Kalamazoo

I'm spending this week in Kalamazoo, zoo, zoo. Kalamazoo is very different and still very much the same. At least they have a Starbucks on Stadium Drive now. I'm at WMU studying for my recertification exam. It's hard to go back to spending 9 hours in lectures, I definitely feel like I'm back in PA school. I'm have picked up on some interesting pearls of wisdom.

Now, I may be the last person to have heard this, but did you know the salmonella scare with tomatoes a couple months ago was actually caused by jalapenos? (Brian knew this, but he knows everything.) So I was denied tomatoes by several fast food chains for no good reason! Of course the major detriment it caused to the tomato community is probably more significant then my two week deprivation from tomatoes.

Also, a nice gentleman with a PhD in infectious disease did an animated job of reminding us that treating strep "immediately" is not necessary. In fact, the treatment of strep throat is actually to limit the transmission to others and risk of post-strep complications. Now how I'm going to try to explain that to puzzled parents looking to me as their child sits there with a 104 degree temp and I say "Let's wait another 1-2 days until my final culture comes back"....well, that's a problem unto itself.

Intestinal hookworms are picked up by walking barefoot through contaminated soil. The worm migrates up through the skin to the intestines, then lays eggs to pass through your feces. True story.

Of course, we learned a lot more than that, but I have to consider that it's probably not as interesting to all of you as it is to me. But who doesn't love a good intestinal worm story?