RETIRED!

I am pleased (and somewhat amazed!) to report that I have officially retired!  I was reluctant at first but I'm glad that all has worked out well so far.  I recently learned from a colleague who has also recently retired that the first three months of retirement are the most challenging; that a great deal of flexibility is required during this time and that one needs to learn to NOT be busy all of the time.  I agree that, so far, if I'm not doing something all of the time, I feel un-productive and hence unfulfilled.  I'm already getting closer to the three-month point and I think things are improving in that respect.  Wish me luck.  I still miss work and I feel as though I have abandoned the other PAs.  I hope that they're doing OK.  I understand that another position has been posted. I'm hoping that the new employee will work out well with the team.

It has been forever since I've posted to this blog.  I hope readers didn't think that I had died! 😊

I realized recently that I had neglected to post the fact that I had authored what is something of a rarity for the department for which I worked recently (2005-2022) and that is to publish a peer-reviewed case report.  Even more rare is a paper that is based on findings found at autopsy (and we all know how increasingly rare autopsies are!).  The paper was published in the Canadian Journal of Pathology vol. 10 no. 3 and is entitled Unsuspected Coronary Artery Giant Cell Arteritis - a reminder to clinicians and pathologists to advocate for autopsies. Fradet, Wenzel, Stinson.  The Can J Pathol is open source (so anyone can read the article by going to the Archives section of the CAP-ACP website. GCCA CanJPathol 10:3).  The incident dealt with in the case report was something of an error in judgement and communication wherein a patient  who was believed to be suffering from atherosclerotic coronary artery disease was referred from cardiology to cardiac surgery for surgical revascularization.  She then underwent coronary artery saphenous vein bypass grafting.  Intraoperatively, the surgeon recognized the diffuse nature of the disease; realizing that good quality bypass surgery was not possible.  Nevertheless, he managed several anastomoses very distal on the native vessels.  Despite initial adequate flows, the patient arrested intraoperatively and ultimately did not survive.  The autopsy showed minimal atherosclerotic coronary stenosis and severe GCCA.  The article has some pretty good illustrations of multi-nucleated giant cells in severely stenotic arteries.

More on the subject of retirement...I've been training almost daily on my indoor bicycle trainer and I am looking forward to racing my 12th Granfondo in July with friends, including a good friend/colleague from Ottawa who will be visiting specifically to race with us.  I'm trying very hard to avoid injury!

I just noticed that my email address at the bottom of the blog is incorrect.  I will attempt to correct that forthwith.  If I fail however, it's billstinson90@gmail.com.  Please use that address going forward.

Happy trails!