My arms are a hot commodity

I've found that when you work at a hospital, you never know what random assignment might come your way - like eating yellow Jell-O out of a bedpan (right, Anne and Kim?)

Today I was walking through a waiting area near my office, on my way to the cafeteria, when a woman in scrubs came running up to me. Literally, running through the crowded lobby with measuring tape in her hands.

"I've been looking for someone like you! You're perfect!" she said. I had no idea what she was talking about, or who she thought I was, but then she explained that she was helping the Internal Medicine division conduct a clinical trial related to blood pressure measurement, and they needed an adult with small arms. She pushed up my sleeve and measured my arm, and I thought she might pass out from the excitement. Meanwhile there are dozens of patients sitting all around me, staring with interest at the size of my biceps.

I promised her I would return after lunch, and sure enough while they recorded my height and weight, and asked about my caffeine consumption, there was an excited chatter around me. "She's here! She showed up!"

I was so confused. I was led into an exam room where they stuck electrodes onto two areas of my chest and on the side of my abdomen. Then they clipped some wires to the electrodes that fed into a device, and put a regular blood pressure cuff around my upper arm.

It turns out, one of our physicians has been working on a new type of wireless device that can read blood pressure remotely through the electrodes. I guess this is especially beneficial for hospitalized patients who have to have their blood pressure read several times a day. It allows the nursing staff to monitor their blood pressure without having to wake them up, and it also saves time because they can monitor multiple patients at once.

Anyway, two people simultaneously took my blood pressure the traditional way, listening through a two-headed stethoscope, while the wireless device also read my blood pressure. They did this three times, and each time the traditional and wireless measurements were recorded to see how they stacked up against each other.

And the reason my particular arms were important? Their sample has to include adults of all shapes and sizes, and they were having trouble finding an adult with arms of my circumference. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but they took my name and number in case they have to do a similar study in the future!

The good news - I got a $10 Target gift card for participating.

All in a day's work, I guess...