When I walked inside the building, I was surprised at how many of the staff and patients I immediately recognized. I was also comforted by the fact that they remembered me too and my name. They set me up outside of Tonya's office since she hadn't arrive yet, but Tonya got their quickly. She had me start right away on filling out all of the paperwork that the HR department sent over for me. I had to read an orientation handbook, a guide on confidentiality, and take a test on those packets as well. Most of it was pretty straightforward and not too difficult. I probably could have taken the test without even having read the packets. If only school was that way too . . .
I was in the middle of going through all of those when Tonya invited me go with her to the local radio station in Mullins, WJAY. She was going to do a spot on the air advertising the nursing center. I had heard her say something about this yesterday to some of her coworkers and was secretly hoping I could tag along. Obviously I was thrilled when I could. The radio station was a small concrete building in between Marion and Mullins not really near anything else. The DJ was the only person working there so he let us in. His name was James "Pee Wee" Hayes. I would definitely describe him as being jolly. He was super friendly and nice, as have been almost everyone I have met down here. We had apparently gotten there quite early so all three of us just sat down in the studio and talked a little bit. They went over exactly what they were going to say in the "interview" and Tonya told James what questions she wanted for him to ask her. Some of the main points were that 1.5 million people are in nursing homes. Last week was National Nursing Home Week. Nursing Homes offer more skilled specialized 24 hour care than assisted living centers. Nursing Homes do not have to be permanent--many have temporary rehabilitations and go home. And more things like that Both of them were also interested in how hard Duke actually is. I responded saying I thought it lived up to its difficult reputation (at least from my experience with premed classes). As they wrapped up the TV spot, James shocked me by saying "And we can't forget about Intern John from Duke University (in his most radio host announcer voice possible) who provided much information for us. Say hi to every, John." Of course, I said "Hi Everyone." Short and sweet. James was definitely interested in having all of the duke interns come back sometime to do a show on the radio and I think this could be an exiting opportunity for us. I got his business card so we could do some business in the future. What I took away from this experience is that you really need to do something that you truly love. Both Tonya and James stressed that to me.
Back at the office, a psychiatrist had arrived and was working with some patients. I went up and got to see some of the work she was doing. The psychiatrist was Dr. Bhatt from Conway. She was new at the nursing center and this was only her second time here (psychiatrists come every 3 months or so). Mostly what she did was look at the charts of patients that the nurses had flagged. Dr. Bhatt would look over the old psychiatrists notes on the patient, her own notes from her last visit, and take into consideration what the nurses told her. She would then fill out a new sheet with what changes needed to be made in the medications. I always have a hard time remembering, but psychiatrists CAN prescribe medicine, psychologists CANNOT. I learned some of the shorthand doctor lingo like F/U = follow up and a circle with a minus sign in it means NO. Dr. Bhatt was also very friendly (there seems to be a trend here). She took time to explain to me what all of the different medications did and how it affected certain neurotransmitters. Of course, my experience from Neuroeconomics helped out a great deal when she talked about dopamine, serotonin, and acetylcholine. It was a little unnerving thought that she didn't even see hardly any of the patients. She only observed briefly about 3. She said that geriatric psychiatry was not her specialty and can be difficult sometimes with limited communication. She compared it to children's psychiatry because of limited language capabilities and slow metabolism. Another unnerving that fact that I came upon dealt with Patients' Rights. Under that clause, a patient can refuse or request any medicine they want. I developed a new hatred for those cheesy medicine commercials because I didn't realize how much they target old people. A lot of the residents sit in their beds and see these commercials and feel compelled to try them and the nurses must honor their requests. It can get complicated. I also got to hang out with some of the nurses that were helping out Dr. Bhatt, notably Joyce. I was impressed with how compassionate they were and how much they cared about the residents. They keep a secret stash of Coca-Cola for one of the patients and they always know when he comes around wanting it with lunch. He doesn't even have to ask. Dr. Bhatt left me with some helpful advice. She said that if you become a psychiatrist you will NEVER be out of work because they are always in that much of a demand. She also was excited that I went to Duke because I must know a lot of Indian people (she gave the example of people with the last name Patel), and she was ecstatic that there was a girl named Khadijah BHATTi living here in Marion with me.
I then went back downstairs to the office with Tonya and finished up all of my paperwork. Some of the other administrators (Leslie and Jerolyn) brought pizza so I just ended up having that for lunch. For drinks, Tonya and I got sweet tea from the cafeteria that they always keep in stock throughout the day. However the sweet tea is TOO sweet so Tonya showed me the trick of mixing half sweet and half unsweet. Perfect combination, if you ask me. Some more people joined us from pizza, including Deanie (sp?). I really didn't do much work after lunch at all actually about none. Tonya had to run off and do two interviews for administrator postitions. The nursing center recently had 3 important people quit and they are scrambling to find more people ASAP. Apparently what happened is they downsized positions and just gave existing offices more responsibilities. But those people couldn't handle more responsibilities so they quit. While she was interviewing she gave me some information to read about the Helping Hands Medical Clinic, including some stats and the grant report. This is coming to be one of my major projects of proving how they used all of the grant money and wear so they can get more. However, it didn't take me long to read all of that stuff so I just kinda sat around doing nothing. I wandered in the courtyard a little bit, but that was it. It was a little disappointing to not have anything to do but I justified since I had a pretty exciting morning.
Alice came and picked me up. Apparently she had an even more unproductive and boring day than me. We are hoping that our enthusiasm from day one wasn't just all glamorous and now the real summer is sinking in. I have faith though that it will be good. Alice and I did decide to go to lunch together though sometime soon during our lunch break.
John Deans and David Womble and I decided to buckle down and get our gym memberships. The gym in the hospital was better than we expected. We all had to squeeze in the cab of John's truck so it was pretty tight quarters. John Deans let us do the honor of shifting the car into reverse and drive.
At home we talked about some of the ethics dealing with the family refusing chemo for their boy and pretty intense topics like that. This was left over night so I fixed myself some Mac 'N Cheese. We caught most of the finale of American Idol. The house was overwhelming a Kris Allen fan so we were glad that he won. Although Adam Lambert put on quite the show. PS - WHAT WAS HE WEARING?!? I finally taught Charlotte how to play Euchre so hopefully we can play sometime soon! Once again, I am the last person up. It is going to be an early morning (although not as early as John Deans!).
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