I read the greatest quote in my ALWD journal yesterday, about how lawyers and law students tend to feed their brain with various bits and pieces of information (much of it admittedly entertaining dreck, as least for me most of it is entertaining dreck - some of it actually is useful in the real world, but it is mostly entertaining dreck) looking for connections and patterns that will help them formulate legal arguments and connections between two completely different but semi-related things. (JAWLD, Autumn 2009 - sorry, don't remember the author, but when I get a chance to look it up, I will add a citation to the end of this post.)
Then this morning I logged into my Google Reader and discovered that they had added this great tool in my side bar - two actually. One was Recommendations - Google suggests blogs that have similar content to what you already read (it was not surprizing to find that some of the suggested blogs were blogs that I were already on my list to check out because their authors regularly cross-posted in the blogs that I read.) The other was "Most Popular" which is not a list of the most popular blogs but a list of the most popular posts which keeps updating so that there is no end. It was only after I had spent the entirety of my break time and looked to see where the end was that I realized that there was no end. It just kept updating. The more posts you read, the more it updated.
Which really worries me. If there is that much dreck out there (and there really is, I purposely skipped quite a bit of it because the titles warned me that the content might not be work-friendly) has the giant 'group conversation' just become a bunch of people talking to themselves? A lot of "sound and fury signifying nothing" (can't remember the author). Has meaningful conversation just left the building?
This is especially worrying because according to another article I read, lawyers are the chattiest bunch of all. (I have a reading problem, if you haven't been able to determine that from this current post. Unfortunately there are no 12 step groups for reading. In fact, if you are a non-reader you are put on programs to help you become a reader if you are in elementary school. I'm not going to look at this too closely for too long. Part of the reason I went to law school so was that I could be PAID to READ and WRITE ALL DAY! As my husband has observed - there is obviously something very sick and wrong with me.) Anyway, we go on even when we know we are over-talking. And yet we do it anyway. The best evidence of this is my LAW assignment that will not die. I have a page length limit. I have been over that limit for days. Every night I have a date with "the red pen of doom." Yesterday I cut two pages out of the draft and put one back in. Yikes! I still have 1.5 pages I need to cut, which means that I will need to cut at least 3 before I will get it right because I know that I will be putting at least 1 back and possibly 2. With that math, I'm doomed to turn this assignment in at least 1/2 page over the limit (which will not be good for my grade, and that will not be good for my morale.)
Anyway, this glut of information is like standing in a giant open-air square listening to everyone talk on their cell phones. Some of it is meaningful. Some of it is clearly important because people are saying "wait while I add that" and then stop talking long enough to add whatever it is to their iPhones or Blackberries, but most of it is just noise. I've quit talking on my cell phone and gone to texting because that way I'm not contributing to the cloud of noise that seems to be everywhere.
However, the good thing about all this noise, dreck, and endless stream of information was the really cool comparison I was able to draw between the problem I needed to write about and a completely unrelated non-law activity that happened to provide just the illustration I needed, and allowed me to cut almost two pages out of my LAW assignment. So I have now been on the lookout for another brilliant non-law example that I can use to cut another two pages out of my assignment and hopefully get it completed. Which is why I have spent a large amount of time reading frivolous dreck in Google Reader over the past several days. You never know where another great idea might come from.
So if anyone is interested, I am doing my own part to contribute to the overload and return the favor by posting this to my blog. If you are looking for me, you can find me at the SBA table at the FLYSX review weekend with a copy of my LAW assignment and my red pen.
I normally don't write on this blog about things that I read in other blogs. (Although that is changing.) I reserve this blog for things that I encounter being both a mommy and a law student - things that are funny, things that make me think, things that I think are important that someone else might want to read about. But I don't tend to comment about things I read in other people's blogs.
I read other blogs because it is a way for me to find out the perspectives of other people without having to meet them in person. And if it turns out that I'm not sure that I agree with what they write or I don't have an interest in what they're currently blogging about, I can click the "mark as read" button and I don't have to come up with any funky excuse about why I didn't answer their email or return their phone call, and I don't have to try and think up any more small talk while I wait for someone to come rescue me like I do if I'm in a social setting.
