Posted By: Bob Stott

I believe anyone who's even mildly connected to the media – I'll naturally excuse those living under a rock on Mars with their fingers in their ears – is well aware of the dismal economic conditions that have been the talk of the country for several months now. Many fear of another "Great Depression," although I think this belief is motivated predominantly by a demographic whose Y2K bomb shelters and survivalist communes are not currently making profits.

I probably shouldn't mock, considering I've seen firsthand the economic sludge that many of those seeking work are wading through, even in a populous city like Philadelphia. The job market is a muddled mess, and I'm seeing skilled workers and Ivy League college graduates turning to manual labor and receptionist jobs to make ends meet, which in turn forces former candidates for these jobs into even lower rungs of the job circuit.

We've reached economic gridlock: people are trapped in houses they can't sell because no one is moving and the housing market itself is just barely limping along, while senior citizens are staying at jobs they can't retire from due to escalating healthcare expenses and dwindling social security coverage. Travel agencies are consolidating and those that aren't are flat out drying up, because people don't have money to travel. National conferences over the summer and into the fall have reached record all-time lows. It seems the popular idea is to bundle up, settle in, and wait out this economic winter.

While a gridlocked economy may limit what people choose to spend their money on, it probably won't keep them from seeking medical attention. Healthcare is one of the largest and still fastest-growing job sectors in the United States. In particular demand are physicians, nurses, physical therapists, pharmacists and health aides. And while less money is being thrown at frivolous expenses and fringe benefits, people are still going through the rigors of surviving the day to day stresses – and with the weight of the limping economy on everyone's mind, stress has become one of the most popular companions.

As one would expect, the beleaguered economy is also straining many Americans' mental health: anxiety, depression, sleep problems and money-rooted marital conflicts are on the rise. Requests for mental health therapists increased 15 percent to 20 percent between June and August of 2008, no doubt driven by individual concerns about the family's financial situation. A poll conducted this past spring by the American Psychological Association found that 75 percent of Americans report stress due to financial problems. A similar poll one year ago put the number at half of the respondents, who said financial stress is hurting their professional and personal lives.

As one who is currently also struggling with the strain of a besieged economy, I make cuts and savings where and when I can. Its autumn now in the Keystone State now and I'm still biking to work in the morning, despite the damp chill that often comes with it. Since June, I think the bicycle has more than paid for itself – a paltry $250 that would have been long gone in a gasoline investment. Grocery shopping is kept to the basics and the essentials, and I try to keep an observant eye on the electrical appliances so as to keep that monthly electric bill to a minimum. However, it's just like putting duct tape over the holes in a dam: I'm slowing it down but that's about all.

Let's clear the air: I'm no Angelina Jolie. At best, I strive for daily Good Samaritan status but that's as easily attained these days as holding the door for an old woman or helping an owner chase their dog that has slipped the leash.

That charitable imperative that some people seem to have hardwired into them every time they see a commercial for abandoned and abused pets or starving children in Indonesia – well that, more or less, skipped me over. Its not apathy, however, just a feeling that the problem is too big for my meager contributions to matter in the grand scheme of the universe. And, as a stalwart pessimist, you can believe that – right up until someone presents you with an opportunity to be hands-on, to be there to see the difference you make. And all those elaborate excuses just shatter at your feet.

This past August, I returned for my second year as a volunteer counselor at the Ronald McDonald Camp, a one-week sleep-away camp in Greeley, Pennsylvania, for children with cancer and their siblings. A non-profit organization, the camp, sponsored by Philadelphia's Ronald McDonald House, is funded entirely by charitable donations raised throughout the year to provide patients from age 8 to 17 with outdoor activities and festivals, allowing them to be – if only for one week – just like any other kid.

When first approached by my girlfriend about volunteering at the camp, I remember putting up the usual excuses: * I don't know if I can take off a week from work. * I'm not the best authority figure – sometimes just a big kid myself. * I won't know anyone there. * I've never had cancer – how can I relate to these kids?

The list went on, but the excuses just became more and more transparent, and I began to sound like a 6-year old on the first day of school. I was just scared – of the time commitment, of being a bad role model, of being stuck in awkward social situations, of simply embarrassing myself. It was just a matter of getting over myself and the little boy scared of not belonging. I don't think I've ever made a better decision.

You go in with these preconceived notions that there will be some kind of divide between yourself and the campers – that the subject of cancer will be the elephant in the room – but that simply wasn't the case. These kids already know everything there is to know about cancer, chemotherapy, hospitals, and MRIs, have already been through more than I could imagine. Yet at camp, these topics, if not taboo, are taken in stride. Kids mention their childhood cancers as if it was a past broken bone, talk about ongoing chemo treatments like follow-up doctor visits, and it never ceases to amaze me how much they just want to be kids for a week. Not an icon, not a survivor – just kids.

