Third Time's the Charm.

He's a cute little goober!

Hokay, another inadvertent hiatus.  But I've been blogging since Geocities (oh, the glory of 90's internet), and I'm not about to let anything as simple as having a second child, moving our entire family cross-country after going through a hurricane, Nick going through Rookie School again, holding down temp jobs and moving twice before settling on my current job keep me down!

So again, with the blog.  And some new clinical context.

As much as I loved Hospitalist work, it was never my end-game.  I wanted to go and put in my years in the front lines of medicine, understand efficiency, disposition and clinical practice outside Academia before coming back to teach.  So when the opportunity came to return to Michigan, the natural inclination was to move to the next phase of my career.  

Actually taking the leap was.... exhilarating. (Terrifying, as the primary breadwinner.)  It seemed like Locums work would be my go-to while I searched for a full-time academic position.  I knew I wanted to teach residents, and hopefully students, and maybe even work at a community type program - something similar to where I trained, not too far out of my wheelhouse.  I had some concerns about my strengths as a clinical educator matching up with a heavily research or academic University based practice.  Oh, and it needed to be relatively close to Nick's job - and our extended families.

Just Kidding.  I was hired almost a year ago.

Of course, finding something that fit such laughably specific standards was going to take quite some time.  Academic positions are more scarce and have far less turnover than Hospitalist jobs, so I found a great Locums company with the plan to work with them for a year or two while I found my dream job....

It would be tough, working in a different city each week, but our family would manage - I was willing to wait.


Happily, I got in contact with the right recruiter and met my new family at St. Joseph Mercy Oakland.  So my days look a little different now.  The census is shorter, rounds are longer, and I even venture into the brave new world of outpatient clinic.  (Definitely more on that in a future post)

But I still hustle home for dinner, the kids occasionally get schlepped over to the hospital to finish up things while Nick is at the firehouse and there are definitely still bodily fluids flying around. 

The hobby changed too.  As much as Roller Derby Saved My Soul, there simply weren't the hours in the day to devote to a highly competitive team sport, with practices usually held right at bedtime.  So I get my bruises and the "You do what, now?" looks from a new source:

Because who doesn't want to run away and join the circus sometimes?