But this post on Modite caught my attention. First of all, it specifically addresses working women in the midwest. But as I read the post, I felt that it could equally apply to women in the Northeast, or the Pacific Northwest, or small rural or suburban communities on the West Coast. In short, there is a shortage of women blogging about their experiences being working women. Second she specifically asks for experiences of women who live in Wisconsin. And as I read that my law school brain lit up and said "Wisconsin! Joy Nonweiler is from Wisconsin. And she was the first women from an online law school to take and pass the Wisconsin bar. And this is a second career for her, and...and...and" which caused me to look back at the plea for more working women to write about what it is like to be a working woman, and think about the question again.
Because I am a working woman. And I go to school full time - in the same online law program that Joy graduated from. And if you kept track of what I post to Twitter and FB in my status area you would assume (rightly!) that I pretty much eat, sleep, take care of my kids, and go to law school. And there are other times that you would assume (not as rightly - but understandably) that somewhere along the line my kids and sleep disappeared from my life and I took up residence in the law library. A close college friend of mine who lives 10 minutes away from me told me "I would call you and try to get together with you more often, but most of them time I get the impression that you are buried in a law textbook and using a snorkel to breathe." This was not in any way a slam or a complaint - our friendship went through a similar hiatus when she was in medical school - but just a frank honest impression of just how busy I was.
Which brings me back to the issue of the working woman who blogs - we don't. Even though I keep a blog, the amount I post does not rate the title of blogging. Unless it is written in our job description to blog or we happen to be someone who blogs rather than journals, or we happen to be very techy and like blogging, very few of us blog because we view our time as a precious commodity and are careful what we do with it. What little time we have we spend taking care of the other areas of our life that are outside of our work day. We take care of kids or parents or sometimes both. We call friends who live close by or far away and plan time to see them (when we aren't breathing through a snorkel because we have an essay due for Con Law and the proper flow for an essay on the commerce clause is eluding us). We feel guilty because we aren't "doing enough" to advance the goals and interests of women in society. We feel guilty because we aren't "spending enough time" taking care of the needs of our children and families. We feel guilty taking 10 minutes and spending it on "self-care" even when our therapist or PC physician has told us that we need it.
We don't blog because it isn't a priority. Clearly there is a need for it - my blog list features more mommy blogs than working women blogs, and the working women blogs I subscribe to are often women without kids who blog as part of their job, not because they are part of the community. So in answer to the question - where are all the working women? Hopefully they are out from behind their computers doing something for themselves or their kids.
It was Friday. One of those rare July/August mornings in Southern California. I woke up chilly and found morning fog hanging on the horizon. A cool gray layer with yellow rays just beginning to poke through. The air smelled damp with the hint of crispness that signals fall is not far away.
As I dropped my husband off at work and drove my two kids to the Y for day camp, I watched the sun slowly break through the fog, and as I did it reminded me of the beginning of school. The cool damp fall mornings, the smell of falling leaves and the grape harvest, and the vivid reds, golds, and yellows that paint the Napa Valley during the early autumn. As this memory faded from memory, it was replaced by a quiet melancholy. Homesickness. I was homesick for "the Hill."
Everyone who reads this who has attended Pacific Union College will have their own memories that bring up this mixture of nostalgia and desire. Afterglow at the Window Tree, Christmas carols outside the women's dorm courtesy of MOG (Men of Granger) and the Christmas Tree lighting. Hanging out in the cafeteria, or the dorm lounge with friends. All night study groups in the Andre lounge during midterms and finals. DAS productions, shouts of excitement when you hear that friends were accepted into medical school, engagement showers and going away parties, usually celebrated with the traditional dunking in the Paulin Hall fountain.
