Rat Race

I'm off! To another great day in the rat race! At the start of the week I was so delighted to finally be able to breath at work. All the deadlines had been met and emergencies handled. Finally I'd be able to work on the items that had been set aside for so long... And accomplish my prescribed duties of this position.

NOPE... Another emergency has come up. We need another temporary doc. Ugh. I give them good, explicit instructions, but they never actually follow them. They offer me bare-bones of information so to speak and then leave it to me to try to piece it all together... In record time I must add. Here's a clue... If they are working as a temp... There is a reason! I can usually piece one together in about 10 days time. The last one they only gave me 5 days, and this one... I got it yesterday and they want her to start MONDAY. Uh, H E L L O ... I'm only one person... And I do have a job other than sitting around waiting for these things to come up! So again, I put ALL my other duties aside and focus on this one sole applicant. So much so that I worked late yesterday and then brought it home and worked on it here for at least another hour. I will likely do the same today.

I realize that we have to make it work. If I can't get this person credentialed, then I believe that patient care will suffer and I'm not willing to offer that scenario. What would happen is that one of our current docs will either be overloaded and thus more prone to mistakes, or... We would have to cancel surgeries and thus the Hospital loses business, not to mention the surgeon, and ultimately the patient will be somewhat disgruntled because they will have to travel to another Hospital for surgery... And their surgeon may or may not work in this other area, which means that they might have to find a new doctor or post-pone for another time... By the time they find a new doctor, get an appointment, and schedule surgery, our hospital will be back on track and it will be deemed unnecessary to have done all that! It's a vicious scenario. Meanwhile, if I can just pull off a few miracles, I can make it happen and everything goes smoothly. That's what I'm striving for.

I have made it very clear to this department that THEY OWE ME BIG TIME. This group of docs is one of my favorites. I have a lot of faith in them. They do a fabulous job.

I so cannot wait for vacation. When? I'm still waiting to hear from Keith when he might be able to get the time off. Hopefully mid-August we will have a few days. Then I'd like to take some time off here and there in the fall too. Hopefully work things will settle by then. I think half the problem is that everyone takes vacation during the summer... Except for me. That's okay though. I prefer to take off in the fall.

Ok, enough babble. I must get this day on the road! YIKES - It's later than I thought!!!! OFF TO THE RAT RACE!!!!!