| by Andy Evangelista
1st appeared 22 July 1998
Give Me
Shelter, Gimme a Light
Cigarette puffers
are enjoying the "Smoking Shelter," which
is tucked behind small trees between the Emergency
Department parking lot and Moffitt/Long Hospital on
Parnassus. The mostly glass structure, which looks a
lot like the MUNI bus shelters, was constructed by
the Medical Center over a month ago. It gives
patients and visitors, as well as employees, an
outdoor place not too far from the hospital to sit
down and light up.
Smokers like it
because it protects them from pigeons and possible
rain, as well as the glares of non-smokers, who are
now sheltered from some unwanted smoke. It's also a
good place to distribute or pick up fliers and
announcements about campus smoking cessation
programs. The Medical Center is careful not to
overpublicize the place or appear to promote smoking.
But the designated area does keep smoke, ashes and
butts from accumulating near doorways. When the Eye
checked it out, nearly every butt was in an ashtray.
The only curious thing in the shelter was what
appears to be an overhead sprinkler system. A fire
would be a longshot in a spot where the Parnassus
winds make it pretty tough to even light a match.
Rescue at
Laurel Heights
Quick-thinking and
-acting School of Pharmacy staff at Laurel Heights
helped stabilize a situation that could have turned
out much worse than it did. On Wednesday, July 15, a
glazier replacing a cracked window in a vacant fourth
floor area fell through the window and onto the LH
auditorium roof three stories below.
Kathryn Wezler, an
administrative assistant in the California Poison
Control Service office, happened to be standing at
the third-floor window just below. She saw what
looked at first to be a shower of water coming from
directly above, realized it was broken glass, and
then saw a body coming down. "It looked like
slow motion," said Wezler, who immediately
called 911. "I was in absolute shock."
Clinical
pharmacists Candy Tsourounis, Angie Graham, Susan
Miller and Scott Harrington, who also work on the
third floor, rushed to the second floor, where they
demanded a construction worker break a window so they
could get on the roof to assist the accident victim,
reports Susan Heath, another Laurel Heights employee
who witnessed the aftermath.
Two of the
pharmacists attended to the glazier, who was lucky to
hit the roof instead of the harder concrete ground
one floor below, until the emergency crew arrived.
Two windows were unbolted to get paramedics and a
stretcher onto the roof.
Reports were that
the glass worker suffered a broken wrist and possibly
an ankle, but his co-workers said he was in good
condition the next day. They also visited the
clinical pharmacy office to thank the pharmacists for
helping rescuing their fallen partner.
Godzilla,
Please Come Down
 The word is that Godzilla -- who's
managed to trample in the likes of downtown Tokyo,
but has been scared off by Parnassus congestion -- is
hiding out on the roof of the Medical Sciences
Building. And rescue workers (see photo) are trying
to get the unleaping lizard down. Just kidding,
folks. (See last week's Campus Eye)
 The real Med Sci building photo is
really of a construction crew, which has put up two
sets of risers to get up and down the 13 floors
outside of the structure. It's part of a state-funded
building improvement project to relocate fume hood
ducts from the inside to the outside of the building.
Mick Scott, who
runs "Northwind," the company doing the
work, begs the campus' patience as his crew completes
the sometimes noisy but important and delicate work.
He was on the Parnassus sidewalk this week, chatting
with passersby and apologizing for having to take up
sidewalk space. His workers, who start at 5:30 a.m.
and will be working on campus for the next couple of
months, have had to brave the stiff UCSF winds, which
rock and sway them as they labor more than a hundred
feet above ground.
To keep up with
campus construction projects, check the Facilities
Management website,
which includes a "Projects Alerts" page.
Road
Warriors
Congratulations to
campus parkers and commuters who have been able to
follow detour signs and maneuver the Irving
Street/Arguello/Second Avenue area where MUNI
streetcar tracks are being replaced. The next signs
to go up may point drivers to Langley Porter for road
rage prevention therapy.
Nose for
Research
And this item
appropriately goes at the bottom of this column. From
the "No Kidding, Glad I'm Not a Staff Research
Associate There" section and the Reuters Health
Information service last week: Scientists at the
Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Medical Center have
found that a device, known as the "Toot
Trapper" -- a polyurethane foam cushion coated
with activated charcoal -- eliminated 90 percent of
flatulence odor generated by study volunteers. These
16 volunteers, aged 18 to 47, consumed pinto beans
and lactulose, which enhance flatus output and
produces the gas hydrogen sulphide (one of several
sulphur-containing gases known to cause the odor
associated with flatulence). Researchers collected
the gas in rectal tubes and "the concentrations
of sulphur-containing gases were correlated with odor
intensity assessed by two judges."
The researchers
went on to demonstrate that activated charcoal and
zinc remove sulphur gases and "eliminate the
offensive odour of flatus." Hey, this is real
science -- it was published in Gut, a journal of the
British Medical Association. And in an interesting
tidbit from the study, which could settle some family
arguments (but don't bring this up at the dinner
table): The researchers also reported that women have
a higher concentration of hydrogen sulphide in flatus
"and a greater odour intensity" than men.
"However, men tended to pass higher volumes of
gas than did women."
Readers: If you
have any items or suggestions for this column, send
us an email: andye@itsa.ucsf.edu .
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