GOLDBLATT: Authorized to audit
I grew up in central New Jersey in a college town not unlike Charlottesville during a period of intense winter weather. After a series of storms that shut down major thoroughfares in the early ’90s, our local hospital decided to designate several “emergency” teams of physicians, nurses and other medical staff members. In the event of a major weather disturbance, this group would be required to report to work — even if it meant trekking by foot through miles of ice and snow — in order to keep the hospital running and patients cared for when schools, universities and businesses were forced to close. These health workers would sleep at the hospital in spare patient rooms or their offices, if necessary, until roads cleared and normal operations could resume.