Hello friends! It is 9:32PM here in Columbus, OH and I have just finished eating dinner (after getting home about an hour ago), talking to Charlie and I'm now enjoying a Lakefront Pumpkin Ale while I write about my thoughts for a little while.
I'm working in Dayton right now, and things have been absolutely crazy. For real. The contract with the VA there used to be held by Educational Ophthalmology, Inc, which was a company owned by Dr. Carroll (an OSU alum and retina specialist in Dayton) and his practice. Well, the VA was making some sort of demand that Dr. Carroll's group couldn't meet, so they decided not to renew their contract. We knew that awhile ago, and that OSU was going to take it over. They were supposed to extend the current contract until a new one could be worked out. However, that did not happen,which we found out about two weeks ago. So, now me, Adam, and Abbe are sort of in limbo. There will be no surgery in October (which is a bummer, because I was just getting the hang of it) and we will have clinic but only on Monday morning, Tuesday, and Wednesday morning so far. Dr. Kurz is our only staff because he was our only attending that was a VA employee. So he gets to do everything including take call with us.
On top of that our lady that schedules everything and keeps clinic running (Andi) worked for Dr. Carroll. So today was her last day. So we have to do all of that for ourselves too. And we have to use our spare time in the next several weeks to go through approximately 300 of appointments and see who we can see, who needs to be referred to Columbus, and who Optometry can see. Fun times. In the mean time the VA is trying to hire new ophthalmologists to work for them, and OSU is trying to negotiate a contract. All while trying to make sure that Cincinnati (or, heaven forbid, Cleveland Clinic) does not realize what is happening and try to compete for the contract.
And Dayton has always been sort of "out of sight, out of mind" so no one seems to know what the heck is going on. All I know is that today all of the patients scheduled from 8:00-10:30 showed up at 9:20 (I don't know if all 10 of them car pooled or what) and we got behind and we never got caught up. I never got lunch. I went to the bathroom before clinic and didn't make it back there until after 2:00pm when I suddenly realized that if I didn't go to the bathroom soon I was going to soil myself. I finished my last patient at 5:00 (clinic was supposed to be over by 3:30) and had almost 20 notes to write. I had a headache. And I wanted to lie my head on the desk and take a nap. That was after yesterday when we left even later because Andi tried to cram every retina patient for the next Lord-knows-how-long into one day. So despite no surgeries, it will be good to have some down time while we figure out how this is all going to work.
They vets in Dayton are a different breed than the ones in Columbus. We always joke that there is a manual in the waiting room about how to be the most frusterating patient possible. Our typical interaction goes something like this:
Me: Hi, Mr. Smith, how are you today?
Mr. Smith: You're cuter than my last doctor. But that was a man. Are you married?
Me: Isn't this fall weather nice?
(we get into the exam room - which takes approximately 3 minutes because they all move so slow)
Me: How is your vision?
Mr. Smith: Do you have any kids yet? What does your husband think about you working here?
Me: Let's check your vision. Can you read that top line?
Mr. Smith:
silence
Me: Mr. Smith? Can you see the line?
Mr. Smith: ........................um, they're so blurry! Um, Q...X...7...2...G
(note, there is no Q or X or number anywhere, though they all think there is a Q, X and number)
And on it goes. They guess numbers, no matter how many times you tell them they're all letters. "Is that an 8?" "They're all letters, sir." "Oh, is it a 9?"
You try to look at their eyes and they squeeze them shut. How in the world they think that I"m going to be able to see their eyes if they're closed is beyond me.
Open you eyes, sir. Sir, look at my ear. Sir, open your eyes. Your eyes are not open.
Yes they are!
Can you see me?
No....
Then they're not open. Open your eyes, please.
And every once in awhile you get the vet who can't hear a blessed thing and you spend most of the time yelling yourself hoarse to get the point across.
Despite all that, I like going to Dayton. The attendings that we have (and hopefully will continue to have) are really good teachers, and they love to teach, that is why they are there. And you do get pretty close with the people you drive up there with every day. I hope that everything works out there, because it's a really good rotation for us as residents. I mostly just hope that things get better so I don't get a headache every day...
On a different note...
Last weekend we went to Oktoberfest here in Columbus. We went with some of my friends from residency, and it was really a lot of fun! It also happened to be Charlie's birthday, so it worked out pretty well. The beer was expensive, but they had a good selection (Hofbrau, Bitburger, Spaten and Brooklyn). And the sausage was expensive but also good. And there was polka!
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| Lots of men in lederhosen. Charlie was jealous like always, but still too cheap to buy any ($269!!!) |
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| I swear there were rabbit bits still, I kept sneezing up a storm... |
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| Dominic, Christian, Palak, and Katie with Miss Oktoberfest |
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| Actually a pretty good job decorating! |
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| Dancing! |
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| Haha, we're obviously singing along. I don't think this was polka. |
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| Billy in Charlie's hat. He was bummed that Billy looked more Irish than him in his hat. |
It was fun! Expensive, but fun! Charlie and I are hoping to go to the REAL Oktoberfest one of these days. But that was in the last post....
