← Previous Post: | Next Post:

 

UD’s University’s Hospital…

… is packing them in today.

****************************

I myself (It’s not important. I wasn’t going to mention it. But since you insist… and since it’s topical…) almost landed in GW Hospital yesterday evening.

It was six o’clock, and I was rounding Washington Circle on my way to the Foggy Bottom metro. The emergency room entrance was directly across the street from me.

As I crossed the street, with traffic from the Circle on its way to where I was rapidly walking (you only get a few seconds to cross), I saw a patch of what I assumed was water in the street. How could it be ice? There wasn’t any ice anywhere else. (I didn’t know there’d been water main breaks here earlier in the day.)

It was the last day of class, and I was holding twenty or so student papers in my arms.

I went straight down, hard, papers flying.

My first thought was Get up immediately or get run over.

I did this, and was instantly surrounded by a small crowd of Washingtonians who were worried about me and wanted to know if I was okay. One of them marched out onto the ice and – somehow avoiding the cars – picked up every one of the papers. Another pointed out that if I needed medical attention I’d fallen in one of the best locations ever – three feet from an emergency room.

But I was okay. Okay and grateful.

Sure, my coccyx hurt; but I was okay.

Margaret Soltan, December 10, 2010 4:46PM
Posted in: snapshots from home

Trackback URL for this post:
https://www.margaretsoltan.com/wp-trackback.php?p=28067

6 Responses to “UD’s University’s Hospital…”

  1. A J Says:

    This earnest reader is very pleased that you were unhurt and that Washingtonians did the neighborly thing. However, have you thought about using a small messenger bag?

    Totally off-topic to this post, but I know that besides writing about the steady decay of the Academy, you sometimes write about the pharmaceutical industry, so I was wondering if you had seen this little gem? Pfizer’s ethical lapses in Nigeria are, of course, what formed the basis of John le Carré’s mass market novel The Constant Gardener.

  2. Colin Says:

    Be honest: you told this story simply for an excuse to use the word “coccyx” in a sentence, didn’t you? I would have.

  3. Margaret Soltan Says:

    Colin: I do love that word.

  4. Margaret Soltan Says:

    A J: Looking forward to opening the link you sent – thanks. As for small messenger bags or other signs of enlightened life-management — nah.

  5. adam Says:

    UD crossed the street in haste,
    Slipped on ice and took a paste.
    Papers flying, ignominious,
    Coccyx dying, oh how hideous!

  6. Margaret Soltan Says:

    adam: Scary.

Comment on this Entry

UD REVIEWED

Dr. Bernard Carroll, known as the "conscience of psychiatry," contributed to various blogs, including Margaret Soltan's University Diaries, for which he sometimes wrote limericks under the name Adam.
New York Times

George Washington University English professor Margaret Soltan writes a blog called University Diaries, in which she decries the Twilight Zone-ish state our holy land’s institutes of higher ed find themselves in these days.
The Electron Pencil

It’s [UD's] intellectual honesty that makes her blog required reading.
Professor Mondo

There's always something delightful and thought intriguing to be found at Margaret Soltan's no-holds-barred, firebrand tinged blog about university life.
AcademicPub

You can get your RDA of academic liars, cheats, and greedy frauds at University Diaries. All disciplines, plus athletics.
truffula, commenting at Historiann

Margaret Soltan at University Diaries blogs superbly and tirelessly about [university sports] corruption.
Dagblog

University Diaries. Hosted by Margaret Soltan, professor of English at George Washington University. Boy is she pissed — mostly about athletics and funding, the usual scandals — but also about distance learning and diploma mills. She likes poems too. And she sings.
Dissent: The Blog

[UD belittles] Mrs. Palin's degree in communications from the University of Idaho...
The Wall Street Journal

Professor Margaret Soltan, blogging at University Diaries... provide[s] an important voice that challenges the status quo.
Lee Skallerup Bessette, Inside Higher Education

[University Diaries offers] the kind of attention to detail in the use of language that makes reading worthwhile.
Sean Dorrance Kelly, Harvard University

Margaret Soltan's ire is a national treasure.
Roland Greene, Stanford University

The irrepressibly to-the-point Margaret Soltan...
Carlat Psychiatry Blog

Margaret Soltan, whose blog lords it over the rest of ours like a benevolent tyrant...
Perplexed with Narrow Passages

Margaret Soltan is no fan of college sports and her diatribes on the subject can be condescending and annoying. But she makes a good point here...
Outside the Beltway

From Margaret Soltan's excellent coverage of the Bernard Madoff scandal comes this tip...
Money Law

University Diaries offers a long-running, focused, and extremely effective critique of the university as we know it.
Anthony Grafton, American Historical Association

The inimitable Margaret Soltan is, as usual, worth reading. ...
Medical Humanities Blog

I awake this morning to find that the excellent Margaret Soltan has linked here and thereby singlehandedly given [this blog] its heaviest traffic...
Ducks and Drakes

As Margaret Soltan, one of the best academic bloggers, points out, pressure is mounting ...
The Bitch Girls

Many of us bloggers worry that we don’t post enough to keep people’s interest: Margaret Soltan posts every day, and I more or less thought she was the gold standard.
Tenured Radical

University Diaries by Margaret Soltan is one of the best windows onto US university life that I know.
Mary Beard, A Don's Life

[University Diaries offers] a broad sense of what's going on in education today, framed by a passionate and knowledgeable reporter.
More magazine, Canada

If deity were an elected office, I would quit my job to get her on the ballot.
Notes of a Neophyte

Archives

Categories