And it begins....!

Today is June 30th, the last day of rest before the nervously anticipated universal first day of a physician's year. That sounds a bit too dramatic for how I actually feel, which is fairly calm. Definitely just completing a year of clinical work gives me some degree of confidence, as well as the fact that we're not really working our first two weeks (we have ER orientation). I think a couple of the others are nervous though. There's a few things I'm going to have to adjust to, but they're small - drug names, American units vs. metric, etc. But all in all, I'm mainly excited about embarking on the ER journey. Let's hope it's the right one!

The last two weeks have been quite busy. I landed on June 15th and stayed in cheap hotel, which was decent but a pain in the ass to lug all the luggage to. Organization with my program is a bit lacking, but hey, what's new? Anyway, I had a bit of a scare with the living situation, which got sorted. We live in heavily subsidized dorm accomodation directly across the hospital. It's convenient, but the rooms are quite small and you share a bathroom/kitchen. That's not great, but honestly...how much time do I really spend in either?

June 16th, a week of general orientation began, which was really boring. Signing all these papers to get registered with human resources, not understanding a single thing about tax papers, not understanding a single thing about signing up for benefits like retirement packages and insurance, etc. I mean, way to make doctors feel stupid. I should have gotten like an MBA or something before coming here! Anyway, it was really funny cuz all of us ER people are alike. We all skipped multiple things, and would find the whole ER table in the hospital doing other things. On the last day, there was this cultural competency session on for hours and I was like "are you actually serious?!" and skipped. Maybe that's what doing a clinical year did for me - made me better at not sitting through crap!

Last week, everyone was doing their courses (ACLS, PALS, etc.) but i've already done them so I got to go home and see the parents and pick up some of the stuff I'd shipped home. Caught up on movies and got to see the human bodies exhibit at the museum which has been globally popular and somewhat controversial. It was interesting, but since we've done anatomy, it was like "been there, done that" but I could see how "lay" people would find it really cool. The dissections were very clean and neat, must have taken months to get them that good. had a small nightmare trying to fly back to new york with my flight plan diverted like 3 times. Ended up landing in laguardia, which was awesome because we flew over central park (nice view!) and I think I spotted my hospital and apt. tower!

Have spent ooodles of money trying to make my room space-efficient. When I got here, the room was a dump. Dirty floor, crap in the sink...the first place I headed was to buy cleaning equipment. The furniture sucked - old metal rusting bed frame and desk, with a really cracked plastic mattress. Anyway, now I've bought this awesome futon bunk bed which is brilliant, a nice 22 inch flat screen tv, and rugs so I don't have to look at the floor. Of course, I swiffer wetjetted the floor a million times before putting the rugs down. I'm going to have the desk removed and just put in some nice shelves, and perhaps a laptop stand so I can work from my futon. Cable guy came and installed internet, so I've made the room wireless - no long cables. And I still have to install my fridge and microwave, bought a dvd recorder and going to get a printer! So glad I still have euro paychecks coming in!! I figure an investment is in order if I'm going to be here 3 years, and why not, if I've got the money?

Anyway, I can't wait for visitors, so if you're in the area, give me a shout!

Watch this space and I'll hopefully update the ER journey frequently...beginning tomorrow!