back in the saddle

It was so nice to have some time off from everything!!
I love the beach, and I did some real disconnecting this year, only checked email twice and facebook once in a week, and did not bring any OT materials either. Left my phone turned off for several days (no one to call me anyway since I was at the beach w/ all my top callers). My husband was not as prudent and accepted a call from my office... ack. But other than that slip, a total unplug. I so often feel out of balance in my occupations, a point brought sharply home by realizing that I opened up all my puzzle books this week for the first time since LAST year's vacation, despite the fact that I really enjoy that. I read a good novel and a crummy nonfiction book, played Rock Band with the family, just relaxed. It was good to be away from everything. This evening I got to check my mail (so satisfying to have a whole box full for a change!). I cleared through a list of 354 google reader items pretty quickly this evening (skimming many, real reading a few, and just deleting a bunch including 125 medline notes).

So Monday takes me back to the day-to-day worklife, since I did not hit the lottery and cannot as yet retire to my own beach house. This may be difficult since I am naturally nocturnal and have slipped closer to that schedule in the past week... waking up at 6 is going to be harder than usual. I really need a job on afternoon shift... too bad no one wants to do therapy at night. I have ended my medicine rotation and am moving to the neuro/surgery floor, so that will be new and interesting.

I did start a twitter account before vacation which I will be primarily using to share interesting articles right away instead of letting them languish for ages in my bookmarks until I find enough similar for a webgems post. I held out on twitter for a long time, but I need to figure it out since I will be presenting on using social media effectively and efficiently as an OT for a state conference this fall (!!yay!!). For now, these updates will be funnelled into the much too long sidebar... I am looking into getting a new layout, 3 bar or otherwise and maybe more specific to OT if possible.

First twittered link is an article from Gretchen Rubin about how to make meetings better. Different sites have vastly different numbers/types/procedures for meetings. My last job held monthly OT meetings, and sporadic as-needed meetings for the inpatient and outpatient staff, all of which were informal. My inpatient rehab fieldwork felt like there was a meeting everyday at lunch. We had inservices, all rehab, all OT, specific team meetings, strategic planning from the upper management, etc. And during my 3 months I think we tried to do rounds reports 3 different ways. My other fieldwork supervisor was a consultant, so there were LOTS of meetings we went to during that time. Currently I have daily rounds (depending on the floor), a monthly OT meeting, a monthly acute care meeting, a weekly floor meeting, and a bimonthly all rehab meeting. With the exception of the dailies, it's not too bad. It's hard to balance the good you can do by being at a meeting and representing OT and advocating for various clients vs actually being able to go see and treat and document those clients instead. It's no secret that I am not a big fan of meetings, so anything to make them a little better is appreciated.


Happy 4th!!