data analyst, data fatigue

I love many things about my accidental career as a data analyst, especially the part where I wind up working in the medical field.

But there are days.

Since I returned from CA there have not been many pressing projects for me, so I've spent time building templates and cruising the data, learning new ways of querying, etc. I do this with a medical code book in front of me, experimenting with criteria by diagnosis and by procedure.

After being exposed to all those thousands of medical cases, a few things:

1. Diabetes BAD.
2. Uncontrolled diabetes DOUBLY BAD.
3. Many people tempt fate with their lifestyle over many years. These people fill the files, and it really sucks to think how much of it could have been avoided.
4. A few others really do not, and that perhaps sucks even more.
5. There better be a special place in Hell for people who abuse little babies.
6. Some people in their nineties survive some crazy stuff, and roll out of there just dandy, thank you very much.
7. I love Wikipedia.
8. Surgery, like airplane flight, might be a big scary deal to you the consumer, but seen in the aggregate is impressive and reassuring in its routine success and professionalism.