On mornings like this, I sometimes wish that I could go back and experience it all over again, taking with me the lessons I learned the first time I was there so I could build on them, change them up, make different choices. But most of all, just go and experience it once more. Once again drink in the sounds, the smells, and the colors that appear when the morning sun creates dappled shadows on the walk between Irwin Hall and McReynolds Hall. Slide down the rail on the last set of steps behind Graf Hall. Jump into piles of leaves or link arms with a group of friends and do a crazy dance-walk on the way to the cafeteria before breakfast or after class. "Escape the Hill" to visit the shops in St. Helena or catch a movie with friends before coming back just in time for dinner; grabbing a quick bite at Taco Bell before rushing back up the hill just in time to get ready for vespers. Playing a game of pick-up football on the field across from Paulin Hall and the College Church. Laughing with friends on the way down to dinner; singing together; praying together.
For the last 4+ days I have been fighting a very nasty computer worm.
Yuck!
I think I have finally squashed it.
I am finally (amazingly) a 3L.
I survived Property.
I survived Civ Pro
I survived Crim Pro
This year I have Evidence, Corporations, Professional Responsibility, Legal Writing and Research, and Advocacy.
Advocacy starts tomorrow. Everything else started a week ago.
I'm going to be reading and writing my a$$ off. (As my mentor, Miriam, likes to say: "A$$ rhymes with Pass, so if you want to PASS make sure you write you A$$ off! - btw, I love Miriam)
This week I HAVE to make sure that I get the SBA awards for graduation finished. Otherwise I will be doing them at the last minute. Thankfully all I have to do is get them to the printer. Once they are printed, M can sign them.
Wow - can't believe that we are already two weeks into July. The time is starting to fly.
T minus slightly less than 2 years until graduation.
Tomorrow is my last day of 2L finals. Con Law and Civ Pro. I've been scoring well on my practice BarBri MCQs in Con Law so I feel confident going into the final that I have prepared for it. I am less confident about Civ Pro, but I think that a little more review and that will be ok as well.
It's hard to believe that I am here almost finished with my 2L year. I also find it difficult to believe that last year I was preparing to take my FLYSX exam and worrying about passing that. Now I'm worrying about 2L finals and realizing just how much I want this, and how good a fit it has turned out to be. (Not exactly what I expected).
I have also been surprized that everything has turned out the way that it has. Every time I have asked for a direction or encouragement, I have had someone tell me how we need good lawyers, or that law school seems to be a good choice for me, or that they know someone they like who is a lawyer. Every time I have turned to God for guidance, He has brought me encouragement to keep moving toward being a lawyer.
Now I'm concerned that I won't pass my final exams. I keep hearing encouragment - the "Still Small Voice" that says "don't worry, you will pass." I keep hoping that it is true. I keep hoping to see that it is the case. I am worried about this. I am worried about how well I will do, and if I will do well enough to pass.
Sigh. Almost done. I can see the halfway point from here.
I am a bad patient. I offer this disclaimer up front without shame or remorse. Any medical professional who has managed to keep me as a patient longer than 6 months can really and truly advertise that they give "excellent care," because if you were to look up the definition of a difficult patient, there would be a picture of me in the entry.
Among my faults: I am horribly needle-phobic. I begin to hyperventilate and get weak in the knees if someone even mentions the word "needle" in my presence. Which is why Carmen at my primary care office gets two thumbs-up from me. She can successfully start my draw on the first time and she is so quick that the stinging is minimal. She also lets me say "ouch" as much as I want and doesn't take it personally.
I hate medical testing. The only medical test that I will cheerfully and willingly participate in is a diagnostic ultrasound or diagnostic x-rays. I've had 3 ultrasounds and multiple x-rays. They are really cool because not only do you get to see body parts from the inside, they also do not usually involve needles or nasty tasting medications.
I cry when I am under stress. And if I can't cry because I'm not in a socially acceptable place to cry, then I get openly tense. And my husband has said that I am not a friendly person to be around when I am that tense. I am like a cat that has been cornered that is ready to fight back. Not good.
