Manual labor

I recently returned from a 12 day stay in Vaison La Romaine, France where my husband taught his yearly Travel, Food and Wine Writing class. This class combines some excellent sight seeing, lots and lots of eating and, of course, some winery tours. On one of the tours, I skipped the usual sniffing, sipping and spitting routine and just wandered around the winery a little bit. That is when I came across this photo on the wall which just delighted me. You see, I have this thing about manual labor maybe because beneath all the fancy surgeon stuff, I am, like all surgeons, a manual laborer. And I, like all surgeon, prefer it that way. I cannot imagine spending most of my work week sitting at a desk.

I just love this image of this young winery worker hosing herself down after a long day of turning grape juice into wine. Don’t think for one minute that I need to hose down after a long bloody case because the procedures I do are really very controlled, quite tidy and, thanks to the electric scalpel, not very bloody. But there are days when I have labored all day, on my feet, in a warm O.R. under bright lights and I feel like need a good hosing down. I just take a shower instead.

Thanks for reading!

Dr. Lisa Lynn Sowder