Brief Messages or Announcements – Page 46

Face Shield Assembly—If You Dare

At the hospital where I work, face shields are preferred over medical grade masks, mainly because they keep you from touching your face. We now wear face masks and shields, according to CDC guidelines.

We got a couple of face shields through Amazon. It’s a kit you have to put together. I wish I had known that beforehand. The instructions in the package were not helpful and the picture guides on Amazon were not much better, but they at least got me started.

I put a few scratches in the plastic cover while putting one of the shields together. I did a little better with the second shield. I’m hoping that wearing these out in the community won’t become part of the new normal.

The Masked Walkers on the Terry Trueblood Trail

Today we took another walk on the Terry Trueblood Trail. This time there was a different feel. We wore face masks and there were new signs directing one-way traffic in order to facilitate social distancing. We noticed a few people wearing masks, but not many more than the last time we were out there.

Sena got a kick out of picking up groceries the other day. The guy who brought out the groceries was wearing a face mask—just not covering his face. He knew the guidelines and could recite them, but he had complaints about the mask: “I can’t breathe!”; “It’s hot!”; “It fogs up my glasses!”; “It gets in my way!”

I heard that. But there’s a right way and many wrong ways to wear a face mask.

National Neuroscience Curriculum Initiative “Quarantine Curriculum” Starts Tomorrow

I was just notified about the National Neuroscience Curriculum Initiative (NNCI) “Quarantine Curriculum” this afternoon–the program starts tomorrow. It’s a 14-day program. It’s free and all you need to do is register (also free) to log in so they can track usage.

The Zoom web-based conferencing app will be used to facilitate the program. It’s being launched in response to the COVID-19 challenges to providing classroom teaching, one of which is to prevent spread of the virus by cancelling in-person classes. The course description and the Zoom link is here.

The recommendation for social distancing to reduce exposure is leading to school closures (I can hear children playing outside; it’s an all–day recess), and recommendations to find alternative ways to approach the didactic component of medical education. The Quarantine Curriculum is one way.

NNCI is designed by medical educators to meet the need for building a strong neuroscience knowledge base for residents across many disciplines in medicine and psychiatry. I think it’s an excellent platform and one of our faculty members is on the NNCI executive council.

NNCI makes learning neuroscience fun. Check it out!

Announcing Spring!

Spring is here! I heard this rustling outside my window this afternoon and when I opened the blinds, I saw flocks of Robins and Cedar Waxwings on our trees, feasting on the berries and little cones. Boy, can they party!

Soaring Bird in the Neighborhood

This afternoon after we returned home after lunch out, I got a picture of what could have been the bird that made off with a mouthful of house finch chicks last month.

I don’t know why I didn’t draw up the window blind when I first heard the sound of what reminded me of a bed sheet flapping in a high wind a month ago.

When I finally did crack the blind, I saw the huge, black bird with what seemed like a wingspan as long as my leg beating those wings mightily at the air to stay aloft as it plucked the baby birds from the tree.

It was fast as lightning and the theft was done so quickly, I had no time to be more than a witness.

I vowed not to go pawing into trees anymore looking for bird nests just to get snapshots. I think I gave the big predatory bird, whether crow or turkey vulture or whatever it was a visual cue to where its prey lay helpless.

Gerber Daisies

Just a short post on the Gerbera Daisy (common name Gerber). Sena planted it in our garden recently and it is firetruck red. They symbolize innocence, purity, and, most of all, cheerfulness.

When I need a little cheering up, I just look at the Gerber Daisies.

Don’t Panic

Well, this is not the usual post. It’s just a message that I’ve been watching the Iowa severe weather reports. I’ve just come up from the basement because the Tornado Warning for our area has expired. Don’t panic.

Now it’s just a severe thunderstorm warning with the possibility for 60 mph wind–nothing really.

The Don’t Panic image is just the back cover of “The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams.