NPR is wimping out on me. Called and talked to --- for a few minutes who directed me to Silverman. Talked to him for a minute, he told me to sing my medicine protest song into his voice mail and they'd contact me and yes, they wanted to talke to a full spectrum rural family practice doctor. I called back, got the voice mail, sang and read two poems (Quota and Nutcracker) and left for LA. Went to the American Girl's Store with the Introverted Thinker, delicious tilapia. Just like something out of Eloise, but with my child being much more mature than anyone else there, including me. A two year old cried out of pure excitement. Anyhow, NPR hasn't called me back. Will be two weeks on Friday. Chickens.
Saw one of my people in clinic yesterday who is a guitarist for a billion years (note to self, go find his album.) Told him I'd tried to get NPR to bite on my medical protest song and he said that protest songs were tricky. Said that have to make the audience think that they are doing the protesting, not that they are being beaten over the head. On the other hand, could pull it off as a Blues song. Want a band. Punk rockabilly blues, I think. I will do vocals and write ('bout 12 songs in pipeline awaiting music) and mebbe flute and someday some stringed thing but I currently am too out of practice on both guitar and violin. Need a songwriter and whatever instruments show up. Guitar, base, tuba, Tuvan stringed things, all welcome. I was writing an ad for the paper in my head about it yesterday. Poet/vocalist iso songwriter and intrumental/vocalists for punk rockabilly blues. Influences include The Band, Talking Heads, Bach, Sweet Honey in the Rock, the Offspring and the Tuvan throat singers. And Walt Kelly, Lewis Carroll and Dorthy Dunnett. Heh, heh, heh.
Billy Boop wrote a tune to Idaho Gigalo and sang it into my cell phone. He sings it slowly and I thought it was a lounge tune (quite appropriate) and left him a message saying hadn't quite thought of that but liked it. He left message back (damn new tower in town won't talk to my cell phone if I am at home or work or in half the town. Very annoying. T mobile needs to cough up Brand New Phone or I will be going elsewhere, those slimy scumdogs.) that, no, not lounge tune, is Rock Anthem. I cracked up. Yep, expect to be top o'charts, middle age single mom doctor, har har har.
Hope to get hands on the CD today. Demo. Me, father, sister. Initial offering. Since we were so time short, recorded one take of everything we could think of for two hours on Monday and Tues. Two takes of Long Black Veil since first go round we were sorta microphone self conscious. I've never sung into a microphone before ever. Oh, yes, once, badly at the end of residency, another medical protest song. I sucked. 9 years of chorus among voice teachers and opera singers and other white hairs 10-20 years my senior have rubbed off a bit. Though I still don't "cover" enough (and still can't quite articulate what in the hell "covering" is. First time Liz told me to cover more, my internal response was, hmmm, don't know vocabulary. Didn't tell her though. Just tried to blend.)Anyhow, since we just did one take of everything, it is a little rough, natch, but we improved in our starts and stops. Tunes have diverged slightly over the years. Also sister knew the children's version of "Mr. Noah" and I've been listening to the Dave Von Ronk version, so different but harmonizing tunes and the chorus on hers was doodly doo, doodly doodly doodly doodly doo, while on mine was allelieu. So we sang doodly doo sometimes and allelieu sometimes and the same thing sometimes and different things sometimes and nearly got the giggles. Fun.
They said, we're not going to sell it are we? I said, I'm not, but I'll give to Mr. Music and gosh, bet he will if we give him 30% for his foundation. Being as how he is on a Musical Mission from God, he could sell heaven to the angels. They concurred.
Gosh, quarter to 7. Time to go home, shower, get ready for work and come back to the laptop medical mines. Tired of working flat out fast as can for 20 min visits and still getting behind by end of am and pm. Only minor zebras yest. New person with rash, psych stuff and rash was not drug allergy but shingles. 40 min went over. Can't help it, I HATE not being thorough. Went to first Rotary meeting ever yesterday, knew 1/3 of people in room by face or name and enjoyed it. Joked to General Singular (father) that I'm now a "joiner". He grimaced. I was dressed in pale yellow 1940s suit that makes me feel like a living Easter Egg. Very entertaining.
Oop. 12 min to 7. Bye.
