Favorite Things of the Month--Part II

Two things that make the week go by faster:

1)  Exercise

I do like to work out, but I can be really lazy about it when I'm home.  My hotel has a little fitness room with a treadmill, stationary bike, stepper and weights.  Those are nice, but to give variety to my exercise schedule, I signed up for Beachbody on Demand.  It's pretty cool--hundreds of different kinds of workouts varying from 10 minutes to 50, and I can play it on my laptop, Kindle or phone.  So some nights I've come home from work and done the Country Heat workout, sometimes yoga.  In the mornings, I usually do either something from the 21-Day Fix or Turbo Fire.  I like Turbo Fire because it's very kickboxing-oriented.  It's also pretty inexpensive, particularly if you're thinking cost/use.

https://www.beachbodyondemand.com/programs

2)  Culture

There's a surprising amount of good cultural opportunities in this area.  I normally don't go to things by myself, but it's been easy and fun.

The local community theater group put on this very cute play.  I was impressed with the acting. There was one particularly madcap scene that they pulled off perfectly.

My "nephew"/"godson"/"cousin" invited me to his choir concert.  It was great!  

"If the United Nations had a house band in 1962, we'd be it!"  So goes the blurb on their official YouTube site (https://www.youtube.com/user/OfficialPinkMartini).  I was acquainted with at least one of their songs, so it seemed like a good choice over the local symphony concert.  Three ladies out on a Girls' Night were seated next to me.  I had a pleasant chat with the one nearest me, so when the singer announced that she wanted all of the women in the audience to come to the stage to join her in singing the next number, my seat-neighbor was able to convince me to go up with her.  Yup.  Yup.  We sang, "I Am Woman".  It was easy to get into it and have fun with it.  I mean, how much of a Northern California experience is that--getting onstage and singing a feminist anthem with a bunch of chicks that remember when that song first dropped.  Lots of hugging all around.  

Coming up this week:  Star Wars and Handel's Messiah!!!!!  I can't wait!

Favorite Things of the Month--Part I

When I planned my locums assignments, I wanted to make sure that I had a good work/life balance.  Places near family and/or friends were high on the list.  If the job was located near or relatively near an LDS temple, even better.  I also wanted to be able to fill my off-hours with other good things, like exercise and cultural events, maybe even some sightseeing.

This assignment is located a reasonable drive from one of my oldest and best friends.  You know (or at least I hope you know) that kind of friend--the one that you can basically tell anything and they'll understand, where you can not see each other for a couple of years or more and pick up where you left off as if you just lived across the street.  It's a balm to my soul to be able to spend time with this "sister from another mister" (and--fun fact--we are actually distant cousins through our paternal lines.)

I also have a very good group of friends from my days in New York.  We have scattered all over the place, so being able to visit one can be a rare treat.  One of those friends lives nearby, and she recently had the life-changing miracle of giving birth to a beautiful baby boy.  It just so happened that his blessing (what we in the LDS church call a christening) was scheduled for my first weekend up here.  It was absolutely wonderful to see her and her little son and see the joy that she feels to be a mother.

I am LDS, and one of the things that is important to me is taking the opportunity to attend the temple.  We believe that families can be together forever, and the place where we make those covenants with God to have the opportunity to do that is in our temples.  For those of our ancestors who for whatever reason did not have that chance in this life, we perform those ordinances as proxies for them.  I had the name of a very distant relative that needed her temple ordinances done.  I thought that I would only be able to do two of the four ordinances for her with the limited time I had, but through a series of miracles, I did all of her work the other evening.  It gives me a lot of joy to know that she has the chance to progress and be with her family forever, and I felt (and feel) very strongly that she was aware that was being done and was super-happy about it.

Hello From LHITBW

Two weeks into my month-long stint at LHITBW, I guess it's time for an update.

Things are still pretty mellow and enjoyable.  I couldn't stay here permanently.  It's just not set up to be a very vibrant practice.  The best person for this job would be someone at the end of their career, burned out on a busy IR service and happy to do more "Specials" than IR.

The physicians that are based are very collegial and pleasant to work with.  The other locums have been interesting to talk to and network with.  My field is really quite small.  There's usually someone who is at least a mutual acquaintance.

Did I tell you it was a tiny place?  The list of the inpatients today was one page long.  One.  Page.

