Daniel starts work

In 2001 I decided I wanted to become a physician.  This week, I finally started work as one.  Ha...that's slightly melodramatic huh?  It was a pretty nice and easy week filled with listening to various talks centered around the various aspects of patient care and taking care of myself.  I filled out a lot of forms.  I have good health insurance, which Katie will also have when we're married, which was actually more exciting than I would've thought it would be.  I can now go see a dentist for the first time in a long time (I could've gone earlier but such things are considered extravagant on the salary of a student...that is, $0).  

I have a big heavy white coat with my name followed by MD on it.  Katie tried to take a picture of me with it on, but I ran.  I have hospital IDs, hospital scrubs I'll wear Monday morning, cards with all sorts of telephone numbers for people in the hospital that I'll likely call at some point in the next 4 years.  I have a pager so the hospital is never far away.  I even have some sort of walkie-talkie called a Vocera, that people can call me on within the hospital.  I guess it's another mode of contact in case I leave my pager off at some point?  I have email which I have to check regularly (I'm OCD about that anyway), new innovations to log work hours (can't go over 80 per week, averaged over 4 weeks), a ACGME (Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education) website to go where I log every single procedure and case that I'll do during my entire residency, so the ACGME and the ABA (American Board of Anesthesiology) know that I actually will have an idea of what I'm doing by the time I finish residency.   I apparently have money put on my ID each month to use in the cafeteria (I foresee the large majority of it going towards coffee).  

So, it's official, I have a job.  And at this point it seems like it'll be a job in itself to keep track of everything I have to do daily aside from patient care.  I'm sure I'll get the hang of email, logging hours, logging cases, etc., in due time.  Right now it's a tad overwhelming.

Next week I'll shadow residents in the OR (operating room).  Anesthesiology is a unique field of medicine that requires a skillset in order to be useful.  Regardless of what I've learned over the past 4 years, I am completely useless right now as an anesthesiology resident.  I'm a blob of clay in need of molding.  The molding process starts next week.

After that, I'll start "boot camp", which is a several week long process where I'll hear various anesthesiology faculty lecture us on different topics, work in the OR with faculty, work in the OR with my fellow interns, and perhaps then I'll be sufficiently prepared to do a little work on my own.  Maybe, we'll see.

So that's that, I'm officially a working physician.  It feels nice.