I was planning to finish up these last 2 days of the NYC trip on Sunday but …. World Cup game of course went to extra time and then shootout and I had some alcohol during it so didn’t have energy in the afternoon. It is now Monday morning and I am at Honda dealership with Alex’s car (which I use while continuing my loooong wait for my electric Toyota). Just an inspection and oil change today.
Now back to trip blog.
When possible I turn down hotel gyms thermostats to 65 but many are locked as was this one and at 70 degrees with no fan it was a VERY hot ride. Despite the heat I noted that at 150 Watts effort the Peloton reported my speed at 17.4 mph versus the much less impressive 15.5 my Wahoo Kickr trainer credits my efforts at home. Will be curious in spring to see how fast I really go on flat road at 150 watts as I recently bought power meter pedals for my real bike.
I quickly wolfed down a banana and power bar and hurried to get to my 8am lecture.
I managed to get to Marriott a few minutes before lecture and got to chat with my medical school classmate Chris. As the immediate past president of the NYSSA he was as usual super booked for the meeting so I was glad to get him for 5 minutes and a selfie! A colleague (and former resident), Nicole, saw me and we sat together for the excellent first lecture of day.
The issue of the opioid epidemic increasing to over 100,000 deaths in the USA per year is of concern to anesthesiologists as we give most patients having surgery some opiates. Surgeons write the prescriptions for post operative pills.
There has been enough media coverage about Sackler settlement, etc. That everyone is aware of the huge overprescribing of opiates a decade ago. Interestingly though there has been almost a 50% decrease in opiate prescriptions over last 6 years due to education but a doubling of overdose deaths. This is because the easy availability of fentanyl has replaced the illicit misdirection of oxycodone as main killer.
In the operating room we have made major efforts the last 10 years to decrease opiate use by using more non-opiate analgesics, regional nerve blocks, etc. This improves patients post op recovery by causing less nausea, respiratory depression and urinary retention. But the science to date shows there is no evidence that using ZERO opiates in the OR has ANY affect on post operative opiate dependence. And low dose opiates do have benefits when giving general anesthesia. Very good lecture.
I had a gap of an hour before next lecture and heading towards Rockefeller Center to see tree and then Saks Fifth Avenue windows.
I checked on the Pele store twice but it wasn’t open, it looked like still in business but…. I had noticed the huge NHL Experience store on Madison was closed and vacant, 2 floors of prime retail space just empty completely.
I have visited the Rock Center tree every time in NYC in December but was amazed and disappointed that this year one could not walk on plaza near tree like in past. Only for VIP ticket holders??? I felt bad for all the tourists trying to get a decent family portrait from so far away.
Since it was daytime I didn’t get to see the amazing Saks multi-media entertainment on the building but got photos of the windows.
Usually all the windows along 5th and even some on side streets had special displays on a theme but this year only 6 windows had meager “displays” and all others were just regular fashion.
After another lecture that was unremarkable to the point of me having NO photos from it I headed back to my hotel for a while to Chillax and then got collected at 5pm by my friend James (who insisted on driving even though I offered to take subway down to bar).
There was a lot in the book about the …
I visited there when I was in Berlin in 2019 to run the Marathon.
There were several groups of high school students there on the drizzly weekday I was there. The Germans insist that children learn of the past unlike in our Republican states where they are banning any mention of racism, homophobia, etc.