It's situated in the Sierra foothills, nestled in a wooded area.  Having grown up in the Pacific Northwest, the forest feels like it's part of my DNA.  The smell of the woods and the soil is one of my favorite things.  I don't realize how much I miss it until I experience it again.

Did I mention the free food for doctors?  This is just some of the bounty in the Doctors' Lounge.  The fridge is full of sodas, juice, water, sandwiches and salads.  The freezer has frozen Amy's Organic bowls and burritos and all kinds of different ice cream novelties.  And don't forget the rack of chips and the baked goods.  

I took this picture because I never wear nice shoes with my scrubs.  It's usually my Danskos (I call them my "work boots") or running shoes.  I think that I look like an unmade bed or a particularly precocious twelve-year-old when I'm at work, but I feel like a badass in scrubs. 

Work Spa

A locums pulmonolgist at LHITBW and I were talking about our experiences at LH.  She works at a large hospital in Sacramento, and she loves coming up to LH because, "It's so peaceful.  I only have 8-10 patients.  It's like a vacation." 

My feelings exactly.  The last week was so completely relaxing.  I was able to easily get back into reading diagnostic studies, which is delightful.  As far as IR, well, I did several biopsies and a couple of drainages--"light IR".  I almost had a GI bleeder, but they were able to treat the patient in Endoscopy. 

This leads to my only true complaint/concern about this posting: IR, real IR is hard to practice in this tiny hospital.  I don't know how the prior group kept their IR skills sharp.  Maybe they rotate out to bigger hospitals.  There is no dedicated IR suite, it's a Cath Lab.  There's no IR call.  I was told about the GIB when I walked into the hospital at 7:45.  The Cath Lab tech didn't even come in until about 8:30.  I checked out the IR inventory, and there was the necessary equipment to perform the procedure, but it still was suboptimal. 

So generally, LHITBW is like a spa (maybe things will be more exciting as I am there for a month solid). 

Now I'm off to the ACR Education Center in Reston, VA, for Mammo Boot Camp!

Little Hospital in the Big Woods

The hospital I will be spending time in this month and next is in a teeny-tiny town at the foot of a mountain range.  It's set in a residential area that is tucked into the trees, and behind the hospital is a canyon.  In the canyon is a river, and I am told that you can hear the river rushing in the summer.

This very tiny hospital is so small that it smells sterile, like the OR.  And that is because the ORs take up most of the floor plan of the first level of the building.  The second (actually the lower) level has the medical unit, which currently is closed because there are not enough patients to fill it.

Benefits of a tiny hospital include ease in finding one's way around, learning most everyone's name pretty quickly, a general feeling of happiness and teamwork, having referring physicians drop by to discuss cases and (bonus!) free food for doctors in the teeny-tiny cafeteria.

I had such a great time today.  Finally, I'm back to being myself--really loving my job, feeling happy and comfortable.  And (bonus bonus!!) since it's RadTech week, one of the vendors brought in food for lunch--real Mexican food!  It was so good, like El Pollo Loco but better.  (Food means a lot to me!)

And Now For Something Completely Different

I quit my job at UAMS (way too much drama involved in that situation).  My last day was October 31.  My original plan was to take a job with a radiology practice here in Little Rock.  If they had offered me a job back in August when I interviewed, I'm sure I would have accepted it.  However, they were not in a particular hurry to make a decision, which gave me time to think about what I really wanted in my work life and in my work/life balance.

The thing is, I realized that I didn't want to take a job based on convenience--I need a job, they are offering me one, I'll take it.  That didn't work out well at all last go-round.  So to fill time while I find what I want (let's not say the "perfect" job--nothing is perfect, not even the very wonderful job I had at Kaiser), I'm going to do some locums.

Physician locum tenens jobs are plentiful.  I put a few feelers out there and was inundated with possibilities almost immediately.  Oftentimes, these are to fill a spot somewhere in a not-particularly-popular part of the nation, such as Anywhere, North Dakota or Bordertown, Texas.  Radiology is growing as a specialty while radiologists in mid- or late-career are becoming burned out with the case load, so there are openings as those physicians cut back, take early retirement or retire on schedule.  So there are lots of opportunities to temporarily fill those spots.  The groups are hoping that they will find a good locums person and get him or her to stay on permanently.  It also helps the locums figure out where they want to be and what kind of practice they want to be in.

