As Jim has already told you, you meet many different and interesting people down here at this nice cozy little station. Whether it is the cowboy in charge of the boats or the sled dog raiser cook ... or maybe even the "Un-Doctor"!

I am talking about the person that is in charge of our health while we are down here. This would be Dr. Kristin Van Konynenburg ... or as we call her, "Doc."

The title of "Un-Doctor" is not something that I can take credit for, she is the one that came up with that word in a story she wrote for the Antarctic Sun, the American newspaper for the continent. This title is due to the fact that she does so many things other than her requirements as the station's physician.

Yes, she is a real doctor. She went to the University of California-Davis Medical School and although she is a family practitioner, she currently works in the surgery department at Contra Costa County Hospital in the Eastern Bay area (that is San Francisco Bay in case you didn't know).

As the station's only physician, she has to be available to help us at all times and she is definitely ready to do that. She has a clinic that she runs here and keeps it stocked with everything that a patient might need from bottles of painkillers to I.V.'s. Anything that you would need if you had an injury, she most likely has available. This is an important thing since there is nowhere to go until an "ambulance" gets here. The "ambulances" are those big things that the rest of the planet calls "ships." And since it takes them eight to ten days to get to us and then get us back to the continent, it is crucial that we have the ability to keep a person stable until better medical facilities can be reached. That is the tip of the iceberg (since there are so many down here, I had to get an iceberg reference in) of her duties.

Everyday she also has the wonderful job of taking weather observations and radioing them to Rothera, the British station. Some days, this can be no trouble at all, but other days it can be difficult. I was quite amused the day I saw her head out into the snow with 50 mph winds and saw her lean into the wind just to stand up while she read some data from one of the instruments outside. She and I laughed about that for a couple of days.

She also has to take care of the Thermal Hydrotherapy machine ... or as you light call it in the states, a hot tub. If this breaks, then there are going to be many upset people on station. After a hard day of work, a session of hydrotherapy usually feels just right.

She also has to do some air sampling for NOAA and Scripps Institute of Oceanography. This requires her to hike up the glacier when the wind is blowing a good amount in the right direction (she can't sample when the air is blowing over the station at her, or the data will not be accurate). She does this on everyday that it is possible, and recently it hasn't been as often. She will often hike up the glacier only to see the wind has changed direction and she can't sample, so she will just head back down.

Some of the other jobs that require some of her time are: fire safety inspector, building safety inspector, food safety inspector, eyewash safety inspector, and she also gets to test the drinking water. These are the jobs that she must do while down here, and yet she still does other things as well.

Currently she is teaching a wilderness medicine course every couple of weeks. She has already showed us how to take care of broken bones and cuts and other injuries that can occur out in the wild. She has also become one of the members of Knitter's Anonymous. This is a group of people that like to knit ... and boy do they knit a lot. Some of them just picked it up this trip while others have been knitting for many years. Kristin is now working on her seventh hat since she has been down here.

In the last week or so, Kristin has been especially busy. With the arrival of the ship about a week ago, they also brought a case of the chicken pox. So, Kristin had to quarantine one of the ship's crew on station until he got better. But, that is not all of it. One of the other ship personnel developed a severe chest cold. So, after the ship left, it came back and dropped this other person off and then left again. The station now had two more people than were expected and a total of 43 people. Well, these two slowly got better and then another person on station got the chicken pox. Kristin has handled all of this in stride and doesn't even seem tired.

Well, I was not planning on writing this much, but it takes a lot of space to tell just how lucky we are on station to have such a hard working and capable Doc. So, I hope you have enjoyed reading about another interesting person on station and now you can get back to work or start studying again. Until next time, keep checking in to see what else we are doing.