Categories: uncategorized
Date: 27 February 2007 10:03:26
Today was my weekly clinical day at the World's Greatest Hospital (WGH). At the WGH, there is a stairwell that fascinates me. It is a rather small stairwell, in that there is only room for one person to walk comfortably, however there is room for overtaking slow walkers. This stairwell goes up 12 storeys. And possibly more.... I know there's a 12th floor... I THINK that's the top.... but who knows? And is floor 1 really the bottom? Maybe it goes down to the centre of the earth!
But anyway, while I was walking up to my tutorial on the 8th floor from the cafeteria on the 3rd floor, I pondered about what would show up on a webcam placed in this stairwell. See a lot of people at the WGH take the stairs over the lifts. Mainly staff and medical/nursing/allied health students. You rarely see patients or members of the public there. But it really is a very high traffic stairwell. It's very uncommon to even go from one floor to the next without passing at least 2-3 other people. And I find it to be quite a friendly stairwell. There are often smiles and occasionally idle chitchat. And people hold doors open for each other. Even for my group of 7 medical students and a tutor. Isn't that nice?
I think that if there were a video camera (or better still, a series of cameras at different altitudes) in the stairs there would be some interesting watching for trainspotting types like me.
"Hey! That guy just walked from the third floor to the 9th floor and then back down to the 4th and back up to the 10th! What is he thinking??"
"Hmmm Jerry hasn't gone past in a while... Bold and the Beautiful must be on"
"SECURITY!! A patient is escaping down the stairwell!! Scramble a wheelchair for the door of level 6 and Agent 39428 apprehend the suspect with a Foley catheter and a syringe full of Valium!!"
"Ahem medical student pretending to look lost, your tutorial group is currently in the rectal examination practise lab and you know it!!"
"But why is everyone going to the 11th floor????"
During the course of today I walked from
level 3 to level 8
to level 7
to level 8
to level 3
to level seven
to level 3
Between each two floors there are two flights of 12 stairs. So that means I walked up or down 264 stairs. That's quite a lot really.
Luckily the neuro wards are on level 7. Haematology (level 12) was a bit of a killer.