I have worked with three recruiting companies that have really impressed me:

1,  Foster Crown (http://fostercrown.com/)--they advertise themselves as "The Boutique Recruitment Firm", working only with radiologists, vascular surgeons and hospitalists (internists).  Steve May is the CEO.  He is very approachable, knowledgeable and trustworthy.  His assistant, Saj Cherian, is prompt and professional (as is Steve).  They scheduled my first locums, which will be at Feather River Hospital in Paradise, California. 

2.  Medicus Healthcare (https://medicushcs.com/)--Medicus is a larger company, but I have been very happy with them.  Scott Dulac is my recruiter, and he's been totally on top of things for me.  He scheduled my second locums assignment.  I'll be in Nashua, New Hampshire, January through March, 2018. 

3.  Staff Care (https://www.staffcare.com/)--I haven't booked anything with Staff Care yet, but I have really liked my recruiter, Ashli Lakey.  She's really positive and pleasant, and she's keeping up with me.

So, here I go!  I'm leaving for California on Sunday.  I'll spend a week there, then come home for a couple of weeks, then go back until the end of December.  Rowdy will hold down the fort here.  I will update my blog as things go along.  Feel free to ask questions, make comments.

The Long-Awaited Story of How Rowdy and Diane Ended Up in Little Rock

(The details may be somewhat sketchy here, but these are the basics from my point of view.)

Somewhere in April or May of 2015, Rowdy reached the end of his rope with living in California for a lot of reasons, including the lack of personal liberties, high taxes and cost of living, and a general need to move around.  Ten years in one place was more than he could bear.

Unfortunately, this caused a lot of strife.  I was perfectly happy in San Diego.  I was in the perfect job--I loved the people I worked with, my work schedule and the kind of work I was doing.  Let's face it, I spend as much time at work as at home, so that was important to me.  I also loved my ward family and my other friends.  Rowdy made it clear, though:  he was out of San Diego by May, 2016, with or without me.

So I cried.  We argued.  I have moved before, so I knew that I could find friends and make a new life, but the thing that really scared me was finding a new job.  I'd gotten pretty cozy and complacent where I was, and I didn't think that I'd be able to get a job that would bring in the same level of income and be something that I was happy doing.

Blah, blah, blah. This probably isn't in chronological order, but we did struggle about this for weeks. One day, Rowdy said, "You know, in the ten years we've been married, we really haven't made a habit of praying and reading scriptures together every day.  I'd really like us to do that."  I think that was the real turning point.  We humbled ourselves and asked Heavenly Father where He needed us to be.  In addition to improving our daily prayers and studying the scriptures, we fasted and went to the temple more than we had before.  If you get nothing else out of this post, I hope that you get that Heavenly Father loves his children, we can have personal revelation to know what path we need to follow in life, and the way to get answers is to humble yourself, pray with real intent, and be willing to listen for that revelation and follow the counsel given by the Lord.

Rowdy suggested that we both make lists of places we would live, and we would compare the lists.  The final list was:

1)  Austin/San Antonio, TX

2)  Raleigh/Durham, NC

3)  Boise, ID

4)  Utah/AZ

5)  Little Rock, AR

Our main criteria were:

1)  firearms-friendly

2)  proximity to family

3)  good cost-of-living

4)  good quality of life overall

Rowdy was surprised to see that I had listed Little Rock.  I had never been there, but he had been several times and was always complimentary of the area.  Since it was somewhat close to my parents in Austin, and Rowdy had the greatest opportunity to improve as a shooter there, I thought it was worth a look.

I enrolled in a couple of job search boards through professional associations, contacted some recruiting companies and looked into teleradiology groups.  I had a couple of phone interviews with a practice in Ogden, Utah, but I wasn't right for that practice, and they certainly weren't right for me.  Recruiters called with opportunities in Texas, but we had the luxury of not really needing to pick just anywhere.  Beaumont and Amarillo just were not in our plans.  Nothing really turned up in Idaho or North Carolina.  I cold-called a practice in Little Rock, but they weren't sure if they needed an Interventional Radiologist.

Finally, I decided to sign with vRad, a teleradiology group that provided overnight diagnostic radiology interpretations.  The company itself is really outstanding.  I wasn't thrilled about the prospect of working from 7 pm to 7 am, but they were very accommodating and offered me a 2 pm to 10 pm shift.  I also wasn't thrilled about not having the opportunity to interact with patients and do procedures, but I was hoping that there would be a way to find a group that would be okay with me coming in on a part-time basis.

