-Ghurair Center and finding... at long last.... lime leaves!! I snatched up a packet and committed it to memory for future reference. For lime leaves, go to Al-Ghurair.

We scurried on home and had a couple G&Ts before hitting the pool after hours. It was awesome - all dark, up on the roof, under the night-time sky, with nothing but the stars and the top of a crane next-door to look out at.  Just us chickens, swimming around like we owned the place.

Well, this sounds like a weekend made in heaven, aside from what happened next, which is that I came back downstairs and hopped into bed directly via Dan's skull. It REALLY hurt. I made sure to cry a lot so that I wouldn't have to get my own icepack. The end result is a very attractive black eye with just enough puffiness to make me look strung-out with one eye half shut. It's not that black, and the blackness is all on the top not the bottom, so it could be worse. Still, I'll probably get some looks at work tomorrow.

A full fun-ness recovery was in order, sin embargo (as they say in Spain); today we went to Lulu and got all the supplementary ingredients necessary to make a couple of awesome curries (with the lime leaves), a red peanut curry with beef and  a green vegetable curry. The resulting dinner was the best we've ever made. Hoorah!

Right right right... I live in a desert

I'm starting to believe I live with Al Gore. "Shut the fridge for Al Gore", "Turn down the A/C for Al Gore", "Wait wait, I have to switch off the lights for Al Gore". If I ever meet Al Gore, I'm going to ask him to give me my pre-Inconvenient Truth life back.

Today on my walk home from work I swallowed a lot of sand, and it actually didn't taste that bad - kind of salty. But the point is, the weather the last couple of days has been rather horrendous. It's not very hot, but it's incredibly windy and damp. I put my clothes out to dry all night, and in the morning they are still wet and need to be re-washed. Then I walk home from work and get my minerally-dense dinner right from the air. Reason number 489 to carry a scarf: mouth and nose mask.

Tomorrow is the Iftar dinner at school - I'll be breaking fast at 6:24pm with a few hundred of my closest college cohorts, friends & family, and maybe get some henna done. I can't promise I'll try to take pictures, but I can at least promise I'll try to try.

Onam

Went to the girlfriend's pad for Onam this weekend, and it was GREAT. We had rice with some tamarind stuff, some pineapple stuff, some curried vegetable stuff, some coconut stuff, some bean stuff, some pappadams, some banana chips, and some kind of sugary-cinnamon-y dessert stuff, all eaten off a crisp banana leaf (very convenient for cleanup).

After that we picked up some movies from Sahara Center: The Golden Compass and The Lookout, featuring that kid from 3rd rock to the sun. The Golden Compass was way more awesome than I expected it to be - in fact, I'm jonesing for the sequel. If they don't make movies out of the rest of the trilogy, I'll probably have to get the books. The Lookout was good too, although a bit heavy-handed at times, kind of reminded me of a wannabe Memento jr. or something, but succeeded in being heartbreaking at moments and compelling throughout. Plus, that 3rd rock kid is just so darn cute, you can't not find out if his character succeeds.

Work is work, but today I got to recommend Hemingway's "Old Man and the Sea" to a male student. I don't get a lot of action in the novels over there, so it was a nice change of pace.

A Woman and Her Bus

Today I was held up after work for about a half-hour, causing me to encounter a woman on my walk home who I wouldn't have if I had left on time. This woman flagged me down from some distance to ask where the bus stop was. It was, as a matter of fact, about 2 blocks up the road in the direction I was headed. I pointed it out to her and she said thanks, and then I continued on my way.

Apon reaching my house, and the bus stop, I turned around to examine the progress of this woman. When I saw that she was waiting a block away in the incorrect spot, I thought, Ugh, Gawd it's hot out, because I knew I had to truck back down there and get her to the right place. After doing so, she told me how she had been wandering the streets for so long trying to find the bus stop and everyone she asked ignored her or said 'sorry no English', which reminded me that, had I left it to someone else to walk by and point her towards the bus stop, she probably would have been there for hours, and this made me feel better about walking the extra 2 block-lengths in the blazing sun.

This woman, apparently, hails from the great nation of Nigeria, and when she asked where I was from, I said America. Her response was some kind of strange combination of shriek and laugh with the words "Oh my God! You are American? You are American, and no one else would help me. Thank God for Americans." So I said "you're welcome" and went about my business, but I can't help but feel strange about the whole exchange. For one, because, I don't think being American has anything to do with the fact that I chose to help her find the bus. For two, because I don't like becoming conscious of the fact that other people are judging me based on where I'm from. For three, these negative feelings conflict with a positive one about having, perhaps, broken some kind of preconceived notion this woman had about Americans. Anyway, I'm now feeling some philosophical anxiety that I think I'll alleviate with a fun distraction, like watching the Daily Show.

Tomorrow I'm going to Onam at Priya's house with Dan (Onam is a holiday where a big meal is served as part of the "Harvest Festival", sounds a suspiciously-awful lot like Thanksgiving to me) so that's something delicious to look forward to.

New Job Update

Well, they've fired up the atom-smasher, and we're not dead. So, I guess that means I have to go to work tomorrow...

