Unexpected Mini-Break

For the first time in a long while, Idil and I realized this morning that we have nothing to do, no ongoing projects to tackle! For the past couple of months, we had been busy doing time studies, phone reports, running a- mini-farmer’s market, helping patients get insurance, shepherding the Ob/Gyn department in the switch from paper charts to electronic medical record keeping, the list goes on. As we finished the tail end on our mini-projects list (preparing documents for the Residents that list their patients), we realized that for this day at least, we have nothing to do.

Our next project coming up promises to be exciting. From the move to a bigger building to the expansion of the patient population, the health center is constantly expanding. We have been hiring new doctors to help accommodate the rising demand for appointments. The trickle down effect is that staffing also needs to increase to keep up with the patients coming to see the new providers. One solution to the staffing demand would be to shuffle current staff around. On Monday Idil and I will be receiving schedules for training to become medical assistants. After the training, part of our duties would be to spend about a day each week helping process patients in one of the three departments (adult medicine, peds, ob/gyn). I am especially looking forward to this experience because not only will we be directly helping out the departments, we finally get to interact face-to-face with patients.

We are savoring this day of mini-rest by posting to the blog, bugging our office mate to help her with some of her workload, and taking a deep breath before diving into the next new thing.