Guest post: San Antonio retrospective

By Howard Rodenberg, MD, MPH, CCDS

I had never been to San Antonio before this year's ACDIS Conference. One might summarize everything I knew about The Metropolis of Mid-Texas in the following dad joke:

“Knock, knock.”

“Who's there?”

“The Alamo.”

“The Alamo who?”

“Don’t you remember me?”

Usually you get a first impression about a city from the airport. Unfortunately, my arrival at 3 a.m. on a delayed flight from Salt Lake City (and let’s just be thankful that the liquor laws in Utah permit a fully functioning Delta Sky Lounge) taught me only that someone in San Antonio really likes linoleum. The taxi ride into town similarly was devoid of local color, other than how my native Iranian driver wound up in San Antonio via Wisconsin and California, and how his 25-year-old son had just decided to become a Baptist. (The story was worth a $15 tip.) The view from the hotel window showed a Denny’s and a freeway. And the convention center? It’s...well...a convention center.

It was only later that day, high atop the Tower of the Americas, that I really got a look at San Antonio. Much bigger than I thought, with lots of very cool 1930’s retro-gothic architecture. I could follow the Riverwalk from the heights and gaze over the Alamodome longing for a transplanted NFL franchise. Back on the ground that evening, looking for a refreshing adult beverage with my Jacksonville colleagues, we could hear mariachis on every corner, crooning out their paeans of amor y triste; and we could find, among every small band of musicians in charro outfits of fringes and sparkles, one sad-eyed elderly man plucking his guitarron mexicano, wondering if preening for las tursitas (“$20 per song, amigo”) was better than hanging out with la esposa back at the ranchero.

I did get to the Alamo, and I hope you did as well. It’s smaller than you might think, but if you look through the museum you realize that what we see now is really a small part of a larger complex around which the Battle of the Alamo was fought. Of special note was the toy solider store in a small shopping area adjoining the Alamo and the historic Menger Hotel. It’s very cool; selling collectible lead soldiers, hand-painted scaled miniatures and not for play. You can buy a William Travis dueling a Mexican officer for $65.)

Oh, right, there was the ACDIS annual conference. I would really like to tell you I went to everything. Alas, my moral foundation prevents me from saying so, plus there are about a thousand witnesses who would testify otherwise. I thought about going to the keynote speech on Tuesday, as I can see myself as a “Healthcare Futurist and I wanted to see what the job might entail. I’m already pretty good at predicting the future right now. I know that if you say the name of a patient you don’t like, I can predict with 100% accuracy that they will show up in the ER that very night. Likewise, I can foretell disaster if you say the “q” word to an ER nurse, if it’s a full moon, or if administration shows up for any reason past 4 p.m. I can also tell you that models of healthcare based on informed consumers making rational choices through aggressive use of health information technology are doomed to fail for more reasons that we can count. If only I can stretch that into an hour lecture and hit the futurist circuit. That’s exactly what I was thinking when I woke up at 11 a.m. and completely missed the what-I’m-told was an amazing talk by Joe Flowers.

But what trip to the ACDIS conference would be complete without a few visits to the exhibit hall. Both of my loyal readers (you know who you are) will recall that this is where the ACDIS blogging started, with a catalogue of those gifts I’ve received just by walking through the convention center with greedy palms and an open bag. Now that I’m a veteran, however, things like pens and cellphone holders and lip balms fail to hold my interest. I’m on the lookout for what's fun, new, and exciting. Here’s what I found:

A slap bracelet with black and yellow road stripes on one side and a pattern that looked like the flatbed of a pickup truck on the other. I forget what it was supposed to remind me of, unless it's that you need a Ford F-150 to cart around the ICD-10.

A stone drink coaster with a scene from Big Bend National Park, which I’m told is the only National Park in Texas. It came in a box inscribed “Especially for You.”

A pancake impression of the girlfriend. If you attended, then you likely saw Dan, the Pancake Art Man. He could look at a photo on your cellphone and make a pancake reproduction of the pic using different colors of batter. It was absolutely fascinating to watch him work, and when I reached the front of the line I thought what could be more romantic than to have my beloved immortalized in batter? What a better way to say I’m thinking of you from afar, and to let other women know I’m off limits because not only am I wearing a ring, but because I’m carrying with me a tasty reproduction of the one I love?

Dan made the pancake...a thing of starchy wonder. I immediately took pictures of it and texted them off, awaiting my well-deserved praise.

 “What the heck is that?” came the response.

“It's you. As a pancake. Beautiful and delicious, just like our love.”

“My nose is too big.”

So I ate her. Sigh.

A cookie with my face printed on it. This was actually the most useful item I received. Just before my presentation Wednesday on “CDI in the Emergency Department,” I was introduced by my Jacksonville colleague Douglas Campbell, MD, who may have said a few things about me and The Ramones that weren’t true. So I was able to whip the cookie with my face upon it out of my pocket, hold it out to the audience, and say in the direction of Dr. Campbell, “For the first time in my professional life, I can legitimately tell someone to ‘bite me.’”

Anyway, I wonder what we’ll bite into in Orlando. See you there!

Editor’s note: Rodenberg is the adult physician advisor for CDI at Baptist Health in Jacksonville, Florida. Contact him at howard.rodenberg@bmcjax.com or follow his personal blog at writingwithscissors.blogspot.com. Advice given is general. Readers should consult professional counsel for specific legal, ethical, clinical, or coding questions. Opinions expressed are that of the author and do not represent HCPro or ACDIS.