Gratitude: Day 2

Dentists. I know it's a strange thing to be thankful for, but it's so important. But, I just came from there. I am so appreciative to have a dentist who cares as much as the one I have been going to for the last four years.

I volunteered at the Connecticut Mission of Mercy last year. It was humbling to be a part of that dental clinic where dentists volunteered to treat as many patients as they could in 2 days.

Total patients treated: 2,052
Total value of charitable dental care: $970,843
Number of volunteers: 1,640
Cities, towns, & villages represented: 266

The location changes. The 2011 clinic is scheduled to take place in April in Waterbury. If you want to be part of something important and worthwhile I suggest you check it out.

Finally, the interview

Tonight I was interviewed by a panel for possible appointment to the town's ethics commission. I've been on committees and board before but this is the first time I have considered doing anything political on any level. For this four-year position you get one evening to campaign for yourself and you never meet the other people who are being considered. So I hope I did ok. I'll just have to wait and see what happens.

On the whole

There is something I have noticed lately at the hospital. Most of the nurses (regardless of gender) are heavy. Most of the doctors (regardless of gender) seem to be fit. The non-medical office staff are overweight, while the volunteers seem the thinnest of all. I do not mean to sound judgmental; it's just something I have noticed. And I tend to be pretty unobservant, so when I say "most" I mean more than ninety percent.

Although anecdotal evidence from a single hospital in one town is not great evidence, I wonder if this tends to be true at other hospitals. If so, what would that say? Is the work of a nurse more stressful than a doctor? Or does this reflect something about the attitudes or temperament of people in the two jobs?

I can understand the office workers, on a whole, being more heavy than the volunteers. The volunteers are usually running from place to place the entire time they are working. The office workers, as you would expect, are behind a desk.

But the doctor-nurse dichotomy does not make sense to me. Working in a health care environment and not taking care of yourself seems counter intuitive. Besides the fact that it seems impossible considering how physical the job of a nurse is compared to a doctor, I wonder about the psychological aspect. Whether it is seeing the result of bad decisions made over a lifetime or seeing accidents that happen in a split second, shouldn't that make you take life less for granted? Or does it just numb a person after a while?

Busy days

About ten minutes after I arrived at Middlesex Hopspital today to start my day of volunteering another volunteer showed up. Usually working alone I asked what was up.
"Before you started there were always two volunteers on Mondays," she said. "It's the busiest day of the week, and the department didn't think it was fair to make you do all this by yourself. So I'm going to work with you." I was thinking, "Oh, you are here to make things less stressful for me? Crap."
I like the uncertain, fast-paced nature of what I do at the hospital. It's exhausting but also challenging. I guess it will be nice to have someone to talk to and I won't feel so guilty if something comes up and I miss a day, but I did like the break-neck pace.
Of course, that is 180 degrees from what I spent the last eight years doing in libraries. So, I think I've learned something about myself today. Maybe this will help me figure out what I want to do next. At least I feel more certain that I made a good decision getting out of the library field.