The counselors too, a completely volunteer base, also take the weeklong packed schedule in stride. No one complains when kids who have spent months housebound or undergoing treatment inside a cancer ward want to spend every waking moment outdoors (with counselors in tow), paddleboating, canoeing, climbing the ropes course, fishing, horseback riding, swimming, or even spending an hour straight of just tossing a baseball back and forth. I saw more muscle bruises, cramps, and shoulder strain than I've seen in years, and not once would I have traded any of them back.

Possibly the most rewarding part of returning to camp is seeing the campers from the previous year, who were undergoing bouts of chemo treatments, and have now come back strong and healthy. One of my shining moments was seeing a camper I had in my cabin last year – Ethan, a bald, spindly-limbed eleven year old, who never seemed to stop smiling at his own wry humor. Upon seeing me this year, Ethan immediately pulled off his familiar Mario Bros. baseball hat (the only way I could have recognized him) to reveal a thick mop of dark wavy hair, and with that familiar grin, said, "Hey Bob, look! I've got hair!"

Its an endurance gauntlet, suddenly playing Mama Bear to seven rambunctious 12 year olds, but at the end of the week, its more than worth it to watch them exchange e-mail addresses with one another, hug me goodbye, and confirm for the seventeenth time that I have their parents' e-mail addresses so I can send them the photos I've taken of them catching a monster fish, flying through the trees on a zip line, or sitting proudly on a horse for the first time.

With any luck, I'll be back to share it all with them again next year.

I heard an urban legend once from a friend of mine that several major corporations secretly spike the communal water cooler with amphetamines in the mornings to improve sales and vitality in the office. Looking at it from a strictly production-minded perspective, I can totally understand where they're coming from.

Coming into the office after a prolonged vacation (or a unsanctioned office happy hour that went "longer" than expected), you really notice how vital our country's last legal drug – caffeine – has become to perform even the basic functions and pleasantries around the office. To a lot of people I know, an extra dose (or two or three) of caffeine has become the main way of getting around any number of Life's unpleasantries, combatting boredom, melancholy, cabin fever, work overload, and even sickness.

A friend of mine, unwilling to call out before her winter vacation, made it through an entire week of work while struggling with the flu – how you ask? She dosed herself every hour and a half with a half cup of black coffee, no cream, no sugar, a system she continues to swear by. And who says, its not addictive.

But the bottom line question still arises: can caffeine – the savior of Monday mornings and delayer of hangovers – kill you?

Absolutely! But, ladies and gentleman, let's not lock up the coffee pot just yet.

The experts say you'd have to drink 80 to 100 cups of coffee in rapid succession, which equals about 6 gallons of coffee – approximately 10 to 13 grams of pure caffeine. Even if you could drink that much coffee, the excessive amount of water trapped in your body would kill you first by diluting essential nutrients in your bloodstream. So, while the point is moot, your death is not. Let's not attempt to set new records, shall we?

However, while it takes a lot to kill, it can take significantly less to cause ill effects, and long-term effects of caffeine remain somewhat unclear. Our latest contestant to try their hand at breaching the Caffeine barrier is a young woman in the United Kingdom, who drank seven double-shots of espresso in a mere four hours. The caffeine binge went as most would expect – gasping for breath with a racing heart on the way to the emergency room. She fully recovered within a day from the overdose, and doctors explained she had ingested three times the safe daily amount of caffeine.

With these stats in mind, how big of a role does caffeine play in your daily upkeep? Also, does its documented ill effects keep you from using it to make it through the wee hours of the morning?

Posted by: Bob Stott

My life is a towering mass of boxes, slightly skewed to the right, some appear almost toppling like the Tower of Pisa, but it holds its own. In the family room of the house I am gradually vacating day by day, I add a new box filled to the brim with knick-knacks, term papers from college I still consider pawning off on eBay, and the miscellaneous trinkets and scraps of paper I refuse to part with because "they will be needed someday." I have no misconceptions about my lot. I am my father's son – pack-rat extraordinaire.

True to my nature, the boxes of trinkets, papers, and notes to self number already in the tens, and cleaning out my room of these menial odds and ends is by far the hardest task of moving, which is probably why, on average, it takes me months to do so. However, the eccentricities of a pack-rat often open opportunities to delve into the past, even for a few moments, to look back at another version of yourself when this seemingly useless trinket meant something very important.

Yesterday, packed in between copies of some poetry that got published in a literary journal in San Francisco, an old movie ticket to Star Wars, and a single leather glove a homeless guy in Philly gave me in exchange for the two pairs of cotton ones I offered him, I found an X-ray film of my left arm. Just out of college, I received a nasty hairline fracture to my left forearm. Very clean and no visible distortions as far as the doctors could see, I simply received a Velcro strap-on arm stabilizer and was told to follow-up in two months. As usually is my luck, my insurance ran out about a month after the initial break, so instead of checking back, I simply allowed myself to forget about it and drink extra milk everyday (for the calcium, of course, because that obviously expedites bone growth tenfold).

