(no subject)

[aprilstarchild]

NEW IRC14146 CH - 075031 Internal Medicine Clinic

Monday-Friday 8:00am-4:30pm; 1.0 FTE; Salary Range: $12.69-17.11/hour. PAS Specialist. Requires six months of work experience in a medical office setting, including high volume direct patient contact OR one year of work experience in a high volume direct public contact position. Complete successfully the required PAS initial training and core competency assessment before or during the trial service period. Complete all required update modules. Proficient in university network computer applications using Windows, Word, Excel, A2K, LCR, RSS, order entry and SMS applications preferred. Keyboarding skills 30-45 wpm. Working knowledge of medical terminology. The Receptionist gathers and records required information about patients; provides specific customer services which include screening for financial eligibility, confirming health insurance coverage and individual’s obligations, obtaining necessary authorizations for care, scheduling physician office and ancillary appointments, and assisting patients in an office or practice setting.

IRC13730 AB - 011079 Pediatric Specialties

Monday-Friday 8:00am-5:00pm; 1.0 FTE; Salary Range: $12.69-17.11/hour. PAS Specialist/Customer Service Representative Front Desk. Six months of work experience in a medical office setting, including high volume direct patient contact OR one year of work experience in a high volume direct public contact position. Proficient in university network computer applications using Windows, WordPerfect 8.0, A2K, LCR, RSS, order entry and SMS applications. Basic computer keyboarding skills including typing of 40-45 wpm. Working knowledge of medical terminology. Strong relationship building skills with patients, health plans, providers, staff, management. Ability to be flexible required and insurance knowledge a plus. Must have a strong combination of excellent computer skills and outstanding customer service skills. If you have worked with children and can quickly learn new computer applications this might be for you. The Pediatrics Specialty Practice provides total pediatric-oriented medical care in a practice setting staffed by faculty (physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants) and residents of Oregon Health & Science University. The Clinic coordinates patient care provided through other practices and hospitals. The Clinic conducts patient care five days per week. Approximately 80 patients may be seen per day. The Pediatric Specialty Clinic provides age appropriate care to age groups 0-22 with a few adult specialty services.

They look like descriptions of what 5minutelimit does, but I'm not sure. I know that OHSU has cheap bus passes and good benefits. I know the pay for those jobs is way higher than what I'm making now.

I'm remembering how much I loathe filling out applications. I shoulda taken my afternoon dose of Adderall for this stuff. Oy.

Comments

[sagcat.livejournal.com]

I keep meaning to get on those OHSU apps, dammit. I agree that it would be a nice place to work and they are on my list. So don't think that I'm copying you when I get a job there after you do. =-P

[aprilstarchild.livejournal.com]

And then you and me and 5minutelimit can eat lunch together. Maybe. *lol* OHSU is huge.

[alicia-stardust.livejournal.com]

Katie works up there, too.

[aprilstarchild.livejournal.com]

Last I checked, she did things that make me distinctly uncomfortable, and I really don't want to think about her doing them, or risk her talking about it.

[alicia-stardust.livejournal.com]

So because of that you're snubbing her?

[aprilstarchild.livejournal.com]

No. I'm just not sure I want to have lunch with her at OHSU. I like her, I like hanging out with her, I just don't want to think about what she does for a living.

[axiom.livejournal.com]

Just remember, you wouldn't have any of your meds if it were not for people doing the exact type of research she does.

Katie is not an idiot. You could let her know that discussions about the types of things that go on at her work make you uncomfortable, and she wouldn't have any problem talking about something else.

[aprilstarchild.livejournal.com]

The reason we know as much as we do about hypothermia in people is because the Nazis did tests on live people. I can approve of a doctor using that information to save someone's life, even while finding the Nazis cruel for doing it.

I don't like taking prescription drugs, and animal experimentation is the main reason. I can buy shampoo and soap and toothpaste from companies that don't test on animals or use them to make their products. I don't have any choice (that I'm aware of) when buying Rx meds.

[axiom.livejournal.com]

It's too bad more people who feel that way about the lack of drugs without animal testing don't go into medical research and development.

hint. hint.

(this is me being subtle. feel the power.)