So once we decided on that, we both felt that Little Rock was where we needed to be--where the Lord needed us to be.  We scheduled a trip to Arkansas in November to look around at homes and the town in general.  Meanwhile, I was still wanting to try for an IR job, if possible, but I thought that maybe my cover letter needed revamping.  My friend and co-worker, Danielle, graciously took a look at it and made some very helpful suggestions.

Rowdy and I took a trip to New Jersey for our grandson's first birthday, then spent ten days enjoying Spain the last week of September/first week of October.  Sometime near the end of the trip, the ACR job board posted an IR position at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock.  I thought that was about the nuttiest thing in the world. I really wasn't thinking that I wanted to be a full-time academic radiologist--I wasn't sure that I would have the skill set they were looking for, and I was sure that they would not have much to offer in the way of income, but maybe they'd be the kind of place that would let me just be a part-timer.

The details of this whole experience are a little fuzzy, but it seems to me that it went something like:  we got back from our trip on a Saturday, Sunday evening I sent of my new-and-improved cover letter and my CV, and first thing Monday morning, I got a call that went something like this:

Mollie Meek, MD, UAMS IR Section Chief:  Hello, is this Diane Bricco?

Me:  Yes!

MM:  Uh, uh (splutter, silence)

Me:  Can I help you?

MM:  (incredulously) Are you really moving to Little Rock?

Me :  Yes.

MM:  (still incredulous) And you're really an interventional radiologist?

Me :  Yes. 

MM:  Well, uh!  Wow!  Okay.  Do you know Mike Beheshti?

Me:  No....(Like, should I?  I don't know....)

MM:  Well, he trained me and he's amazing and the nicest person ever and he's the Chief of Radiology over at the VA right now, but he's just the best and HE'S THE BISHOP OF ARKANSAS!!!

Me:  (chuckling)  So you mean to tell me that he's LDS?  (I have my affiliation with Mormon Women in Medicine and my experience in stake and ward callings on my CV.)

MM:  Yes!  And he will be so excited to meet you!

Mollie and I talked some more.  I told her that we had a trip to Little Rock planned for the following month.  She asked me if I wanted to come by to see the place, or maybe interview.  I figured that I might as well go interview, if nothing else to get experience and to let them know that I'd be interested in working part-time.

But the interview ended up going really well, and I was offered a job pretty much at the end of the day. [I did have an interview with Dr. Michael Beheshti, AKA former Bishop of the Pinnacle Ward, AKA Little Rock Stake President (at the time of my interview, so I got both a professional and stake president's interview) and currently Elder Michael Beheshti, Area Authority.  He is a really good guy, and also happens to have graduated from Bountiful High School the same year as my friend Sharon's brother, David.  Small world!]  My prior experience with interviewing at academic centers was that their salaries were far below what I was making at my current job, but Mollie offered me something that, particularly with the difference in cost of living between San Diego and Little Rock, really wasn't much of a pay cut.  Of course, I would have to be full-time--no part-timers allowed.  And they didn't seem to be that bothered by the fact that I hadn't been doing a lot of the stuff that they do regularly.  

Long story short, it just felt right.  Rowdy gave me a Priesthood blessing before I went to my interview in which I was told that it would take time and work on my part, so I figured that meant that getting the right kind of job would take that.  But it seems that the real counsel was that I was going to have to put in time and work to succeed at that job.  Which is okay by me, and I have had the opportunity over the last six or seven months to really prepare, study and get up to speed on some things.  Plus, my offer letter from the University stated that my success was important to them, and they make sure that I had what I needed to do well.  So I think it's going to be a little stressful at times, but ultimately really good for me and my progression as a physician.

And more importantly, this move is going to be really good for Rowdy and his progression in his field.  He's already shot more matches and had better opportunities for good training than he had in San Diego.  There are probably lots of hidden blessings in this move that we have yet to uncover.

We are both adjusting to life here in Little Rock, but we are loving it.  Even Mr. Oliver Hammond is getting happily settled in our new home.  I will probably write other posts about the process of buying a home and selling our SD home and land (an amazingly simple process, as it happens), my experience living with my sweet friends for five weeks while I was working out the end of my contract with SDPMG, the many "tender mercies of the Lord" that I received during this experience, the drive out to LR from SD with Ollie and my sweet parents, and our adventures in Arkansas.

So, that's basically the story from my point of view and how I choose to recount events.  Trust me, I shed a lot of tears about it.  It hasn't been easy for me, but I know that it's the right thing.