If work tomorrow is as fun as work today was, I won't even lament having to wake up early. Today I spent an afternoon with a class of students teaching them some library stuff. I asked them, "does anybody know what 'fiction' means?" They asked, "is it like infection?"

And I thought... in a way.... fiction can be infectious... but then I didn't want to confuse them.

Once I explained it in English, they told me the word in Arabic. Something like, Hay-yal. I said Hay-yal, and they all cracked up. No no no miss, it's Hay-yal. So I say "Hay-yal" again. They all crack up. What's so funny, I implore them. "Miss, it's another word you're saying." Not 'fiction', apparently. I instruct them not to tell me the word - I don't want to know.

Did you know that movies can be fiction, too? I ask. This question gets the puzzler going. "Troy?" One girl says. "Maid in Manhattan?" Another offers. "Mission Impossible?" Someone else says. Fiction, fiction, fiction. I'm hoping this is a concept not soon forgotten.

This is my immediate future - teaching. Teach teach teach, teach teach. If you had asked me a year ago if I wanted to teach anybody anything, I would have said of course NOT. Who knew it could be so much fun?

The Unbearable Lightness of Stanley

“Contentment is a kind of moral laziness; if there weren’t anything but contentment in his world, man wouldn't be any more of a success than an angleworm.” -Josh Billings.

At work these days we’ve been told to keep food and drink out of sight of the Muslim students and employees as it makes their fast more difficult. Today a nice young student wearing an abaya with pink trim brought everyone in our office chocolates. She’s fasting for Ramadan, but it’s her 21^st birthday so she wanted to share the celebration with all of the faculty and staff. Isn’t that about the sweetest thing you ever heard of? Ok, it’s just sort of sweet, but I’m easily amused by women in abayas. The other day a student came in (wearing an abaya) and my Philipina colleague, in her slightly broken English, stumbled over a question pertaining to insurance and asked the young woman if she was Arab. The student replied, with perfect deadpan sarcasm, “No, I’m Christian. I just dress like this for fun.” I just about died laughing.

As Ramadan continues throughout Arabia, Salazmeyer proceeds with its steady mysterious expat existence, but with no headbanging with Metal bands or cab rides to the bar or late nights of drinking on weekdays visible on the horizon until I head to Thailand. Life is slow and pleasant and work is a mellow grind. The rush of Fall registration is over and the finance office is only visited by an occasional student needing to pay for their visa. When my shift ends my commute home has been cut in half as Dubai's Muslim population shifts its schedule and leaves work early to break-fast. When I get home the liquor shelf is stocked, the new furniture is comfortable, and football is streaming in from Yahoo Gamepass at my convenience. Contentment, in its creepy subtle way, is settling in. A lack of self-discipline (or perhaps a low threshold for contentment) has always been my greatest personal failing, and while I should have been working out and learning Arabic I’ve been drinking martinis and watching movies. I’ve gotta get this slow train back on track before it gets to its inevitable end. Right after MNF tonight…

Unimportant Stuff

I just read this interesting article from the Washington Post about how people tend to blog/journal about things they think are important, and they might be overlooking things that are enlightening or interesting because they think those things aren't important. So I decided, as an intellectual exercise, to try to list a few things that happened today that I think aren't important at all, and see if I still feel the same way in a few days.

1. Lost Dan's cellphone somewhere in the house, tried to use my cellphone to call and locate it, realized my cellphone was also missing. Found my cellphone on the computer, called Dan's cellphone, found it in the closet.

2. Had a long conversation at work today w/ colleague about the merits of Hindi movies and the bizarre popularity of Sharu Khan- grr, oops ... that's somewhat important... think think think.... ok, got it, left my laptop in Priya's file cabinet because I was too lazy to walk back upstairs to my desk.

3. This is harder than it seems.

4. Collected money on a shared taxi-ride that I fronted for someone a couple weeks ago.

5. Took a detour on the walk home from work because the street was dug up for construction.

6. Used rudimentary knowledge of arabic alphabet to figure out where to shelve a magazine.

7. Read a couple chapters of Cryptonomicon.

We'll see how this all shakes out.

First time at the Dentist, all over again

Today I went to the dentist for a routine teeth-cleaning. It was like going to the dentist for the first time, all over again. What will happen? Will it hurt? How does it all work?

I decided to try the dentist at NMC Specialty Hospital, a 1-minute walk out my back door (pictured right). The picture to the right is an idealized version; to get a truer visual, imagine sand outside instead of green grass. I had Dr. Mohammed and it went quite well, although slightly different from what I'm used to.

I've never visited a dental clinic housed within a hospital, so that was unique. I wandered past the pharmacy, gift shop, and general surgery unit to get to the dental clinic on the first floor. Then I filled out my paperwork at reception and waited to see the Doc. The visit started and ended with a formal sit-down at the Doc's desk, where he actually spoke to me about my dental concerns (mostly concerning cost) and took a few notes. Then it was on to the cleaning.

Step one in the cleaning was to spray my whole mouth with topical numbing solution which worked extremely effectively, as evidenced by my subsequent lack of ability to pronounce English. Is this really required, just for a cleaning? I think it is not, and I have come to conclusion that dental patients around here must be real softies.

