quick note

Buh-Juh Everyone,

Here I am, procrastinating from the hellish reality of CARMS. It’s like applying to university, or medical school all over again. It’s an administrative nightmare and I am considering hiring a personal assistant to help me out. I may also need a life coach to help me write a good personal statement

Today was another gong show. I showed up at the hospital at around 8am and was done my work by 11. I had a brief chat with my preceptor and she told me she was planning on heading over to the new hospital site. (the children’s hospital in Calgary is moving to a new building across town. The move is a huge process, and is happening in phases. It’s in full swing right now and the outpatient nephro clinic moved yesterday. There have been no clinics this week, and I think there’ll be none next week either. It’s making things a little slow on the learning side). I don’t know what in God’s name next week will be like.

So today I was done at like 11ish and then Hammie (as I affectionately call my preceptor), said she was thinking about heading over to the new hospital and I said that wanted to hang back because I really had my heart set on going to child psych rounds (in part because of the free lunch and also because I wanted to be among my people – even if just for one hour of the day). Yesterday I made the mistake of going with her to the new hospital and I ended up spending 4 hours unpacking her office for her and listening to her incessant bitching about how unhappy she was about her new office. It was to the point that when I left her for the day, I turned and said “chin up hammie, everything is going to work out. This office is fine.” So you can appreciate that I wasn’t up for a second dose of that today.

So there was nothing going on at our hospital. All of the patients were on simmer. Everyone was fine and there was nothing to be done. I said to her, “did you want me to just stick around here in case something happens? Or…..”

I was hoping for her to say something like “why don’t you go home after rounds? I’ll page you if anything comes up.” But she didn’t say anything like that. She said “yeah, stick around here.” So, I spent the afternoon watching Annie and having a nap in the residents’ lounge. Not very productive is it. At 4 pm, I said to hell with this and walked home, picked up my dry cleaning on the way.

Tonight we ordered Thai food for dinner and when Lee and I went to pick it up, we got stuck in a bit of traffic. We were chatting and slowly coasting down the road when I looked up and saw Hammie sitting in the window of a Shawarma and Falafel shop. I mean schlock, how many people live in Calgary? Just over a million or so? What are the chances that I would drive by and stop in front of Hammie’s dinner venue?

I averted my eyes and cursed my bad luck. The thai food was very delicious though.

Tabby