Week of May 14, 2001
Monday
Tuesday Wednesday
Thursday Friday
Saturday Sunday
Most Recent Update
No update yesterday due to the holiday. After church yesterday we took Delanae out to eat lunch at one of her favorite restaurants, one she does not get to go to very often as the kids find it difficult to find something to eat there that they like. They were well behaved, for the most part, for a change and did not complain much about the food there. After that, we spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning up outside including mowing the yard and pressure washing some other areas around the place. Stephen and Delanae stayed at home to continue pressure washing while I went to Sunday night services at the church as I was running the mixing board for sound. After the service was over, I came home and did the last little bit of pressure washing after dark. Then, we returned the pressure washer to its owner and got ready for today. We were all tired so it was not a problem getting everyone off to bed early last night.
Today was busy, at least from a paperwork standpoint. I had three patients in the hospital this morning and saw them before my special Leadership Council meeting at 8 this morning. At the meeting the members of that council approved the adjustments to compensation that are done each quarter. Overall, the compensation for the group increased although a few people saw their compensation go down. We have to go through this process every quarter but usually do it at a regular council meeting rather than a special called one.
I did not see as many patients at the office today as I have seen the last few days there but I think there was more paperwork than there has been. I have been trying to decide why but I am unsure. The usual number of clinicians were working today so I was not having to cover for anyone. I guess my practice has just gotten so big that every day is going to be like this.
Nothing really interesting today other than the fact that I did not have to testify today. I was scheduled to testify in a hearing on a workers compensation claim early this afternoon. An assistant attorney general had called me last week to confirm that I would be needed today and she mentioned that I only needed to answer one question. The answer was in the note I had dictated on the day of the appointment for that patient two years ago and I had not seen him before that appointment or since. She said that maybe she could get the other attorney to stipulate that my answer was contained in the note and she evidently was able to do just that as I got a message late this morning that I did not have to show up after all. I really did not want to go all the way to the hearing for one question, especially when the answer was obvious and contained in my note.
Since it has been raining all day, it looks like it will be the Nordic Track for me tonight rather than running. I had better ftp this up to the site and get started.
Today was busier than yesterday. I ended up seeing four patients in the hospital this morning before beginning my office hours. One of them I sent to the nursing home for physical therapy for a month or so so he can regain enough independence to return home. He has had a stroke and is making good progress but is not independent in walking or moving around yet. At least one and maybe two of the others will go home tomorrow. One is a newborn baby who is doing fine and will go home with his mother tomorrow.
On Tuesdays, at noon, there is a regular continuing medical education program at my hospital sponsored by the hospital. Today's topic was about pediatric sleep disorders, a topic I knew very little about. The whole subject of sleep medicine has really advanced in the last few years and I am continually amazed at the new knowledge about the subject. When I was in medical school, very little was taught about the physiology of sleep. Today I learned about some of the differences between children and adults as well as the similarities in their sleep problems. I now also have someone in Portland to refer kids who have sleep difficulties that I am not able to help.
Tonight, I went to a round table discussion about chronic pain medication. There was one pain specialist from the San Francisco Bay Area and several local physicians at a local restaurant. We just talked about individual patients and he gave a very short overview on some medications. It was a very enjoyable evening and I learned several things tonight about the management of chronic pain. He was originally trained as a family physician before doing his pain fellowship so he had a lot of practical suggestions that I can put into my daily practice. By the way, the food was good too.
Tomorrow is my day off which means I will only try and work until noon tomorrow. I have a meeting at 8 tomorrow morning and I need to make rounds in the hospital and do some charts in medical records. I also need to go to one nursing home tomorrow to see a couple of patients. I have no plans for tomorrow afternoon except to run and rest. See you tomorrow!
I did manage to work only half a day today. I ended up seeing four patients at the hospital this morning, one of which was a newborn baby that I sent home.
I did get my medical records all done today and did make it to the nursing home as I had planned. There is a patient there that will be finishing up six weeks of IV antibiotic therapy in a couple of weeks so I need to start transitioning her to go home. We will do that over the next two weeks so she will be ready when she is finished with the antibiotic. Part of it involves switching her from her IV pain medication to non-IV pain medication. The pain treatment specialist last night gave me some ideas about how to transition her.
