Overdue Vacation

It's been diificult to stay focused and motivated.  The management has decided that there is too much idle time in the office due to no-shows and responded by overscheduling which leaves me scrambling to take care of the hospital and in a little ongoing conflict with them.  I had some welcome down time yesterday, easy morning at the satellite clinic, no-shows at the office in the afternoon, enabling me to get to consults and hospital rounds earlier than usual.  Last week at the satellite I divided the no-show time between semiannual planning and catching up on medical records.  Yesterday I devoted a welcome hour to commenting on some postings by my electronic friends at AEI and reading about health economics and reviewing some Delaware medmal cases that were posted on line.

There was a fancy dinner at a hotel for employed physicians.  On one of the rare occasions that I could have gotten there at 6PM, I sent my regrets, preferring instead to just get home, work on my upcoming Torah reading and maybe do a few chores.

My last recreational vacation took place in summer 2008.  Since my partner left in February I have not had a beeper free day.  The patients just keep coming at me.  Any escape from that is welcome, even if only for an hour on company time.  I've tried carving out ME days on Saturday and weekends where I just stay home, including the coming one.  But I think the activity has gotten to me, I'm irritible, make decisions a little too impulsively, drop followup balls and really need to get away from this for maybe a whole week.  Scheduled for November.  Need to work on what my highest level of amusement is so that I might seek it.