IN A WHIRLWIND

20 February 2002

First the good news. I went to the club this morning and was able to work out on most of the machines except for the weight bearing upper body machines and the back stretching machine. ouch!!! But the bike, the UBE, the treadmill and the leg press were OK and I have to admit it was nice to be back. Now that I'm working longer on the leg machines, I'm thinking of doing what a lot of people do--bringing a book to read while I'm pedaling or walking. I almost went to 15 minutes today on the bike, but decided not to push it till the leg/hip are feeling better.

Then I went to Weight Watchers. Since I had a couple of days where it wasn't possible to count points and my trip home included a McDonald's cheeseburger and small fries (half of which I forced myself to throw away) at the Rochester airport, I was fully expecting there to be no or minimal loss, or possibly even a slight gain.

What I was not prepared for was a five and a half pound loss!!! I had a nice chat with the leader who made sure that I got that silly award I didn't get when I lost my first five pounds. I've now lost 22½ pounds. No wonder clothes are starting to feel baggy! Fortunately I got new clothes for my birthday (I'll have to wear them a lot because I intend to grow out of them...or shrink out of them...or whatever you do with clothes that you can no longer wear because you're thinner).

After Weight Watchers, I went to work and here is where I found myself in the center of the whirlwind.

It now appears that Dr. C is definitely joining the practice, so my part time job is rapidly evolving into a full time job (I worked 10 hours yesterday on my part time job...without a break).

The frustrating thing is how different Dr. G and Dr. C are. Dr. G is a man who thinks that nobody knows anything but him. He insists on telling you in minute detail how to do everything (when I first was hired, he spent half a day deciding how I should introduce myself to new patients! He's given me the script of what to say when I make phone calls, how I should keep track of things on leger cards, where I should file things, how my desk should look, how to arrange flowers in a vase, how to empty garbage, how to dust, how to water plants, how to rearrange a closet, how to fill out forms, how to give directions to the office, etc. etc. Saying "yes, I know" accomplishes nothing. He plunges head on, totally ignoring you, until he's given you all of the directions to do it his way.

(However, he did buy nice flowers for my birthday...)

Dr. C, on the other hand assumes I know everything and she dumps things on my desk with a long list of things I'm supposed to do--none of which I've ever done before--and she assumes that I know how it should be done, whom to contact, which numbers to call, what the procedure is for scheduling various surgeries, how to deal with all insurances, how to deal with Medicare and MediCal, how to find out about her certifications, etc., etc.

I suppose that the plus in all this is that I'm learning lots of new skills (and, with Dr. G's assistance, how to do them "perfectly"!), but it sure does make your head spin to feel one moment like you're an idiot (though he never tries to put you down. He just wants to make sure you don't miss anything....the woman I have replaced is a seamstress on the side and she offered to hem some pants for him today. He brought them to her and told her he wanted the cuffs raised 2½ inches--then he came to my desk, got a piece of paper and wrote "2½" on it, just so she wouldn't forget!). And then the next minute feel like it's assumed that you could run a hospital single-handedly and know everybody's job.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, I'll eventually settle down into my job--and my new job. We are rapidly approaching the day when a second person in the office is going to be a necessity. I've made it known to Dr. G that I cannot be receptionist, secretary, medical assistant, surgery scheduler, biller, transcriptionist and janitor for two doctors or I will self-destruct. He agrees. He's off on vacation now for a month, though, so Dr. C will work for a month and begin to establish her own roots--and then we'll decide how we're going to handle the work of two doctors when he returns.

He also said those ominous words to me yesterday: "I want us to be doing our own billing in-house by October."

Not unless I have help--and a computer--we aren't!