This afternoon was basically an afternoon of rest. Delanae played dog groomer on the two dogs with longer hair. Bo now looks like he lost fifty pounds and Dexter looks like a sheep from the rear. Of course the smallest dog doesn't have hair long enough to trim. I also got to run before picking Stephen up from school since he had to stay late to watch a movie for his English class. He says it was really boring.
Tomorrow I have to get up early to help with sports physicals for local high school athletes at one of the local high schools. A number of physicians volunteer each year to do physicals in two sessions at two local schools. Tomorrow is the first one and the second one is in a couple of weeks. After that, it is back to the hospital and office for another full day.
Not enough physicians volunteered or there were too many kids or a combination of both this morning. The end result was that I did not get back to the office until 45 minutes after I was scheduled to start seeing patients. That also meant I did not get to make hospital rounds this morning on my patients. I played catch up all day as a result. Obviously, this giving physicals to the kids needs to be better organized by the organizers or split up again into more days. We had kids bused in from other schools for the physicals rather than just the one school district. I will be talking to the organizers of this activity.
I did see my hospital patients at noon today after grabbing a quick sandwich and eating it on the run. None of them could go home today, maybe one tomorrow but more likely Saturday.
Tomorrow will be busy again. No physicals to do in the morning but some people got rescheduled to tomorrow from today and I was already fully booked before that. I will be playing catch up all day tomorrow as well. Wish me luck!
Today was not as bad as I was expecting. Yes, I was very packed this morning but I made it through and got to my weekly cancer conference on time with all my morning charts already dictated. Then, this afternoon I had some no shows which meant I was able to get done on time this afternoon. I also sent one patient back to the nursing home today from the hospital. The other two are still in the hospital and will probably still be there Monday morning.
During the day today I got a call from Delanae asking if I could come work the sound for the church's youth choir rehearsal at 6 this evening. This choir is going to a competition tomorrow to try and earn a trip to Kansas City for a national competition this summer (For those of you who do not know this, imagine Kansas City in the summer and say heat and humidity). Both our kids are in this choir and Delanae is one of the directors so I was planning to go with them tomorrow. They needed to rehearse once more this evening and needed someone to run sound for them. I made it on time, believe it or not. Tomorrow morning we are leaving at 5:30 AM which means getting up at 4 or earlier. We will probably have to take both vehicles tomorrow to get all the kids up there. It promises to be a long day tomorrow for all involved. I probably will not have a post tomorrow unless we get back a lot earlier than I am afraid we will.
No update.
Yesterday was a long day. We left at 5:30 AM and got home at 10 PM. We did end up having to take two vehicles so Delanae and I both had to drive. That meant that we were both very tired last night and just fell into bed when we got home. Then, it was get up this morning in time to make the first service which we barely made.
Yesterday was a good day for the youth. This was a competition for church youth groups and individuals from seventh grade through twelfth grade. The choir has just been in existence for less than three months and has about fifty kids in it. When they went up to perform the judges were stunned that they had a live band rather than a CD track for accompaniment. They were also stunned by the size of the choir, so stunned that they did not know exactly what to do with them. They had never had a choir like this, especially one in only their first year of existence. The choir ended up being less than one point shy of qualifying to go to the national competition. This is a tremendous accomplishment for this group of kids, most of whom had never performed in a competition before. They got their eyes opened about the level of competition in the other categories there. Two of our church's kids did qualify for the national competition in Kansas City later this summer.
Today was a day of rest for us. Delanae and I tried to catch up on our sleep this afternoon (Delanae must have needed more than me) before evening service tonight. After that it was time to pay bills and get ready for tomorrow. I have only one patient in the hospital for tomorrow which is a good thing as I have a Leadership Council meeting at 7 in the morning. I also have a call night next week, on Tuesday, and early morning meetings Wednesday and Thursday. Next weekend is Labor Day which means I have a three day weekend which sounds great after this past weekend. Until tomorrow night.....
