Isn’t What it Used to Be

Like that episode of Seinfeld, you’ve often noticed how when you go to an airport to catch a flight, the treatment you get as a coach passenger is acceptable most of the time, but the civilities are slowly eroding. When you call the airline as a coach passenger, you get an automated voicemail maze; the first-class people get a real person to talk to right away; they get a soft-lit luxurious waiting lounge at the airport with free drinks and peanuts; you’re lucky if you get a metal chair,sticky with someone else’s popcorn, and fluorescent lighting shining in your face. If you ever noticed recently, at any clinic run by a dermatologist, skin care patients usually get coach treatment; the dermatologists act like the customers who wait for their appointments over at the luxury annexe are the real patients.

If you haven’t guessed who those lucky “real patients” are, who get the kid-glove treatment, they are the ones who come in for cosmetic dermatology – not for the suppurating psoriasis and acne like the rest of us. The doctors are pretty matter-of-fact about the whole deal. Legitimate skincare issues get paid for by health insurance – a fixed sum that cuts the dermatologist’s margin down as far as it will go. Dermatologist skin care for cosmetic purposes, Botox, skin plumping and so on, get paid for at the market rate – they make a lot more money on this. And of course, everyone pays more attention to the cash cow.

The second-rate treatment that genuine skin care patients get, goes all the way. They find it harder to get an appointment, there may or may not be a proper receptionist for pre-treatment counseling, they never get to spend as much time with the doctor, and it becomes impossible to re-schedule an appointment. Serious patients who call with potentially worrisome problems, like a stubborn and discolored patch on the skin that might come from a sexually transmitted disease or cancer, still have to wait in line behind someone who comes in, say, for dandruff; all while, they watch the vanity patients grandly welcomed to the other section. The dermatologist skin care department treats the serious patient as second class, and they don’t even care if you know it.

Nothing can match the indignity of not even getting to see a doctor sometimes, though; in many cities across the country, the serious patients only get to see the physician’s extender, a special nurse; and the doctor is usually busy attending the real customers, probably with a gold-plated Botox syringe in one hand. But wait! Perhaps that isn’t the biggest indignity after all. When patients do get the actual dermatologist,skin care, curiously, seems to be the last thing on his mind, often. Patients often complain that the real problem on their minds is quickly dismissed as “no big deal”, so that the doctor can launch into a sales pitch for some beauty cream, lotion or other as soon as possible. People do complain of how doctors can sometimes dismiss serious cancerous symptoms in favor of a sales pitch.

A clinic for medical skin care, will often have to work three times as longer for half the pay; and that pay comes after the doctor argues with the health insurance company over what treatments he is allowed to give the patient, and after waiting for them to reimburse him – sometimes, a month. The vanity dermatologist on the other hand, gets paid twice that, does not have to go through the hassle of arguing with anyone,  and gets paid on the day. It is not just the fancy private practice that does this either. University teaching hospitals are getting into it too, as patients complain. Well, one day, those same fancy vanity doctors’ clients will visit a dermatologist skin care in mind. And then they will get to see how the other half lives – the lower half.

Using online dictionaries is an easy way to enhance your web surfing experience!

When you’re surfing the web, just looking up some information and reading some articles, how many times do you run across a word you don’t know? This is common among both adults and kids. If you’re looking to understand all that you read, you really don’t want to just gloss over that word and figure you’ll get the gist of the information without knowing exactly what the word means. In addition, why lose an opportunity to grow your vocabulary? There are many online dictionaries which you might use to correct these problems. Let’s see how you can make the online dictionary of your choice both accessible and non-intrusive, making the most of your time while surfing the web.

There are an abundance of online dictionaries which are free to use. You’ll find Webster’s, the Oxford Concise Dictionary and many others, available in a variety of formats, such as abridged, unabridged and various editions which contain certain information which may be of particular use to you. For example, you may want your online dictionary to include Latin roots or language derivatives. Take a look at a number of them. Your choice may hinge simply on the particular presentation that’s easiest for you to use, or the number of search options you have at your disposal.