[aprilstarchild.livejournal.com]

I've seen posts about this at veganpeople. There are ways to test medications without animals. But they're not in use. Old habits die hard, and I think in the USA it's impossible to get a drug approved by the FDA without it.

There's one test where they literally just keep giving the medication in question to a dog until it dies, and they make a note of how much it took. I mean, no offense, but what does that prove? Things react differently in people than in dogs--like, say, chocolate. The pain drugs that got yanked off the market were "proven" safe in animal tests, not human ones.

I tried to find the article that vgnwitch posted about alternatives to animal testing, but it's not in memories and there are so many posts to veganpeople that I'll never find it. Grrr.

[axiom.livejournal.com]

Like I said, it's too bad theer are not more researchers who decide to use the animal-friendly methods.

I highly doubt it's the government forcing this. I think it is more probable that animal testing is just cheap and easy.

[aprilstarchild.livejournal.com]

Last I checked, you could not go onto the people-testing phase, until you'd done a certain amount of animal testing. Including killing the dogs. Other countries have different requirements, but most drugs are developed in the US.

[trillium-flower.livejournal.com]

You buy shampoo and soap and toothpaste from companies who make use of research that has already been through animal testing and so there is no need to do it anymore.

Floride was tested on animals. It's been around long enough that there is no need for more testing. Does that mean Tom's is less culpable for how the information was obtained. No.

The thing that bothers me about this particular discussion, is when you were considering a particular homeopathic medication I mentioned to you that it was obtained by milking a particular snake. And your response was oh well, there isn't very much of the snake venom in the medication.

While I agree with you that animal testing is to some extent, cruel, I disagree that it is not necessary. Frankly it has to be tested on something. Some living, breathing, feeling, "thing". The fact is animals can reproduce faster, and more cost effectively than humans. The effects on the progeny can be seen more rapidly. And call it self preservation or the semantic word of your choice, I'd rather it was a dog than a person it was tested on.

If a cure for diabetes is being worked on then hell yes. Test it on rats and work your way up the food chain.

Look at the history of Thalidomide if you'd like to know more about why animal testing is what it is today. Consider this ...
drugs are now specifically tested on pregnant animals to safeguard against possible teratogenic effects on the human foetus. Before thalidomide testing on pregnant animals (regardless of species) was not required.

As a race humans are capable of severe lapses in ethical treatment. However, we are also capable of creating new and incredibly, profoundly, life altering medications, which when controlled, thoroughly tested, and approved make life better for humans.

Is is sad that rabbits had babies that had shortened limbs? Yes. Is it tragic? No. Is it amazing that thalidomide has been found to be an effective treatment for leprosy and possibly helpful in the treatment of HIV,prostate cancer, and crohns disease? ABSOLUTELY. And none of that would have been possible without animal testing.

[alicia-stardust.livejournal.com]

You stated that so well.

A cure for diabetes would rock.

Katie has had breakthroughs with neurological disorders and was also tied to Alzheimer's research. She also discovered a trait last year that led to her being published in a Nature's (the leading science publisher) book. No one else had ever noticed it in the scientific community (they had to check before she claimed it).

And I don't like animal testing but there are clear reasons why it has to be done in some cases, even if not all of them. Plus this ruffled my feathers because Katie is an animal lover; she cries in movies when an animal gets hurt. If what she were doing were all that bad, I don't think she'd have stayed at her job for 6 years. She loves her mice and insects (yes, that's all she works on). So yeah, I hate seeing her snubbed like that. She never talks about her work unless asked first, because so many people jump to conclusions and lump it to other things that have been done elsewhere.

[axiom.livejournal.com]

Katie rocks.

(minor corrections: Nature is a magazine, and they didn't get in Nature. They did get in the one-down scientific publication though. It was still an incredible thing for her and has virtually assured her acceptance into the Phd program at OHSU and could be used as her research project for her thesis.)

[ourglasslake.livejournal.com]

Floride was tested on animals. It's been around long enough that there is no need for more testing. Does that mean Tom's is less culpable for how the information was obtained. No.

