PA08 to PA-C!

What the F guys?

I haven't checked the blog in weeks and I expected to see fancy new posts about everyones whereabouts...nothing

The picture is grand lake, co. Went up there in October with some of T's nursing friends- beautiful place, lots of laughs, lots of drink and lots more of drink. Here we are on a swing over the lake....its really the only pix on my computer of us from colorado at this point- our camera broke (like my wallet).

Well maybe Ill start the trend. I have been seeing patients now for 2 weeks. I'm at the Kaiser P in Lakewood. Things are really good now. I am the 2nd PA ever in the internal med department-consisting of 17 docs. The dept is further divided into groups so I am actually the first PA in the group and many of the docs have never worked with a PA. They have an urgent care downstairs (what they call 'trauma'-ran totally by mid-levels) who has been seeing all the clinics urgent walk in patients (peds, family, and internal....) They were getting too busy so they decided to break it all up.

That means I am the main trauma dude for internal med- anything urgent goes to me (fractures, lacs). Also minor procedures (toe nails, joint injections, excisions, etc...) go to me and any same day/slightly urgent medical appointments. I also see bread and butter internal medicine quite a bit- as many of you know I really enjoy this. I really love the variety and my role.

The people there are so nice. All the doctors are so collegial. They all work together and ask each other questions/advice all the time without it being a big deal very comforting for a new grad. The support staff and management is very welcoming and everyone is genuinely freaking nice. I feel really lucky. The midlevels down stairs where the trauma dept was split up are super freaking cool too and always asking me if I need any help. I will admit it was still a bit scary being on my own at first but it really was not that big of deal because I have so many resources I can go to if I need help.

Personally, things are going well. It has only snowed once in Denver so far which people are telling me never happens. The first snow usually starts Oct ~21 st and here we are creeping up on Dec!! I have about a 40 min commute to the West side of the city. I'm still not sure if I should buy a house or just rent but we definitely need to move closer. We spent Thanksgiving in PDX briefly last weekend since flights over the real turkey day were like 500 bucks- it was great to be back although very brief. Not sure about if ill be back for x-mas because the clinic I work at is only closed Christmas day which is a random Thursday.

Well thats about my life. But seriously team, is there some secret blog you all are having that I don't know about. I haven't seen any emails- lets step it up. I would love to hear what everyone is doing. Miss you all!

Jack