Another day, another dollar....

So another week is nearly over already....

This one has really flown by. Having got used to the system a bit better now, I'm really enjoying the work more. It's been a great week for the logbook. A couple of kidney transplants, pancreas transplant, a laparotomy for bleeding post liver transplant, a rotational flap for thoracotomy wound, a free flap to the face, an awake fibreoptic and a load of orthopaedic stuff as well for good measure.

I also did my first real late shift (like a day on-call). Basically having done my normal 2 lists during the day I start taking over other lists so people get to go home on time, (But I can still only run 2 lists max at any time). Then when there are only 2 lists left running I can go home and be on call from home, and the attending on call for the night has to stay for the night. I was lucky - it wasn't too busy and I got sent home at 8.30pm. I could have potentially been called back in but luckily I wasn't. I got the next day off as an "academic" day. No-one has really defined to me what counts as academic....

The residents have been super keen to learn this week, so I've been doing lots of teaching. They generally prefer clinical teaching rather than science, so I've been basically discussing long and short cases with them mostly, and discussing critical incident management.

Outside of work we've been having a great time. We've had 3 BBQs already. Last weekend we invited the other Brit "rotators" round (There's 8 of us here) so everyone's other half could meet up. Everyone has hadd similar experiences (good and bad) Re: immigration, social security, etc. They're all a very nice bunch from various places in the UK. Some are post CCT, but most are pre-CCT like me with 18 months to go or so.

My latest whinge is with the Gas & Electric company. Unlike the UK, there is absolutely no competition here, so we only have one choice of energy company. Currently the bills are still in the name of the previous tenants. We haven't been able to change them over until I got my social security number paperwork through. (Land of the free... my arse). Even now I have that paperwork, I'm supposed to drive an hour to Detroit and show myself at the DTE energy HQ with my passport, visa and social security number - just so they can change the name on a bill. Honestly - you can't do anything here without showing some form of ID (especially buying a beer...)

It's a small price to pay though. Life on the whole has been very good here. We've had some beautiful weather here, and have gone to some lovely parks, had some lovely drives and picnics. We're already planning some holidays. The upper peninsula of Michigan is supposed to be very beautiful, so we're planning a trip up there in the summer. There's still a lot of Ann Arbor we are yet to explore. Although the place is quite small in American terms, there's a lot to do here, mainly I think because of the University here. It's very cosmopolitan, and lots of Parks, museums, cafe's and restaurants. There's also quite a few micro-breweries here with very nice beer.

Take Care all,

Drake.