First day at Madigan

Today I began the fun and exciting adventure that is a 4th year HPSP student on Army rotations. For the first time ever, I put on my ACU (Army Combat Uniform) in its entirety (when I went through Officer Basic Course, we were still in the old BDU, or Battle Dress Uniform). Of course, I had a brief panic attack thinking that I had the flag on the wrong arm, but it was all good.

I left really early from Ann and Norm's to give myself enough time to get a visitor's pass and get through the gate... that was a mistake. After more than half an hour at the main gate, they finally called my number and I handed over my proof of sale and proof of insurance for the car. The lady at the counter looked at it, and then told me that if I have temporary tags, I don't need a pass, I can just show my ID and get in. That would have been helpful half an hour before! So, I ended up being five minutes late for in-processing. What a great first impression.

Fortunately, I in-process with the Graduate Medical Education people, not the Preventive Medicine people, so they'll never know. There were three of us who are doing the rotation without orders (called non-ADT, or non-Active Duty Training), so we filled out our papers pretty quickly and then were done, so we went and got our hospital ID badges and white coats. I won't wear my coat (they don't wear them in Preventive Medicine), but it was an interesting novelty to check out a long white coat, instead of the short med student coat that I've been using for the last three years (we aren't allowed to wear the coats from our schools while on rotations in Army hospitals). Anyway, after that, it was back into the car to drive to the Madigan Annex, where the PM department is located (it's in the old hospital, not the main hospital).

Since I haven't been trained on the computers yet (that's tomorrow, all day), there wasn't a whole lot for me to do, so they gave me a tour of the place and introduced me to the interns, one of whom I met last February at the American College of Preventive Medicine conference, and then I started researching my project for the month (picking a recommendation from the US Preventive Services Task Force and describing the recommendation and the evidence behind it; I think I'm going to do scoliosis screening for adolescents, which is actually NOT recommended by the USPSTF). I also met some of the third year residents, one of whom is an OSU grad--go Bucks! I did have the misfortune of informing him that Dr. Stang, one of our former associate deans, passed away about two months ago, which was hard for him to hear. Dr. Stang was a mentor to him, as he was to many OSU grads.

After a longish day of not doing much, I decided my boots weren't all that comfortable, so I went to the uniform shop and bought myself a new pair of boots, which are very nice. I think I've had more uncomfortable tennis shoes. Anyway, tomorrow is eight hours of computer training through the Graduate Medical Education office, and then we'll see what PM has in store for me after that. I think it's going to be a good month.