Getting to know you

Learning how to function effectively in a system vastly different than the one I left has quickly proven to be a challenge.  This office is still on paper until next summer, and handling a bulky paper chart feels awkward and slow to me after years with an electronic system.  I need help completing my billing, getting patients to consultants, even finding a drinking fountain.  If I'm honest with myself, though, none of those details are the hardest part about working in a new office.

I'm ashamed to admit it, but I really miss being surrounded by people who know me well and respect me.  They're going to need some time here to make up their minds about me, and rightfully so.  But I didn't realize until now, until I left where I had been for so long, just how much that liking meant to me.  It made me feel safe to be myself, that it was okay if I wasn't perfect.

Now, I feel like I'm one mistake away from being perceived as incompetent, or one clipped response away from being thought of as unkind.  Of course, the other side of the equation is my job.  To get to know my new teammates.  To understand their joys and their motivations.  I guess we just have a lot to learn about each other.

So, I'll go first.  I've been married for about a year-and-a-half, and, no, we don't have any kids (though my husband did inherit two aging, yet still delightfully mischievous, step-cats).  My mom's father was a Lutheran minister and my mom is an organist.  Dad is a mathematician; his father was a pharmacist and owned a drug store in Grand Rapids.

Yes, at 5'11" you may describe me as "tall" which, to me, equals "hard to find clothes that fit."  I was a field hockey goalie in high school, and I was in the Women's Glee Club at college.  It can take me a while to feel comfortable around new people, but I can also be a bit of a ham once I do.  I'm an efficient worker who likes to find reasons to laugh in the free spaces of the day.

I will pour my heart and soul into caring for your patients.  You've known them a lot longer than me, so I'll need your help to understand them.  I will respect the talents and experience that you bring.  I will also work tirelessly to help grow your residents into self-sufficient family practitioners who are unafraid to care deeply for their patients while remaining lifelong learners.  But enough about me.

How about you?