Six Projects

Semiannual planning amid a time of overwork, where one transfers from one urgency to another without regard to importance.  There are patients that need to be seen right now, others in the hospital that need to be seen today, expected to show up at AKSE on Saturday morning, there are deadlines related to my medical license and to closure of my office which still goes on one year after the last patient exited the exam room.  Most of the important things do not have deadlines but are easily deferred to less important things that do.  Each June and December I try to decide which things deserve my attention and creation of some appointment time with myself to do them.  Usually I agonize over this, often spending more effort with the planning than the doing.  It started out that way again but to my surprise, the projects fell readily into place over coffee at the Brew Ha-Ha about two weeks ago.

1. I will pass Endocrine Recertification Boards
2. I will create an estate plan with the attorney
3. My bedroom will be decluttered and redesigned as my personal sanctuary
4. The scale will read under 150 pounds
5. My blog will become an interactive one
6. I will finish the book I bought on how to derive maximum benefit from my iPod

All projects are doable and have identifiable end points where a box can be checked as done or not done.  In the two weeks since its creation, the progress has been less than I hoped but this week I carved out specific time to do some of these things.  Unfortunately I am still often tired when I return home at the end of the day.  The bedroom and estate planning can be done on Sundays, the other stuff probably best to carve out 20 minute blocks during the week.  The trick to accomplishing these will likely be to have finite intermediate points and somebody prodding me along the way.

Electronically Challenged

It took a geek to make my new iPod functional.  It's still not entirely functional.  Electronic Medical Records as I have used them the last three months impede my ability to think about patients.  My three computers, the main one, my laptop, and the one on my desk at work never seem to work at peak function.  And I get ripped off for most of the services I am compelled to purchase for these.

In a prior generation, when I was a potential geek on the sidelines, it was the cars that got enthusiasts enthused but irritated the rest of us by costly breakdowns for which we were dependent on people a little outside the main stream to get us mobile again.

My patients may have similar comments about me as their Patient Repairman.  I did not create the complexity of their physiology nor did I cause its malfunction, at least not initially.  Things are generally repairable and upgradable.  I do not perceive doctors as geeks the way I regard computer experts or auto mechanics, though the public may not concur.

This new calendar year, I will make a better effort to understand my electronic resources and bodily resources and use them in a more functional way.

Happy New Year.