My PCP aka family MD aka general practitioner

My Primary Care Practitioner (PCP = UWMC vernacular for family doctor) for the last nine years is a kind sweet smart lady named Dr Lucy Hwang.  Her dad came from Taiwan (nee Formasa) as a young man.  He raised two girls.  Lucy and her sister both become doctors.  Lucy's sister works as an MD in Jordan.

I love Dr Lucy.  We have a wonderful working relationship.  I take a blood thinner/anticoagulant called warfarin.  One industrial use for warfarin is  as rat poison.  It is kind of tricky stuff to use in that I have to take enough to have a slower blood clotting time but not too much so that I go hemophiliac.  That means that I have to get a blood clotting test (protime) every month.  I see a lot of Dr Hwang.

I used to see her on Tuesdays.  Turns out that was the busiest day of the week in the UW-Factoria clinic.  There are two handicapped parking spots at the clinic and then it sucks for me.  I went today for the first time in years on a Friday afternoon.  It was dead at the clinic with only two doctors working instead of the 6 or 8 doctors on the busy days.  I am now a Friday appointment kind of guy.

When I go to the clinic I take 12-step meeting schedules with me.  Today I took 20 schedules putting ten  them in the literature rack and leaving ten with the receptionist to restock the rack later.  The schedules are always gone when I go back for my next appointment in a month.  I like to think it is helping somebody.  At least I am trying to carry the message of recovery to those that still suffer.  Part of the program is that I don't have to achieve great things.  I just have get it a reasonably good effort—not perfect or the best ever—just try to do what I can.

We surfed my medical records for the results of my colonoscopy last week.  The one polyp they removed was benign.   Another great feature of the UW Medical system is that my medical records are all online.  I don't have to carry my records on paper from clinic to clinic.   My understanding is that the UW has a cutting edge medical information network compared with the rest of the USA.  Europe and Japan might be years ahead of us in that area due to quirks of politics over technology—much like how the US lags in stem cell research.

Dokie is Dr Lucy's nursing assistant ("RA" which I think means Registered nursing Assistant).   She is a middle-aged lady that grew up in Iran and came to America when the Shah was overthrown and exiled.  Dokie has great stories and collects old coins dating back to the Roman era.

I love and am grateful for having Lucy and Dokie on my health care team.  They take very good care of me.