I read everything and I question EVERYTHING. I regularly negotiate with my doctors and dentists over my care. I have also been known to find a Stedmens medical dictionary and look up long complicated words so that I can find out what they mean. And I keep reading until I really understand it.
On the other hand - I am a also a very good patient. I am compliant when it comes to following instructions, taking my medication, reporting back when I'm supposed to for follow-up visits, and generally acting like a model patient - except when I am a bad patient - which lead to the following situation at the patient check-in:
I will admit up front that I was loaded for bear. Large bear. Having dealt with financial clearance before and fought with them over everything from them putting my insurance ID in wrong, to misspelling my name on my paperwork and causing havoc when my insurance ID didn't match the person that they did bring up (who knew there were two of me in the system), I also had done the "informed consent" cha cha with them the last time that I had checked in for a lab test, and I had sent a formal letter of complaint to patient compliance.
So again, they handed me the paperwork. I noted that they had changed the form. It was now two pages and had a nice place to initial different things that I was agreeing to - except the informed consent section. It didn't have any type of a line or acknowledgment. It also didn't say anything about being given the option to talk to a physician before signing the form.
And that was when the compliant patient butted heads with the bad patient.
Good patient: Just sign the damn document. You know what an ultrasound is and why they're doing it.
Bad patient (aided and abetted by Lawyer Brain): Nuh-uh. I've talked with a few people and the phrase "needle biopsy" has been mentioned. Do you want to get stuck without warning?
Good patient: But Dr. X's office didn't say anything about a needle biopsy.
Bad patient: You want to find out that one was ordered when they walk in with the needle and the specimen jar? Or do you want to question this up front?
Good patient: But you know they won't know what was ordered down here! They'll tell you that you need to ask upstairs.
Bad patient: Then they have no business asking me to sign an informed consent here. If they have no clue what I'm having done, and they can't even provide something from the department explaining it, then is it really truly informed consent? I'm sensing some undue influence, and maybe some subtle coercion here.
Good patient: Don't go creating trouble
Bad patient: I'm not creating it - they created it with this stupid check-in policy. Want to open the pool on how pale the general counsel would get if he knew what was going on?
At which point Good Patient capitulated: Ok, make it clear that they have no business giving the informed consent, and then sign the damn thing!
So I read through it twice, just to make sure that there wasn't anything else, and then I looked at the financial services rep. "Is this all?"
"Yes, just sign there."
"There isn't anything from the radiology office - no explanation of services, nothing for me to sign?"
"Not unless they have something that you sign there."
At that point I took a deep breath and pulled out my patient smile. The one I reserve for when my kids are climbing the walls and I want to scream at them to get down but I know that will only make things worse. I took two deep breaths and said in my calmest voice, "Are you an RN?"
She looked at me, puzzled. "No."
I took another deep breath and kept the smile on my face. "Are you an ultrasound tech, or a physician?"
"No."
"Then how are you qualified to give me information regarding my exam today?"
She looked at me quizzically. "Its an informed consent. It's just something you need to sign."
"Which is for a procedure that you don't have any knowledge of and so again I'm asking you what authority you have to provide information for an informed consent because you are not a nurse, a physician, or an ultrasound tech."
"I can get you a supervisor."
I took another breath. "That will be fine. "
It took a few minutes and then the supervisor showed up. "Its an informed consent for the facility."
"What about the one for the physician and the exam I'm going to have?'
"I don't know - this is just for the facility."
At that point my smile disappeared. It clearly said in the document that it was the consent to medical treatment, and nothing that it was for the facility. So I looked at her. "Are you a physician?"
"No"
"Are you a nurse or an ultrasound tech?"
"No"
"Can you tell me about the risks and benefits for this procedure?"
At that point the supervisor began to flounder. "Well, I don't know all the potential problems. I don't know what our procedures are if you were to have a heart attack. I don't know all the possibilities. It's not meant to cover that. It's just for the facility."
