Cathy Mallard

When I was employed at NYU Medical Center, I had the pleasure of working with a Director of Nursing named Cathy Mallard. It’s not that Cathy was so likable – she actually ruffled a lot of feathers there – but I enjoyed her company and working with her because she was a very smart no-nonsense person who did not suffer fools quietly. We got along because we both had a lot of vision for how technology could enable and improve clinical practice, and because we were both Upper West Siders. When Cathy left NYU to go to the Visiting Nurse Service of New York, we continued to stay in touch. At VNSNY, Cathy developed, launched and managed one of the most innovative programs in home care which equipped visiting nurses with mobile computing devices on which they could download the schedule of patients they were seeing that day, look up information on their patients as well as capture information during their visits, and transmit it back to the office. This was about 15 years ago – long before such technology was in the hands of clinicians, no less those in the home care setting or on mobile devices which they had to have specially made. It was a model for other home care agencies around the country.

I last saw Cathy at a conference in April and she looked ill. She told me that she had lymphoma and although it was under control at the moment, the prognosis was not great.

Cathy passed away this weekend at the young age of 61. I am particularly struck and sad because aside from the fact that I did like and respect her a lot, I feel that especially in these times of extreme stupidity, the world has lost one more smart person who could easily see through the BS. Rest in peace Cathy.

Today's Bushism

These days I find myself using the expression "In these days of extreme stupidity . . ." a lot, especially in regard to Washington and the election. How convenient then, that this should be this past Friday's entry from my George W. Bushisms calendar:

"It would be a mistake for the United States Senate to allow any kind of human cloning to come out of that chamber."

-- Washington, D.C.; April 10, 2002

Only 113 days left!!!

Episcopalians

We were having a conversation at the dinner table the other night about different religions. I want to make sure that both my kids have a healthy knowledge of and respect for all the world's religions.

We were talking about different sects of Christianity when 10-year old Sammy asked, "What about the Episcopals?"

The thing is, having only ever read the word and never having heard it pronounced, what came out of his mouth was "What about the Eppy-scope-als?"

It took us a minute to figure out what he was talking about. My initial thought was that he was referring to some sort of medical instrument. "Mrs. Jones, we just got the test results back and it looks like we will need to perform an epi-scopal procedure."

I just hope that he doesn't think that those who follow the Pope are overdosing on felines ("Cat-holics." Get it?).