Woe is me!

Looking over my blog entries since starting residency, I realize that I haven't sufficiently discussed my real work schedule. The one I posted earlier is the 'theoretical' work schedule. You see, the only way that I can feel things are in balance with my poverty-level salary and high cost of living and painfully long stressful hours at work... is to complain. To vent. To whine like a 3 year old with a dirty diaper and a sassy case of the 'poor me's. Bang my spoon on my plate and demand that someone pay attention to the terrible conditions I put up with. WAH!

I know it may not sound like a lot, but coming off a 2 month vacation and jumping into working more than 50 hours a week is really quite exhausting. And that's not including commuting time! Those three long days that we have, we rarely get home before 8:30, due to finishing charts. (oh, and the VT program is the only one that has 3 late days. Everyone else has 1, maybe 2) And on Saturday, I left at 5:45 because I was finishing charting and trying to figure out what the heck I'm doing with my 15 new vision therapy patients. Each patient has a history and it is really helpful (so you don't feel like a floundering fool) to read up on it. That, however, takes time and is somewhat cumbersome due to the medical records system. Of course, everything is more cumbersome due to the medical records system. Paul said he read a study they did about our EMR system, and found that it DECREASES productivity by 60%. Can you believe it? The way we use it in vision therapy, we are spared the worst of it, but still. It's a pain. Oh, but there's good news... they are getting a new EMR system! Yeah, and if it's installed this year, then guess what? Just as soon as we figure out THIS ONE we will have to learn a completely different system (not just an upgrade, a totally new system). Oh, and no, the data isn't transferable to the new system, so you really will have to know both systems if you want to look up previous information on a patient (which always is important). I really hope they don't get that new system until after we leave... I don't think I can learn another system, my brain just doesn't have room. I think it's shrinking, anyway.

Whew, okay! Got that out of the way. Sorry you had to hear that, but I have to balance out the cosmos some how... cause we sure aren't getting paid enough to do what we're doing.

On the other hand, the doctors do give us quite a bit of freedom to do what we want with our patients. Usually when we are with our vision therapy patients they let us do our own thing. Which can be good or bad, depending on how frazzled and confused I am at any given moment. They don't have quite the supply of materials (lenses, flippers, etc) that the private practices I have worked at did, but that just figures, smaller budget and more rooms to supply. And the expectations for the patient are so much different than at the last practice I was at! Instead of doing VT 6 times a day (6 different activities), the doctors at SUNY have to beg their patients to do 1 or 2 activities 10-15 minutes a day. If the patients ask for more, the docs will give it, but that usually doesn't happen. There are some really dedicated parents, though, and some interesting cases I've seen so far. I'm treating a case of horror fusionalis with intractable diplopia (someone sees double, all the time, and they can't put the images on top of eachother) that usually is the one thing you cannot help with vision therapy, but it's going pretty well actually. Lots of exotropes. Kinda miss my esotropes, they are so much cuter (sorry, exos).

One of the best parts about this whole situation, though, is being able to see my sweetheart at work. We usually commute together, although while on the bus he can only look straight ahead or go to sleep (two of the things he does best) and we are never really in the same room during clinic, but we see each other in the hallway sometimes... it's fun... "Who is that hansome man? Oh, right, that's the love of my life. Yah!" We are very professional at work, and I only wink at him when no one else can see me making such a cheesy flirty gesture. Maybe by the end of our residency they will realize that we work well together and actually let us have clinic together! (that also means having the same day off during the week. how fun...)

Today I've just been running errands. Got the house a bit more organized. Bought a coffee maker (finally gave in). Installed a shelf in the closet. And now I'm going to make lasagna for dinner. We get dinner for the week, but in the meantime I turn the house into a sauna... oh well! Can't wait for fall...