After that, it was your normal stuff; scrape, rinse, polish, rinse, air polish, rinse, done. I've never had an air polish - that was interesting. I walked out of there feeling good as new, teeth as clean as ever, for 500 dirhams. I was hoping it wouldn't cost that much, but I was pleased to be able to afford it at all, because in the States if my dental care wasn't covered by insurance, I just wouldn't go. Too expensive. Here, I feel that $136 every six months is a reasonable price to pay to ensure good dental health and toothy longevity.

I'd definitely go back for a filling, and probably even dental surgery. All in all, a success.

What makes you get up early?

Yesterday morning Stanley & I set the alarm for 3am, and it wasn't even Christmas, nor did we have a pre-dawn flight. We cut off blissful slumber on a Friday morning for something far better than sleep - football.

Dragging our blankets and pillows into the TV room, we settled in to a live stream of the season-opening Redskins/Giants game, and someone among us even mixed himself a cocktail to boot. All the old favorites came streaming back, so familiar after this whole off-season. Ed Hoculee, still working out; Eli Manning, showing moments of brilliance and little-boy fright back-to-back. Some things, apparently, have changed - for example, all facemask penalties are now for 15-yards? They've done away with the 'incidental' variety, I guess, which I don't think makes the game any better or safer.

The "Sunday morning" games are at 9pm Sunday, including Seattle and one of my personal favorite matchups, Titans/Jags, so we'll be staying up late and ordering Gyros for that, for sure.

A view from our balcony this evening

Some nerd stuff

Our blog here is quite international. Take a peek at the snapshot below of recent visitors by location.


It seems pretty cool, until you realize how they're all getting here:


Wow... look at that bottom one. Somebody searched Google for "Corruption is government intrusion into market efficiencies in the form of regulation" and landed here? Who was that?


Hmmm... University of Michigan Law School. Telling.

Ramadan Resolutions

Kind of like "New Year's Resolutions", I thought it would be a good time to start the Republican strategy for my life:

1. Fiscal conservatism
2. Self-discipline
3. Jif creamy (As opposed to the Democratic strategy, Adam's Organic)

Look for many more absurd categorizations like this as we progress through elections season.

What I mean with regard to my resolutions is, you would think Ramadan would make it really easy to stay on the get-fit programme. Well, it's exactly the opposite. By the time you get home from work starved stupid, you're liable to run to the grocery store and cram any kind of rapid-preparation food you can find into your face. For example, top ramen, and/or butter crackers with butter. Not exactly the apex of a nutritive diet. This is where self-discipline comes in : exercise some restraint for 10 minutes and make yourself a salad, or some rice.

Then there's the fiscal conservativism. It's downright tempting to order Gyros every night of the week - but that would be highly imprudent. It is much more cost-effective (and time consuming) to go buy salad ingredients, and cook rice.

Then there's Jif - this is a combination of self-discipline and fiscal restraint. Adam's costs 3 times as much, and Jif is highly portable, making an excellent sneaky-bathroom-snack at work and supporting the continuation of healthy eating habits later into the evening. Yeah yeah there's some transhydrogenated fats in Jif, but I've been skydiving before. It's not like I think I'm never gonna die.

Ramadan Day 2

The second day of Ramadan went better than the first, since I now have groceries and packed myself a lunch.

I've been following a bit of the news about turmoil in Thailand - last week some protesters forcibly shut some airports and this week the PM declared a state of emergency in response to some kind of sustained unrest. The dissolution of parliament in the near future also, apparently, seems likely. South Korea and Singapore are urging people not to travel to Thailand, but Norway still seems to think it's fine, which is encouraging. I'm mainly interested because Stanley and Emmo will be traveling to Thailand soon. The positives? The exchange rate on the Baht should become more favorable between now and then, and after checking Expedia, I see that the roundtrip ticket I recently paid $800 for has only dropped to $640, not $0.75 like I feared.

I'm Hungry

Today was the first day of Ramadan, and it passed without incident, except that I got home from work starving. I forgot to buy anything to pack a lunch with so I grabbed a nutri-grain bar on the way out of the house, thinking that would tide me over. Well, Dan-O accidentally spent his last 30 dirhams on gas, and for some reason is keeping his ATM card in storage at the central branch of HSBC, so I gave him my bar on the way to work, thinking that at least I get to go home after 6 or 7 hours instead of 9 like him.

With no breakfast, no water, and no lunch on the horizon, I was having psychosomatic starvation pangs at about 11:30am. Luckily, I found an old half-eaten box of tic-tacs in my desk drawer which I gobbled down after locking myself in the upstairs staff bathroom for privacy. Then later I got home and found a kitchen full of exactly 1/2 the ingredients needed to cook almost anything. I've got pasta, but no sauce. I've got peanut butter, but no bread. I've got frozen peas, but no chicken, a-la, or king. This is a case of Bad Planning. Peanut-pasta-peas? No. In the end, I settled for some instant coffee and butter crackers with butter. I think I must order in a lot more often than I thought I did.