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RESPECT THE STAIRS
"When you get to the top of the stairs...stop, look and hold on!"
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RESPECT YOUR PANTS
And don’t put them on one leg at a time. That way no one can ever say you do! Why do I have a RESPECT blog on this? Because my patients are always busting their butts trying to put their pants on while standing up! Breaking your hip by unceremoniously tumping yourself over, left foot stuck in your pants leg, and right big toe caught on the fly, is degrading. It’s not a good story. Better you should be bucked off a horse! From now on just sit down.
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RESPECT THE CAR IN FRONT OF YOU
As Austin continues to grow, it seems there are more and more traffic jams. Traffic jams at odd hours: 5:45AM on a weekday, 2:00PM on a Saturday afternoon. Now I have to plan for the all too frequent bottlenecks. No longer can I time my departure for work, planning on a precise arrival. I have to give myself plenty of leeway. And often the delay is due to an accident. Sometimes a serious one. We’re all in such a big hurry. Did you know studies prove on average, that changing lanes and weaving in and out of traffic doesn’t get you to your destination faster? And it’s responsible for about 10%…
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RESPECT THE KEYBOARD
RESPECT THE KEYBOARD If you type on any regular basis, you should drop your keyboard down below desk or table height. Today I saw two patients in my office who were using their laptop/keyboard on top of their desks or their tables at home. Seeing them and thinking through their symptoms reminded me of the fact that I’ve been having a little more rotator cuff discomfort lately (after at least a decade of not having one iota of pain in my shoulder). Whenever I experience some classic form of repetitive strain pain, I immediately begin trying to figure out what I’m doing to cause or aggravate the situation. This time was…
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RESPECT THE KNIFE
It would generally go without saying, that we all should respect the knife, but really, a surprising number of people don’t. And they become…”patients.” People who carry knives regularly always seem to have some level of ease with regard to the movement of the knife, the safety mechanism and the way they close. Those of us who haven’t carried them around in our back pockets are clumsy and perhaps over-cautious. This in and of itself, can lead to mishaps. Okay, so don’t play around with knives. End of blog, right? Wrong. Because we all use knives for the very basic activity of cooking and eating. I get chills in my…
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RESPECT YOUR PINKY TOE
Last week I saw two pinky toe fractures (attached to patients of course). I estimate that I see at least one broken or dislocated pinky toe a month, sometimes more. If I multiply that by 12, and then again by the 34 years I’ve been practicing, that’s over 400 pinky toe injuries. Then keep doing more math to see how many pinky toe injuries we might see in my group, or in the city of Austin…THE WORLD. It’s a lot! And I’m pretty sure 99% of these injuries are 100% preventable. Because most of the time my patients stub those helpless little appendages on a bed or a door frame which…