Once you’ve chosen a dictionary that suits your needs, you want it to be quickly accessible. There are a few ways to do this and how you accomplish handy access is, again, up to you and what you find most convenient.

If you have a single online dictionary that fulfills all your needs, you can simply bookmark it. If you’re a bookmark freak, with dozens of entries and no particular organization, create a new folder in your bookmarks, perhaps entitled ‘reference’ or just ‘dictionary’. Whenever you get online, open a new browser window to your bookmarked dictionary resource. This way, you never need to leave the site you’re looking at, to surf away to the dictionary.

If your dictionary needs require that you regularly reference a number of online dictionaries, as might be the case if you frequently read foreign language material, you can still use the bookmark method and a separate browser window to switch from one to another without interfering with the site from which you’re getting your information.

Words are communication and incomplete communication, in some situations, is little better than none at all. Here’s a simple example to illustrate the point. Your parents are getting you a dog for your birthday and are allowing you to pick the breed. You read, “This breed of dog requires extensive room to roam and play.” You don’t know what ‘extensive’ means, so you interpret that your family’s small backyard is ‘room’. You’ll acquire a beautiful, loving pet, and be taking some very long walks you hadn’t counted on!

Grow your vocabulary. Online dictionaries are a valuable resource for everyone.

One of my biggest fears is that my phone will ring and that someone will tell me that something has happened to my husband. I suppose this is a common fear for many people, but my fear wasn’t as bad as it was until my husband started the job he has now had for five years. Though his job isn’t terribly dangerous, he is at risk for some construction injuries, and I don’t like to think about what might happen to him. Though I know you can’t sit around and worry, the fleeting though of something going wrong enters my mind when the phone rings while he is at work.

Construction injuries are not that common around here, but they do happen. His company has a great record, and that is somewhat of a comfort. They also have strict rules in place to prevent construction injuries, but not everyone follows them. There was one night when my husband climbed up on our stair rails and leaned over to the opposite wall. He was essentially two stories above the floor and I was upset. He said that I had better not see what he does at work, because he does stuff like that all the time.

I cannot remember anyone that he works with receiving any construction injuries. This is great because  it helps me to feel at ease. I’m not totally relaxed because I know that most of the time, construction injuries are due to things that are out of human control. I’m not worried about him as much as I am worried about natural happenings and perhaps the actions of others. I know some of his coworkers drink beer with lunch and then go to work, and that does bother me quite a bit.

I never would have got into teaching special needs students if it were not for personal experiences. You see, my sister was in a residential autism program when she was a kid, and I found out first hand how big a difference special education can make. When she first went in to the program, I was very mad at my parents. I did not want them to take my sister away. She had pretty high functioning autism – as these things go – and I wanted her to stay with us.

My parents tried to convince me that it was all for the best. It was supposed to be one of the best special education programs in the country, and the people who ran it practically guaranteed that we would see here improve by leaps and bounds within the first year. I was more than a bit skeptical, of course. I was very protective of my sister, and I did not believe that anyone could do a better job than we were doing at home.

That is why I was so surprised when she got back from a year of special education classes. I had never seen her doing so well, and that is no lie. She was more at ease, happier, and healthier than before. She had learned a lot too! Her academic performance was almost up to grade level when she got home from that year of classes. That is when I decided to teach special education.

A lot of people assume that teaching special needs classes will be easy, but it is not. As a matter of fact, special education is one of the most demanding and specialized of all the teaching fields. You have  to be able to work with autism, mental retardation, and a whole long list of different learning disabilities. Let me tell you – it is no small task! Still, if you are really passionate about what you are doing, it will all be worth it in the end.

I finished up my special education training well on the way to one of the most rewarding careers that I could imagine. I would be able to spend every day in the classroom, working with a variety of different students, helping them to overcome some very challenging problems. You can not imagine how rewarding that is. Each day is a challenge, but each challenge is its own reward.