Unwilling to return to my parent's house yet not quite invested in graduate school yet, I was sleeping on a rotary of couches and futons – a segment of my life I simply refer to as my 'Crashing' phase – and paying bills and school loans by working at a veterinary hospital. About four months after the fracture, and three months after my student insurance dried up, I started to have these painful flashes in my left forearm, which I attributed to lifting the heavier dogs or sleeping on it in my sleep.

The pain came and went, but unwilling – and financially unable because, despite what they say, working in the kennel of a veterinary hospital is not a lucrative career – to go back to a doctor, I simply asked one of the veterinary technicians if they could X-ray my arm to make sure I wasn't growing another arm bone out of the break. Aside from some calcification, I was all clear. Since then, the X-ray have gone with me from residence to residence, usually taped on the upper part of a window so I can look at the fracture anytime I want and reminisce about my time living "off the grid." Over-dramatic yes, but it remains something to tell the kids later in life, how their dad was such a bohemian scrapper, if only for a year.

In a time of the push towards EMR and EHR software technology, I wonder where people who made my transitional lifestyle a permanent one would end up. Will the digital resistance hold out just for them? Sometimes, I think that's more the reason that I hang onto the X-ray – so when my medical record is finally digitalized and computer accessible, I can pull out this X-ray film, a relic from another time, that completes the timeline of my medical encounters.

Posted by: Bob Stott

Guzzling my second cup of ice water, I have just slumped into my chair at work, my Jell-O legs still twitching. Its 8:06 in the morning, and I've just done a marathon. In my steadfast pursuit of all things "green", I've joined the ranks of two million people in America who regularly bike to work – by regularly, I mean two to three days out of a given week. And, with summer heat not even in full swing yet here in the Keystone State, I'm beginning to realize why the other 97 million don't.

When I recently moved within four miles of work, I was happy both for the luxury of not sitting in highway traffic for the better part of an hour, as well as the possibility of being one of those glorified people who "bike to work". I can assure you that most days out of the week, the hype often overpowers the actual experience.

While the bike may mean one less car on the road in a congested urban setting, it is apparently the bane of any random driver's existence in the suburban sprawl I must traverse on the way to work. Unlike the city centers, there are long stretches of road that have no traffic lights and therefore drivers feel content to careen at speed of fifty miles an hour, two ton metal whizzing by me like a BB gun pellet.

Moreover, something you oddly don't notice as much when surveying a route to work via a car ride, seldom are there sidewalks. Again, this would not be so much of a problem if there also were no delineated bike lanes either. Essentially, for much of my ride my wheels are hugging the gutters, and even then, I am furiously honked at as family minivans and huge Semis alike swerve into the opposing lane to avoid coming within twenty feet of me at the curb.

Now, let's get down to the nitty-gritty for our young radiology professionals eager to avoid highway traffic, hide-and-seek parking, or contributing to the gasoline monster that is expected grow to Kracken-sized proportions by mid-summer. While biking does provide the chance for people to improve their fitness at a time when obesity is at record levels, it is first and foremost, exercise; and depending on how far you have to bike and what kind of terrain, it can be some rigorous exercise at that. And exercise means sweat. Lots of it.

While you may either enjoy the smell of your own natural musk or (like many women I know) believe they do not have a discernible "sweat smell", other people can and DO notice, even if it's on a subconscious level. A pungent body smell or oily glow of sweat post-exercise can undermine even the most professional of technologists or radiologists, especially when interacting with a patient. Although its more of a cultural taboo than actual hygiene, many people consider body odor to speak volumes about the professional themselves. Patients oftentimes want a super-professional, a calm, cool, collected encyclopedia of helpful information – its odd how a waft of good ol' fashioned "musk" can send that expectation toppling down.

While for hospital staff, a quick shower after getting to work can provide a good cool-down and "wake-up", many of us do not have the luxury of available showers at our facilities. For the morning hike to work, I picked up one of those exercise outfits from the sports store and make sure to pack my backpack with a change of clothes and some deodorant spray. I get to work a little early, cool down for a bit, drink plenty of water, change clothes in the bathroom, and by the time the day starts, no one can tell I just made a grueling bike ride to work and avoided becoming a pancake on a Semi's engine grill.

That's my story, so now I turn it over to you. How many of you professionals are making strides to get that extra bit of cardio in before and after work? Is your automobile ready to take a couple days off as you take a stab at living a "greener" way of life? Do you see any hiring changes at your hospital or imaging facility that might mean a big upswing for the bicycle revolution?