Tuesday 19 June 2012

First Day of Residency

Today was the first day of residency which begins with four days of orientation before actual clinical duties start. (Un)fortunately for me, I am awaiting a license to practice and so will only start in four to five weeks time i.e. I am off-cycle. Either that, or I cut back my vacation time completely this year or over the next four years. If I could survive surgery without vacation, I'd do it. My second choice would be going off cycle.

So, it has been three days since I've been in the States. It doesn't feel too surreal. It is an achievement but I don't particularly feel or see fireworks. But, I am glad and thankful to be relatively calm and relaxed despite the circumstances. There's still a mountain of paperwork to do pertaining to licensure, bank stuff, human resources, liaising with various organizations and the list is so long I keep forgetting something!

Yesterday was pretty eventful. I went round saying hello to some people I had been liasing with and got some information sorted. Initially, I had been fretting about needing to be at work at 5am! I have no car right now and I was pre-occupied in my mind about buying a bike to ride into work. I used to be able to zoom down roads and corners at super high speed on a bicycle as a kid but the magic seems to have disappeared when my childhood ended. I can ride down a straight road but when it comes to turning, OMG what a sight! Anyway, I did find a bike I think I can get along with quite well. Its a Jamis Citizen 14" frame bike that lets me plant my feet firmly on the ground to break a fall. Yes, I think it was because people started giving me 21" frame bikes that destroyed my confidence... I may get the bike this weekend. Who knows.

People have been generally really friendly, helpful and cheerful here. I bumped into a few university students who had graduated. It was nice talking to people not in healthcare.They were in engineering, film and public communications and they pointed out the $1 beer joint to me. I'm kinda skeptical about how good the beer is. In retrospect, I wished I joined them to find out but I get social anxiety. Please, it was reflex. My higher cortex now tells me I was stupid not to go. But then again, I struggled through paperwork half awake last night so maybe it was good I came home a little earlier. 

The students pointed me out to the local AT&T which now offers SIM cards. I don't think they did back in 2010 and so, that is great. for $50 I get unlimited minutes, texts and international texts (excluding Malaysia and the United Kingdom, what a great coincidence). I'm glad that's sorted.

Today was orientation and after two other orientation's previously, orientation is just orientation. However, this was a pretty well executed orientation. Stuff seriously happened on time. Nobody went over time. Nobody ran out of time. Fine details maybe but I was impressed. Also, these guys here start earlier than I'm used to. 0730 hours today and 0700 hours tomorrow. By 0900 it felt like 1200 but it wasn't 1200. I got to meet other residents and yeah, it was nice just meeting others in the same boat. 

Ok, gotta get back to Paperwork Mountain.

2 comments:

  1. so glad to have stumbled upon your blog. ((: i love your little backstory about the title for this blog (reference: sidebar) and i hope you've moved on good and proper from the gay ex. are you a doctor-to-be?

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    1. Thanks. I guess I am a physician already.

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