More Medic Training and Some Random Musings

I actually started to write this post on Friday, but then I realized that I didn't have everything I needed to write it. By that I mean the link to the article I wrote... Keep reading and that will make more sense.

Before I left for ACPM, we had Dr. Likita Aminu from the CDC come over to talk to the medics about hepatitis. Dr. Aminu is originally from Nigeria, and met LTC Gardner in December at an African culture event in Savannah. Because LTC Gardner can talk anyone into anything (he is, without exaggeration, the type who would be able to sell ice to Eskimos if he wanted), Dr. Aminu agreed to chat with the medics. Since he had done research on hepatitis in the Coastal Region of Georgia (where we live), and hepatitis is an issue in Africa, that's what he talked about.

And here's the link to the article I wrote about the training:

http://www.stewart.army.mil/homepage/news/news8.asp

Now onto my random musings. For the second half of last week, I was in a pretty annoyed mood. I think it started on Wednesday, when we had a Command and Staff meeting. Command and Staff is pretty awful to begin with--each of the staff sections talks about what's going on in that section. It's great if you really care about how many humvees are due to be serviced or whose evaluations are due. If you don't, it's about an hour and a half of torture. Well, because the conference room table is only so large, I don't have a seat at the table, but I do have a slide (as in, one PowerPoint slide) to brief, and that's the medical readiness of each of the companies. To make an already long story somewhat shorter, before the meeting started, I was trying to find the right chair to pull into the corner of the room, the entire time thinking, "I went to four years of medical school and three years of residency for this?" Yes, a bit egotistical, perhaps, but that is what I was thinking.

I think part of that was the fact that I was just at a conference, hanging out with the people I used to work with, which was a nice little reminder of how well I used to have it. In residency, my only obligations were to learn as much preventive medicine as possible (and stay up to date with all my Army required trainings, of course). Now, I see routine complaints (boring), track who is due for which vaccines or blood work (boring), and only rarely get to do anything preventive medicine or tropical medicine related (yay!).

I guess the point of that is, going to such conferences remind me that I do like the Army, but that I think I'll be happier if I leave FORSCOM and go back to MEDCOM, where doctors typically get to do what they're trained to do.

We'll see what happens.