Computer training

Today, I had the fun and exciting (that's sarcasm) experience of training on the computer systems used around Madigan. We were to report to the classroom at 0800, and expect to be there until 1600. We were less than thrilled with the idea of eight hours of sitting in front of computers learning what buttons to push to see lab reports.

Fortunately (or unfortunately; I haven't decided yet), I didn't have to be there for the first hour, which was training on Essentris, the inpatient system (I don't see patients in the hospital in preventive medicine; it's a bit too late to prevent anything at that point). I've also used Essentris at OSU, so I already know the system. The unfortunate part was that they didn't tell me this until I had already arrived in the morning, so I missed out on what could have been an extra hour of sleep. So I figured I'd use the time to go to the PX and buy some stuff I needed (such as a black backpack, green highlighter, pens that fit in my ACU pen pocket, etc). Well, I learned after walking across the Madigan parking lot, driving across base to the PX, and walking across that parking lot, is that the PX doesn't open until 0900. Sigh. Such is life.

After returning to Madigan empty-handed, I sat in the computer classroom for a couple of hours before lunch break, which was really too long considering the hospital cafeteria was right there and there was nothing else for us to do. So we occupied space in the cafeteria and talked for about an hour, likely to the annoyance of other cafeteria visitors. Then back in the classroom for more training. It didn't take as long as scheduled--we were out around 2:30--so I hit up the PX (which was open), went shopping, and headed over to Rachel and Jason's to hang out, hear about Tennessee, and listen to Jason's stories about Iraq (and eat their food, of course :)).

Pretty chill day, which will not be the case tomorrow. I have to review the CDC's guidelines on TB in the morning to prepare for TB clinic in the afternoon, while hopefully getting started on my project. We'll see how that goes.