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with you there. As you mentioned, toothpaste ingredients such as fluoride have been around for long enough, and been tested enough times, that further testing is unneccessary. So the fact that Tom's doesn't do it anymore *does* make them less culpable in the animal testing arena. If these ingredients have already been proven safe, why do companies like Colgate feel the need to continue testing? It's one thing to say, "okay, we have this information, and while we don't like how it was obtained, we can still learn from it." As April pointed out, most of what we know about hypothermia came from Nazi experimentation. Does that mean we should ignore it? Vegans don't try to boycott knowledge. The knowledge is there, so let's use it to stop causing further suffering. We know that fluoride in toothpaste is safe, so let's stop killing rats so we can see how sparkly their teeth got after a month of Colgate.

I also think it's important to differentiate between the testing of cosmetics and the testing of medicines. There is no law that requires the animal testing of cosmetics, and the practices have little to no benefit for humans. And, as you pointed out, it's pretty much all been done before.

The testing of medicine, I think, is even worse. Animal research can range from the mindlessly cruel (just look at what they do to the apes at OHSU - there is really no justification for some of the experiments they do there) to the outright deadly - not just for animals, but for humans.

You mention that the thalidomide debacle was an important step, because now all drugs are tested to make sure they don't cause birth defects or stillbirths. But aspirin is a teratogen in some animals, whereas it isn't in humans.

Belladonna, strychnine, certain mushrooms, hemlock, and arsenic are all poisonous to humans, but certain animals ingest them with no troubles.

Parkinson's disease can't be recreated in animals.

Animals are not humans, and so these tests will never be able to give us a true picture of what's going on. I find it sad that people think that no medicinal advances would be possible without animal testing. The fact is that the animal testing industry is huge, and it makes a lot of money for a lot of people. And it's going to take people like April saying, "no, this is bullshit," for that to ever change.

[trillium-flower.livejournal.com]

You are absolutely right that there is a difference between testing on animals for cosmetics and testing for medications. No one here was talking about cosmetics. The person in question works in a facility at a HOSPITAL researching MEDICAL advances. All of the discussion was about MEDICATION.

You are also correct that not all animal species react exactly the same to every chemical compound that currently exists, or will exist at some point in the future. But you must start somewhere. The physiology of certain animals mimics humans closely enough that it is a place to start.

But hey if you want to sign up as the person to test the next possible cure for diabetes, or cancer, or name the disease of your choice, I'm sure they would be happy to sign you up. If you want to get pregnant and start taking medication that we have no idea if or how it will affect the feotus then be my guest.

I respect April's position, as it applies to food. Agribusiness is a disgusting enterprise. Having grown up on a farm, and living in a rural area I know exactly where my pork chop came from. I don't buy my meat from safeway, I buy it from a local small farm that sells meat by the half (half a pig, half a cow). I pay the 4H'er directly. It's cheaper, and I know where my meat came from and how it was treated. I don't worry about whether the animal was fed steriods or waste products from another animal.

Further, since I know the people in our animal shelter I know how many animals are put down **weekly** because there aren't enough homes for them. Irresponsible people don't get their animals spayed or neutered and then have herds of feral cats, and dogs. Hell we just trapped 200 (yes literally) rabbits that were the result of someone setting free 7 rabbits at the beginning of the summer. All of these animals will be put down. Why not use them for something that improves life instead of just putting them down and throwing them in an incinerator? Its a waste of a life which could be put to some use.

You don't know me, but you can ask april or anyone else, I love animals. My dogs are spoiled completely. They sleep on my bed,they get good food, they go to the vet for regular checkups. I even pay to get their teeth cleaned. They even have seatbelts for when they ride in the car.

**BUT** and this is big, I can distinguish between the greater good and my individual preference. Do I wish there was no disease and no unwanted animal? Absolutely, but its never going to happen.

[axiom.livejournal.com]

Be nice Trill, you would like Zoe.

[jameslentz.livejournal.com]

But hey if you want to sign up as the person to test the next possible cure for diabetes....

I wouldn't have any moral objection to that. Someone wants a cure for cancer? They volunteer as a test subject! That seems fair. In fact, that happens quite often, though usually only after several rounds of animal tests have been done. And if people aren't willing to shoulder the personal cost of such testing? Well then, they must not want it badly enough; that doesn't mean they have the right to make another creature pay the price they aren't willing to pay. Life, as you pointed out, isn't perfect, and you can't always get what you want.

