W61.49

yes, I know I’ve used this photo before

I went to Atlanta last week for a conference and stayed in the Westin Peachtree, which unfortunately is a lot less Blade-Runneresque than this photo would indicate. It did have the distinction, however, of being the only hotel I’ve ever stayed where my room actually looked like the room pictured on the web site “albeit less dramatically lit”.

The entire outside wall of the room — wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling — is one big window, which allowed me a bird’s eye view of the CNN Center and Olympic Centennial Park or Centennial Olympic Park. Whatever. The park where the bomb went off. Since my room faced west, it also meant that every afternoon the sun bore in like an angry deity, causing the A/C to work frantically and continuously to keep the room from reaching sauna levels. It does seem a bit hubristic to build a giant glass sunlight-collecting structure in a state known for being, you know, really hot.

The hotel also has a bar on the 74th floor that revolves, which sounds like a good idea until you hop on. After one beer you think you’re about to hurl.

Forget all that, though. The hotel featured the smartest thing I’ve ever seen in a rented room: a shower curtain rod that bends outward. Perhaps there are people who enjoy the sensation of a plastic shower curtain blowing against their wet legs as they bathe, but I’m not one of them. I don’t know whether it was Mr. Westin or Mr. Peachtree who thought of this, but whoever it was deserves the Nobel Prize for Bathroom Fixtures.

I was in Atlanta for work, at a convention of people who do medical coding for a living. I didn’t know anything about coding before I started my new job, and I know precious little a whole lot more about it now, but suffice it to say that everything that goes on your chart “and your bill” at a doctor’s office or in a hospital — your medical history, your symptoms, your diagnosis, the treatment — has a code assigned to it. In addition to coming up with several potential band names “Coxsackie Virus, Glasgow Coma Scale” I learned about the next iteration of the international medical coding schema the U.S. is considering, which depending on who you believe is either right around the corner or never gonna happen.

“If I had to use one word to describe it” said the presenter, “that word would be specificity” I’ll say. Suppose you go to the doctor’s office having been “struck by a hit or thrown ball” Of course they would want to put that down on your chart “W21.0”. But is it really necessary to distinguish which type of ball: football “W21.01”, soccer ball “W21.02”, baseball “W21.03”, golf ball “W21.04” or basketball “W21.05”?

There are also codes to describe observations made by the admitting nurse or physician. Do you know anyone who could be described with:

R46.0: Very low level of personal hygiene

R46.1: Bizarre personal appearance

R46.2: Strange and inexplicable behavior

Hell, do you know anyone who can’t? That pretty much covers your average Saturday night in Chapel Hill.

My favorite codes are ones that probably aren’t going to get used very often, but I promise you, they really do exist:

W61.4: Contact with turkey “domestic” “wild”

W61.42: Struck by turkey “domestic” “wild”

W61.43: Pecked by turkey “domestic” “wild”

W61.49: Other contact with turkey “domestic” “wild”

“The instructor read the last one and said, “I don’t even want to go there””

After the session I asked the instructor if you would still use W61.42 if someone struck someone else using a turkey as the weapon. Then we had one of those uncomfortable moments when you’ve just said something really odd assuming the other person would know you were kidding and in fact the other person thought you were serious and you don’t know if it would be better to interrupt and tell them you were kidding or just act like you were serious. Or at least I had one of those moments.