Surgery Simulator 2013

Not really sure how to feel about this one. It's a neat concept, applying awkward Envirobear and QWOP (awkward) controls to surgery and should feel a bit more natural than it does. The problem I'm having with it is the 3d nature of the controls, I find that these types of games work better in 2D than 3D so you're only really dealing with the awkwardness of the controls rather than that and spatiality (eg: am I lined up properly to grab the bonesaw?). Also, grabbing objects is arbitrarily difficult... while you have a key for each finger and the thumb for some reason you're only able to flex 4 of them at a time.

The short version is that I really wanted to like it but I just couldn't. There! That said, there's nothing stopping you really from going out and trying it yourself - have a go, it's free!

http://www.kongregate.com/games/BossaStudios/surgeon-simulator-2013

No breaks!

I've been through a few shifts as a pharmacist with my new employer (same as before, different location), and a few points of contention have come up that I need to find a solution for. The first is the lack of face to face patient time... to date it seems that mainly they're interested in my prescription checking abilities and not in my warm patient manner with patients, or related counselling/Medschecking abilities. I'm hoping it's not always going to be this way since that would not bode well - it's the patient contact that really keeps me doing this. Not as much of a deal-breaker as the second though... The second point is that contrary to what we discussed during the entry interview, the manager feels that pharmacists don't need to take breaks - that standing in one spot checking prescriptions for 8 hours or more (without bathroom breaks or a lunch break) is expected. I remember him saying as much to the students there as if it was a point of pride, that you need to get used to it or you won't succeed. I'm going to take a stab at getting a break in during a lighter period next shift, just to see how he reacts.

The sad thing is that he did address taking breaks during the entry interview before I transferred over... as if it was common, that it really depends on the load at the pharmacy and who you're working with at that time. Personally I think it's dangerous to do a whole shift without breaks: First your eyes can "glaze over" and you stop seeing things clearly making it more likely for errors to get through. If we were dealing with say a chair that might not be such a big deal, but with medication it can be harmful or even fatal. I actually had to slow down quite a bit towards the end of my last shift since I was catching myself on the edge of making mistakes. Second, putting patients at risk in that manner also puts your license at risk - putting your ability to practice at risk in this manner isn't worth it. Third, it's unnecessary and unpleasant. I get headaches and snappy if I don't get a break to eat partway through a shift, I don't want to be -that- person in the pharmacy that people are afraid to approach because I'm being -that- way.

Really, patients need to be put first and this practice does not put them first. Unless the place is swamped next shift I'm definitely going to fit one in, it's unreasonable otherwise.

Frozen pipes

After yesterday's shift, I came home to a plumber in the house for the second time this week to defrost some pipes - Toronto's cold snap is not agreeing with our house. This plumber thinks that the front wall of the basement where the city's water pipe is coming in is not insulated well enough. That much is obvious when you stick your hand in the hole in the wall where the access is and feel around - it's cold. The city's water comes in, then goes up that wall and along the ceiling after. The plumber feels that the water's freezing along that section of pipe that's going up the wall. For the time being we're going to leave water running to make sure there's no freezing over again and look at more permanent solutions next week. More likely than not we're going to have to tear down a big section of wall and really insulate the stuffing out of it.

1st day at new job

Just finished the first day at the new job. Things went relatively well... but I do feel that they are understaffed. The manager told me they lost 3 people recently due to various transfers and relocations so that probably  contributed to it. I hope that some of those were pharmacists since that would explain the relentless basket backlog. I had time for a few Medschecks while there was another pharmacist on, and did counselling etc... but whenever I returned to the workflow always felt like there was another fire to put out. I'm not a slow checker either, I know I'm fairly quick so that it went that way surprised me. I'm only going to do things at a speed that I feel that I can be professional with - both my license and the health of patients are more important than just getting things out.

I saw a few things that made me suspicious of corners being cut, such as prescriber information not being written down on verbal prescriptions and people using other peoples' logins to verify prescriptions. It has only been my first day at this place though so I don't know if this was something isolated to today or is a more systemic problem. Definitely will have to keep my eyes open.

Another problem I noticed was the wait times being given out seem sufficient at the time, but because of the technicians disordering the baskets for the people waiting (they unintentionally LIFO them I think) the ones that need to get out first are pushed back or put on the bottom of the stack. I think this is indicative of what's going on here - people are working hard but not as efficiently or as organized as they should be. I can deal with this kind of thing eventually since these organizational habits can be easier to change... The other stuff (unprofessional shortcuts) I really hope isn't happening on a regular basis since that's going to be more difficult to do anything about.

David Attenborough Calls Humans a "Plague Upon the Earth"

I love David Attenborough. It's a risk for him to take a position like this on an issue like this but I'm glad that he has. It falls in line with much of what he's said and done in the past.

http://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/david-attenborough-calls-humans-plague-upon-earth.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+treehuggersite+%28Treehugger%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Job Success!

Well, that was much simpler than I expected. It wound up being a simple internal transfer and we wound up discussing shifts and when I was coming in before he even looked at my resume. Everyone seems nice there, so this whole switching locations business seems to have worked out much nicer than I could have expected when it started. So, tomorrow I get my first -real- pharmacist shift (yes!).

Complicating the mix is that while waiting for this one to sort out, I applied to a couple other positions. One wants to talk over the phone, I think it's a phone screen. I'll see if they can hold off on that phone call until next week so I can get a better sense of how the work environment is at this new place first.

Progress

After my initial reaction to finding out about the potential position in my present employment location not being available anymore, it took me a few days to calm down. It's hard to really say how much something that gets to you really does until you're trying to relax. I had a hard time these past few days. Anyways, the person in charge of the hiring for the area returned my call placed a few days ago and said something is opening up close to where I'm working. That location has a good reputation too and the hours sound reasonable. I just have to get a hold of the manager there to chat about it and if I don't screw that up then it should be mine.

I'm trying to keep my expectations in check, but if I'm able to pull this off and get a few good shifts per week without having to fight too hard for them it's almost the ideal situation. Fingers crossed.