kitchen table math, the sequel: vocabulary word for the day

Wednesday, February 7, 2007

vocabulary word for the day








thenar eminence



I'm reading Ian Osborn's Tormenting Thoughts and Secret Rituals, which I think Karen told me about.

In med school Osborn suffered from an obsession involving his thenar eminence:

I would have the sudden, intrusive image of me standing at a patient's bedside ready to draw a sample of blood: I unsheath a large-bore phlebotomy needle, menacing, daggerlike in its appearance, and then inexplicably, instead of inserting the needle into my patient's vein, I thrust it to the hilt into the thenar eminence of my hand.


omg

back to work

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