Got jumped at work. Was topic of the meeting with five people talking at me. No warning and They Expressed Concern that I was Behind On Charts.I pointed out that I had asked the administration multiple times for some days to catch up but they said no, if you aren't in clinic we're docking you leave. Regardless of call and meetings and all the other crap, it doesn't count. Then I had laryngitis, called in sick but was covering for the other group. They handed off a laboring woman and I was with her in the hospital for the entire day. I emailed asking if this was REALLY going to be counted as a day of leave. Our COO said yes. I emailed that if I hadn't cancelled clinic for being sick I not only wouldn't have seen my patients, because they would have been rescheduled because of the ob, but she would have had to pay me then. She actually said they'd pay me for that day before I left. One of the Jumper Jerks today said Had I Been That Behind On Charts Before and he Went On and I had to get back in his face to get him to back off and let me answer. I also had prefaced the meeting by saying I wanted 20 min of not meeting to actually eat lunch because I just can't during meeting right now because the pressure to see more people faster just hurts and enrages me. My job in Colorado took exactly this trajectory until I had a week where for 5 days in a row I had something really complicated going on and had to lifeflight 5 people in 5 days. Preterm preeclamptic, a kiddo with Guillan Barre (1 in 10,000 occurance), bleeding pregnant needing middle of the day c/s, don't remember 4th one and then another preterm preeclamptic who had to be flown out by fixed wing airplane and had a crash c/s and a 406 gram baby. We cancelled all or part of my clinic every day. Two days a week I was the only doctor in the clinic with 5 midlevels, covering obstetrics and admitting for all six of us. I said, can't I just be the admitting/obstetrics doctor those days? They said no. I said, seems stupid to run things so busy we have to cancel and reschedule people every day. So in today's meeting they Suggested I Cut Back. We Want You to Succeed. I said, um, yeah, I went to three and a half days a week from four as of this week. They Suggested Maybe You Can Only Handle Three. I fucking hate being ganged up on and I fucking hate hidden agendas. Be nice if someone would actually say, "what would help you?" instead of "We Have Decided How To Fix You." Also, when they Wanted Me To Succeed, my first thought was FUCK OFF and my second was that success for me has nothing to do with 18 or more patients a day, or money, though I need enough of it to take care of me and my kids. Mmy definition of success might intersect with the hospital's, but I'm bloody well not adopting theirs. It's fairly comic really that I've gotten three "What a good clinician you are." comments in the last month, one from the COO, but then they are fucking getting in my way. Kinda mixed message there. We really are impressed by what you do but cut it out and act like everyone else.
Actually our COO did say "what would help?" before I left. So I've sent her 6 suggestions so far. Including, well, I may be a maverik but I'm a smart creative maverik so why don't you give me my head for 6 months and see what happens?
Funniest comment was from my Extroverted Feeler. "Gosh mom," he said, "Five on one. Tell them they need a couple more." That seriously cheered me up. I thought, sort of a back handed compliment if they have to go five on one with me.
Medicine is being turned into a McDonald's Assembly line. Check the boxes, talk about one thing per visit, follow the template. I do not fucking think so. Mentally I quit today. Was starting to set up my own clinic anyhow, in my head. Not ready to run the business quite yet, but closing in on it. Need to learn accounting. Also ICD 10 is going to be a monumental pain in the ass. It will not give better care. It will just make it 10 times harder to bill and so the insurance companies can keep even more of the profits that their fucking slimy CEOs are making for the shareholders. I think everyone should Fucking Divest. If you are invested in an insurance company than you too are making money off refusing to treat sick people. Why do doctors roll over and let congress, insurance companies, the FDA, drug companies and hospitals tell them what to do? Mostly because what docs really want to do is take care of their patients, so they keep putting their heads down and pulling a heavier load. Isn't working. We've had every doctor over 50 quit our system except the one who's old enough to get out of call. And he said wistfully to me that he didn't miss call but missed the inpatient work. We need him. I said I'd go to bat for him to do days only. He didn't answer. I'm too radical.
Also I'd rather have my own clinic building on my second lot so there's the little matter of building it. I'm not ready to give official notice. However, in my heart I have.
Damn, was hoping I wouldn't have to.
Damn, damn, damn.