Monday, July 29, 2019

Exploring: One of the Pluses of Locum Tenens Urology


Brownsville NY 

Cape Vincent Lighthouse: where Lake Ontario becomes the st Lawrence River


Lake Ontario from Sacket's Harbor, site of War 1812 Naval battles


Finger Lake

The Black River


Grand Hotel, Clayton NY


Lake Ontario


Black River Trail, Watertown NY


Black River rafting, Watertown NY


Black River State Park


Night Skiing, Watertown NY


Typical winter evening, Watertown NY



Samuel Clemens, resident Elmira NY


Mohawk River Bridge, part of Erie Canal-way


Watkins Glen State Park


Finger Lake


Elmira College, 2019 Women's NCAA Hockey playoff


Chemung River, Elmira NY


Elmira NY


Street Fair, Elmira NY


Tribute to vets of the Spanish American War, Elmira NY



Wednesday, July 24, 2019

An excerpt from my newest book


An excerpt from my newest book coming out soon

Stream of Consciousness: A Tail of Male Infertility, Medicine, Life, & The New York Thruway  (A Real Cock & Ball Story)



I decided to drive.  I like a good road trip but what began with the excitement of a road adventure and good audio book soon gave way to increasing stress and tension with each passing mile.  The first 3 hours was pleasant enough but as I turned onto I-90 heading west from Albany, melancholy overcame my cheery disposition.  Interstate 90, which is known as the New York Thruway, traverses the state and passes some of the most important yet forgotten historic locations of our nation.  This is the region of the eastern edge of the Erie Canal, built in the early 19th century by Irish immigrants, at a tremendous cost in both dollars and lives.  The Erie Canal may well be one of the greatest construction achievements in US history and even world history, on par with the Panama Canal and maybe even the Pyramids at Giza yet as I was driving along the highway all I could see was economic despair.  I turned off the audio book, unable to concentrate.  The river was pretty but the towns along its banks looked destitute, slum-like.  I had to look up on the map to learn the name of the waterway; the Mohawk.   Old bridges and locks; a canal system.  I had to ask myself, “What is this canal?”  I don’t recall ever learning about it in school.  How is that possible?  I made a mental note to learn about the Erie Canal during any downtime I might have this upcoming weekend of locum tenens urology call, the mere thought of which making my throat dry.
The Erie Canal was built to connect the food production facilities of the Midwest via Chicago with New York City and then the world.  The Canal is what made New York City a world capital and had a great deal to do with our nation’s prosperity.  The canal’s slow death began with completion of the St Lawrence Seaway to the north with the final death blow occurring with completion of the Thruway in the 1970s.  The canal did make many of the cities along its path rich.  Towns like Amsterdam; Herkimer; Utica; Rome: these were once thriving industrial and manufacturing towns that to me, as I drove passed them, were in decay.  The recession of the early 1970s worsened things and the towns along this once prosperous corridor have withered on the vine.  Poverty in this region of NY is rampant with rates exceeding 30% in some cities.  
My mood worsened and dread crept into my head.  I no longer wanted to be here, on this depressing road, and when I got to Utica, a city with close to half its population living in or around poverty, I decided to get off the Thruway and take a local, rural highway, in search of some charm; some history.  I hopped onto NY12, a 220-or-so-mile rural highway that starts near Binghamton and ends along the St Lawrence River, skimming the western edge of Adirondack Park.   NY 12 skirts Adirondack Park but is not part of the preserve, with its pristine lakes, dense forests, remote wilderness and high peaks.  The Adirondack Mountains are old mountains, much older than the Appalachian Range or any other range for that matter, by 2 billion years or so.  In fact, the Adirondack Range is the oldest range in the world and was formed prior even to the period of Gondwana, the giant multi-continent land mass that preceded Pangea by more than a billion years.  Theodore Roosevelt successfully fought to preserve the Adirondacks from development, starting the conservation movement.  Adirondack Park is magnificent.  But NY 12 remains outside the park, a world away from magnificent, as it winds its way along the Black River passing town after town filled with decay, dilapidation, & despondency.  
I was going upriver into the heart of darkness.




Thursday, July 18, 2019

Let's catch up



It has been a while since I wrote about independent practice.  What can I say?  I've been busy.  Very busy.  That is a good thing. 

It has been 13 years and a few months and I enjoy solo practice as much as I did on day one, even more so. 

The early years were tough.

Lean.

Now is good.

Phone rings non-stop.  I had added 13,000 plus patients to my practice and I am really appreciated.

I have built the practice I have always wanted but never thought I could have.

I have a solid sub-specialty practice in male infertility, have a vasectomy center, do vasectomy reversals in-office and I have client depositor sperm bank. 

How many other urologists have that in Suffolk County?  Zero.  Nassau County? Zero.  New York State?  Zero.

Am I proud of this?  Hell yeah!

I have a strong referral base of independent docs, like me, who have resisted acquisition for all these years.  They ain't going anywhere.

The majority of my patients come from professional referral, word of mouth referral & web.

I do advocacy work for https://nysurologicalsociety.org/  on their exec committee and I am the President of the http://www.scms-sam.org/index3.html

It is all good.

Lov'in it.

The IU.