It's probably safest to say I'm not a doctor, but I simulate them on
computers. One of my professional areas is clinical system automation,
where I both design the software architecture but also deal with the
clinicians to find out what they are trying to accomplish.  Often, in
clinical automation, the physicians and nurses tend to resent automation
people, saying they are trying to force computers on them without
understanding the problem.

In such cases, I often get sent in, but I won't talk about computers in
the first few interviews -- I talk about cardiac pharmacology, intensive
care, etc., until I build some credibility. One of the important things
to get across is that I have to understand how they think in order to
build models of it.

Originally, I started as an undergraduate biochemistry major intending
to go into medicine, but life doesn't always turn out the way you
planned. I continue to take continuing education for physicians,
subscribe to major journals, and, where possible, participate in
research (on both sides of the staff and patient line).

In fact, I'm trying to think of how I will respond to Jo's comment about
a tube down the throat.  I had that experience (transesophageal stress
echocardiography) at NIH Clinical Center, but the procedure became at
least R-rated. I'd have sworn that it was directed by Frederico Fellini.

It sounds like you had yours more recently than mine.  I'm having to
think when they were; the CABG was in, IIRC, 1994. Even basic stents, to
say nothing drug- or radiation eluting ones, weren't in use at the time.  

That technique wasn't in use for my first PTCA, with the cath and the
PTCA done in different hospitals, a week or two apart. It was done for
the second.

<did you, Howard, become an expert @ eating dinner off your

HA! Would you believe that the meal served to me after BOTH
angioplasties, one in Washington DC and the other in California,
was...be ready for this...

spaghetti and meatballs in tomato sauce.

I may not have bled much from the procedures, but after dinner and
before cleanup, if you didn't know it was tomato sauce, you'd have seen
me and thought I was a major trauma case!