Short version: went well.
Longer version: I got there yesterday, early enough to spend a couple of hours with a good friend, and completely accidentally ran into two of my residency buddies.
It’s an interesting phenomenon, and this was just like when I bumped into another at ACEP: it’s like talking to someone you last saw two days ago. It was nice to catch up with one, and I had a brief chat with the other (working a shift). I’ve known a lot of people, but it’s these residency colleagues that I have that really comfortable vibe with. I need to see them more than every 9 years. They’re good people.
Then a dinner with the faculty who trained me (and one new faculty who’s very cool), catching up on their families, the changes in the residency, just small talk. I haven’t enjoyed small talk that much in a long time. While it’s a different connection with the staff, we still have three years in common as they did their best to teach me something.
Then a fitful nights’ sleep after the obligatory final fiddling with the slides. An easy drive to the new (to me) beautiful campus for UCSF-Fresno, which is a giant improvement over the old one in the VMC/UMC building I trained in. (After I left they closed it, maybe in my honor, maybe not).
The talk: I talked about charting ER patients (for docs) in EPIC, which I know fairly well, a general overview of Scribes, then how we do things in my ED. I used the new Prezi presenter, and it worked very well, I like it and will use if from now on over Powerpoint. That said, I have to remember to write my talk in a really poor monitor resolution. My EPIC screenshot slides looked perfect on my monitor, but when turned down to something the projector would deal with they were mush. Very dissatisfying. (Not Prezi’s fault, mine). Did I mention I like Prezi?
The audience was roughly 30 people, mostly residents with some staff and some ER nurses to hear what I had to say about Scribes and how we do things. I had an hour and a half to talk, and about 30 minutes worth of slides. Fortunately there were a lot of questions, so I wasn’t left with a lot of time to kill.
When I talk about how we do things (from the doc perspective) in our ER it always gets attention, mostly because we have a system that flows well, is mutually supportive, and it works to the time and flow advantage of the patients and the docs. All of what we do depends on excellent nursing and hospital staff support, so this isn’t a doc only thing… I think there are parts of what we do that would be adaptable to a residency program ED, and some that aren’t.
I gave my unsolicited advice to the upcoming graduates (lease or rent for a year, don’t buy), and my talk ended well. Nobody booed.
Then a nice tour of the ED, a meeting with some honchos about scribes, and it was time to come home. Fun for me, very ego-flattering to be asked to go back to your residency and talk, and I enjoyed it.
Maybe in another 10 years…
Did your dress shirt make it through the trip unwrinkled? ;-)
Indeed, more impressively without food on my white dress shirt.
Glad it was a rewarding trip.
What was your flying experience like? I haven’t flown since 2009 (vacation) and I’m curious what you might have observed on your trip vis-vis TSA, lines, attitudes, etc.
Jim,
I’ve been flying several times a year, and while I detest Security Theater (really, you can trust me, it’s okay), I’ve got to say that TSA has always been professional with me and mine, and within the last 2 months they’ve actually had some kind of ‘be nice’ campaign going on. It makes it better.
The body xrayer apparently works well, and it’s interesting: the TSA is NOT interested in patting people down because they flunk something on their body scan, every time I’ve been they have asked several times to make sure there’s nothing in my pockets, and the agent that puts me in always says ‘stand still, if you flinch we have to pat you down’. So far, no problems.
American Airlines needs to send their gate agents to the same charm school they’re sending TSA to. As an example, I left my coat on the plane in Fresno, recognized it when I got to the top of the jetway, and the looks of derision from the gate staff were palpable. I wanted to go get it but for some reason that was very alarming to them (?why?), so they got it for me, after yelling at me to ask the color instead of walking the 15 feet to ask what color the coat was. Not good.
Also, I’m not getting any smaller, coach seats are made for 5’6″ 120 pounders, and spaced for them. Painful.