So I used to have a blog during my fourth year of medical
school. It was here:
http://lifelovewings.blogspot.com.
You can read it if you like!
But I kind of abandoned it during residency, because… RESIDENCY. There’s a reason that the life mantra
for residents is “eat when you can, sleep when you can, pee when you can.” Note that there is no “blog when you
can” in that mantra. For me there
was apparently a “have babies when you can” caveat, though, because I had
two. You know, if you CAN spend
half your residency pregnant (and another
year of it breastfeeding/pumping),
why WOULDN’T you?
Anyway, residency is now over. And I felt like starting a new blog instead of picking the
old one back up, because SO much of my life has changed since then. I’m, like, a doctor and a mom and
stuff.
And also, living in Guam!
Guam. Yes.
We just moved here so it’s still a bit surreal.
What happened was that, back in the fall/winter (I don’t
remember exactly when, to be honest), the Navy told Jack, “Here’s a list of 22
places around the world where we have pediatricians practicing. List them in your order of
preference. Go! (No guarantees that we will honor your preference.) ”
Do you know how weird/hilarious it is to list 22 worldwide
locations that you know almost nothing about in order of preference? We had to look some up to see where
they were. We literally wrote them
all on slips of paper and then arranged/rearranged them in a list on the floor. I took a picture of the final result:
It seems a bit random, because… well… it kind of is. I mean, what order would YOU put them
in? Is Okinawa preferable to
Yokosuka? Rota vs. Sigonella? Bremerton vs. Jacksonville? It’s just such a crazy spread of
places. (Some that seem like
preferable locations, we ranked lower if they only had a clinic instead of a
whole hospital.)
Anyway, back in March they broke the news: Guam.
In case you’re not ENTIRELY sure where Guam is (as, I’ve
found, most people aren’t), it’s a little speck of an island in the Pacific,
just north (yes, north) of the equator.
It’s about 1000 miles east of the Philippines, 1500 miles south of
Japan, and 1500 miles north of Papua New Guinea. It’s 30 miles long and about 6 miles wide at the widest
point. Population of around
160,000.
Not much different from DC, right? (Hahahahaha.)
If you know anything about PCSing (PCS = Permanent Change of
Station - the military could rival medicine for number of acronyms), you
know that the whole time since they gave Jack his orders to Guam, the whole
five months since then, have been full of… paperwork.
(That’s another way the military is similar to medicine, by
the way. Both SOUND exciting, but
are in actuality fairly boring and full of mostly paperwork. Moving to Guam sounds kind of exciting,
right? But in actuality it entails
things like getting medical checklists signed off by doctors you’ve never met,
completing powerpoint-style “move counseling” online, tallying up the total
weight of your household goods, standing in line for no-fee passports, and
getting health certificates for your dog.
Working as a doctor in a hospital sounds kind of exciting, right? But in actuality it entails things like
writing endless structured daily progress notes, typing orders into a computer,
calling the lab to ask them why the results aren’t in yet, and trying to
reconcile lists of patient medications with the pharmacy.)
And if you know anything about PCSing overseas (a.k.a.
OCONUS = Outside the CONtinental United States), you are not surprised to learn
that despite being here for almost 2 weeks now, we are still living out of
suitcases and in temporary housing, and our household goods (a.k.a. HHGs… again
with the abbreviations) are God-And-The-Navy-Only-Know-Where. We certainly don’t. On the ocean somewhere, I suppose. We’re supposed to be able to track them
on the DTS (that’s Defense Travel System) website, but it seems to be
broken. At least, we can’t log in
no matter what we try.
BUT! We’re moving
into our house on the 15th, and presumably all our stuff will get
here eventually. So until then,
we’re dealing with it.
.jpg)
And the scenery is nice.
You are so right about the "exciting" jobs being pretty dull most of the time! My father in law is a pediatrician who owns his own practice in rural Georgia (one of the last places you can actually do that!) There is sooooo much paperwork!! And the EMRs promise ease of use, but half the time they make more work IMO. Question: have you ever watched Scrubs? And if so, don't you just love it? I think it's much more accurate than the more "thrilling" TV shows like Grey's Anatomy (gag) or House.
ReplyDelete