[ourglasslake.livejournal.com]

You are absolutely right that there is a difference between testing on animals for cosmetics and testing for medications. No one here was talking about cosmetics.

I apologize. I don't consider shampoo and soap, which you brought up in your post, to be medicines, so I kind of lumped them together with make up by using the term "cosmetics." That wasn't very accurate language, and I'm sorry for the confusion.

This seems to be a really emotional topic for you, and I really wasn't trying to get into any kind of heated debate. This is one of the grey areas of veganism, and I used my reply to you to sort of talk out my own feelings. I hope you didn't feel attacked.

I realize that I'm very lucky that I don't have to take any kind of prescription medicines, and I don't have any kind of major illness. I admit that I might feel differently on the subject if I did. All I know is that stopping the suffering of animals is very important to me, whether they're cows, dogs, or rats.

[trillium-flower.livejournal.com]

Belladonna, strychnine, certain mushrooms, hemlock, and arsenic are all poisonous to humans, but certain animals ingest them with no troubles.

The chemical ingredient in belladonna is used in blood pressure medication. It is usually synthasised now because the consistancy can be controlled better.

Strychnine in very small quantities was used for many years as a cure for scurvy. It is the most bitter substance known. There are better remedies now available to most people through diet, but its history should not be lost.

I will grant you that the physiology beween humans and different animal species is not identical. No one in their right mind ever said it was. HOWEVER, it is similar enough in ways which have been empirically studied in order for further tests under controlled situations, to be usefull in the development and testing of medications. Period.

[axiom.livejournal.com]

Not period, and you should know better.

Medical science is currently founded mostly on the "try it and see what happens" research and development model. It is not unreasonable to say that we hope that Medical research will advance to the point where non-animal testing methods provide more reliable results than animal testing methods.

One day, when Medical progress has advanced to the level of something like, oh say, building a desk - it will be possible to design the drug to fit a certain person, and a certain disease, and without any risk of side effects. That's the goal. Period.

Parkinsons

[trillium-flower.livejournal.com]

Lastly, parkinsons can and has been duplicated in animal subjects. There is an article here (http://www.guardian.co.uk/animalrights/story/0,,1484391,00.html) which talks specifically about animal research, the benefits ***AND*** the treatment someone received by a mob (and yes I use that word deliberately) of uniformed anti-animal testing individuals when he attempted to demonstrate the obvious and dramatic benefits to his life.

[axiom.livejournal.com]

The biggest point for me is the one about how animal testing can't give us a complete picture of how chemicals will affect humans. My biggest issue with Medical research is that it relies on statistical analysis of shot-in-the-dark trials without understanding "why" something works, when it finally does.

I am having a major Deja Vu moment. Er.

[axiom.livejournal.com]

I agree that it is not tragic, mostly because I have to balance where we are and the scientific capabilities we have at our disposal.

I also agree that we shouldn't throw away knowledge, but I don't think the Vegan's are advocating that. I think they are focusing on the present, rather than the history of where specific knowledge came from.

[jameslentz.livejournal.com]

And call it self preservation or the semantic word of your choice, I'd rather it was a dog than a person it was tested on.

To borrow a phrase from another comment of yours, I call it "personal preference."

As a race humans are capable of severe lapses in ethical treatment. However, we are also capable of creating new and incredibly, profoundly, life altering medications, which when controlled, thoroughly tested, and approved make life better for humans.

So does the creation of new medications justify "severe lapses in ethical treatment"?

[singswithtrees.livejournal.com]

Sorry to bother you about this (if it is, indeed, a bother)--would it be possible for me to either pick up your YPX gift on Saturday after your concert, or for you to get it to me either tomorrow or Friday? I just thought that it'd be a little easier (I'm asking Bink if I can pick hers up from her, too, since she can't make it either). And, as always, I'll be fully committed to getting your gift to you from whomever had your name as soon as I can. Thanks, April. :)

[aprilstarchild.livejournal.com]

To be honest, I don't have it yet. As of about a week ago, I've put worrying about gifts on hold until after my concerts. :^( Sorry.