I am thinking about next year.

I managed not to get strep A systemically again this year, so that is great.

I took more time off than I ever have.

This is not great for the clinic bottom line, but it's better than getting sick, and this year the bottom line looks positive. Last year I returned at the start of April and it was quite negative, plus I had to initially work part time.

My muscles have recovered, I think. The fast twitch fatigable appear to have receptors again. Now it would be nice to get in better shape.

My goal at clinic is to work 40 hours. We are pretty much maxed on patients, because 6-8 per day and stopping seeing patients at two pm leaves at least three hours of paperwork. Refills, specialist letters, labs, xrays, MRIs, everything has to be read and a plan made, calls, letters, does the person have a follow up scheduled? The docs that are seeing 18-25 a day are burning out and quitting left and right. Because you either do an inadequate job or else you spend hours when you aren't seeing patients chasing things down. So the 15 minutes or 20 minutes in clinic is accompanied by another 45-90 minutes of work....and if we are scheduled with patients for 24 hours a week, well, do the math.

I do more of the work in the room. I do the initial visit 45 min to 1 hour and hand people the note. They see me doing it and then I ask them to read and correct. They don't fill out a four page health history in the waiting room and I don't have to read it later. And since I am getting the history live in the room I can backtrack, circle round, ask more about something. It is also much more informative from a live person than from four pages of paper. The way people move and what they do and don't want to discuss gives me an enormous amount of information that can't be gotten from a medical assistant scanning or entering things into the computer memory.

I submitted six of my poems to a local collection this week. And I am starting to sort, to get a poetry book or three ready to submit. I also went to a poetry group and read three of mine. That takes practice. I think I sucked, but ah well, have to start somewhere.

In 2017 I would like to travel some. That may mean just back to the Washington, DC area to see my son and friends. But it may mean Denmark and England.....depends on various things. Money.

I am getting used to my daughter being at college and I am rearranging the house. Like everything else, it takes three times as long as I think it should....but that is my father's rule, so I expect it.


The Handsome Family: Lizard

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