I put my smile back on. "Fine. Then I'm going to initial here and I'm going to time and date it." I initialed it with the time and date. I then held out the pen to the supervisor. "Would you please initial, time, and date here next to mine."
She got a concerned look. "What am I initializing?"
I took a deep breath and kept a firm grip on my smile. "You are initializing that I signed my informed consent and that you were the one that provided the information."
The supervisor took the pen and initialed it, then offered the pen back to me. I remained strong. "Please give the date and time as well, that way we know it was done at the same time."
She did. I took back the pen and thanked her.
I'm now sitting with this piece of paper (a week later) wondering what, if anything, I should do with it.
Nothing happened. There is nothing that would give me standing in a complaint. I didn't suffer any "ill effects" from the exam. There was no outright "harm" done. I even verbally consented to the procedure once I got upstairs, talked with the tech, and climbed onto the bed. I'm not even sure what would happen if I openly challenged it.
But I also recall the Criminal Procedure lecture that discussed Miranda with the hypothetical question "Since everyone knows that they have the right to a lawyer, do we still need to read people their rights before we begin a custodial interrogation?"
Interesting question. One that could also be posed in this situation. Having given consent to 4 u/s exams prior to this, I had a good understanding of my rights and the potential risks involved. But does that matter? I think of the sign that is prominently posted outside each of the exam rooms in our Simulation Lab that is used to teach students that is titled "Patient Rights." One of those rights is "an explanation of the exam that I will be undergoing along with the possible risks and the benefits." In other words consent and what constitutes informed consent.
Incidentally, this is not limited to medical procedures, it extends to any personal service or activity where there is a risk of personal injury or harm -- which is why when you go to have a massage, have your teeth whitened, or go skydiving, you are required to initial and sign a document that looks like the abridged version of War and Peace. (I personally believe there should be a statement at the bottom that says "the lawyers made me give this to you.....")
I also am trying to figure out what hat I am wearing in this situation. I'm advocating for a patient so in that way I'm a staff member. However, I'm also complaining about my quality of care, in which case I'm a patient. Additionally, I'm pointing out a particular problem in the chain of care - which puts me in a very interesting position, because it isn't exactly my job, in the same way that advocating for better patient care is.
I also don't want to see our head attorney for the institution go white-green at the gills. I've seen that happen once before (in fact, I was the one who caused him to go white-green) and it wasn't pretty. There's a part of me that thinks that there might be another shade of pale that I haven't seen yet, and I'm not really sure I want to see that either.....but I know if I were in charge of minimizing risk to the institution, I would want to know that this was happening.
But deep down I have this fear that maybe this is all that is needed for the institution to be legally covered in terms of providing appropriate informed consent. Which would then move this from a legal question to an ethical question. One that is far more nebulous and difficult to pin down.
So once again I ask the question "What defines consent...."
10. You have three different class outlines, one for Civil Procedure, one for Criminal Procedure, and one for Constitution that all discuss the legal intricacies of 4th amendment due process.
9. You can't drive past a VW dealership without recalling the pertinent facts of Worldwide Volkswagon
8. After hearing that a US Senator filed a lawsuit against God, you email your Civ Pro professor and ask if under FRCP Rules, the Pope could act as an authorized agent for the purpose of process service.
7. You watch TV shows like NCIS, Law and Order, and Criminal Minds with your Criminal Procedure or Evidence Outline and critique what the writers get right and what they get wrong.
6. Your spouse/significant other has quit watching TV shows and going to movies with you because of # 7.
5. You and your law school friends are discussing an International Shoe case, and none of you are talking about Gucci's or Manolo's.
4. A friend asks if you knew the names of the Supremes and you start naming the members of the Supreme Court and you suddenly realize that she meant the members of the band...
3. You are horrified to learn that in some jurisdictions Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter are all considered "public communication" and as such do not necessarily have the same protections as "private speech."
2. You make law review or moot court team and mention all the extra work involved and your friend wonders aloud if it is a reward or a punishment.
1. You desperately wish you could go back to your 1L classes because they were "so easy!"
