Suddenly last Summer

My brother Sebastien finally arrived from Paris. While he is sleeping, java in hand I remember events that occurred last summer and may be worthy of a post. The story begins when I received a digital emissary from the society for vascular surgery looking for volunteers to provide surgical services to the American armed forces in Ramstein Germany. As you may know, Ramstein is an american base in Germany and the location of the Landsthul Regional Medical Center. This hospital receives all wounded soldiers from Afghanistan and Iraq. While surprised that the almighty did not have an adequate number of vascular surgeons, I did not hesitate to offer my support. JO and the Kids would have to forgo the traditional summer vacash, but shit, it was the right thing to do. I approached our chairman to let him know of the plans at hand. His first statement was, and I quote “yeah you are going there because it is close to France…you can go but make sure it is on you vacations” . WTF, using my vacations was my plan from the start, but to hear this really pissed me off. I will post later my experience in Landsthul, and rather tell you how I became an american corporate whore (maybe some exaggeration here). Prior to leaving, I received an email from the Society for Vascular Surgery containing a press release explaining my role and more importantly the role of the Society in providing support to the American troops, of course they urged me to send it to our marketing department. Why? our hospital and University were very clear that this was on my time and should not infringe on their freaking bottom line.  I knew they would use this as a marketing tool if it got in their hands, so screw them.  Little did I know that the SVS actually send it as a Press release. Upon my return, my secretary had scheduled several interviews with the local media, including TV and  I was the front page of the Medical school newsletter which included the exact SVS press release that glorified the involvement of the SVS and its president.  Later, I  had a meeting with the hospital president for an unrelated issue and while I was shaking his hand, he said ” saw you on TV last night, you really received some nice publicity here”.  What the fuck is their problem, I did this because it was the right thing to do, why don’t they get it.  In any case, I could have refused the interviews, but as I said, I am a whore.

Later I will explain why I did not bring my camera and what I saw.