Run For the Junebugs...Dingo Thread June 2009 - Page 39

[bec]

RR: I got 6 fast miles in! 10:01 pace! :

[JayGee]

Plady ~ on passing that cyclist!

I got new running shoes today :! I ended up buying Saucony Progrid Ride, which I've never even tried on before, but felt great on the practice lane at the running store. I had a babysitter this afternoon so I could get new running shoes and grocery shop in peace. Well worth the $20.

I'm also seriously considering this marathon. It's a trail race, fairly close to my house, that sells out every year. Not a Boston Qualifier or anything like that, but since I love running on trails and this one comes highly recommended, I think I may go for it. Plus, it's in December which gives me more than enough time to get my knee right and train properly .

[Penelope]

Hey, dingo mamas! We were out of town for 2 weeks so I'm hopelessly behind on the thread. But I had some good runs with my dad (he biked) and a PR by 4 minutes on a 10K! It was so fun! (9:12 miles, which is so fast for me!)

Debating doing a spur-of-the-moment half marathon this weekend - I was going to do a 12m long run anyway, and the run is in a teeny town and so small that the list of the top 10 women last year ended wiht a time only a few minutes faster than my last half time (which was in hot weather, and with hills). I'm so slow that this feels like the rare chance to do something slightly fancy - I feel like I might actually make the list.

[Plady]

Penelope Do it!

JayGee - It looks cool, I guess your knee must be feeling really good! Go for it!
Am I insane to be looking at those pictures on this gloriously beautiful day and be thinking how lucky those racers are to be in their winter gear?

[Realrellim]

JayGee--that marathon looks cool.

Plady--awesome about passing the bike. I could see that happening to me sometime (being passed by a runner while biking, that is).

Penelope--go for it!

bec--great run!

kerc--I'd probably have wimped out too.

Nick--hope you got good news. :

The zoo was fun, if a bit hot. Thanks for meeting me Gaye!

I should be making something for dinner now so we can get to the grocery store yet tonight. I'm thinking another cup of coffee (besides the iced latte we stopped for on the way home) might be in order.

[doctorjen]

Whew. Stressful day over, and not as bad as I was expecting. Today we announced to our staff that my partners have decided to sell the practice to our hospital system. I practice at a small, Catholic, community hospital that is owned by the a bigger Catholic health system with a total of 13 hospitals. The health system recently started it's own medical group and is the process of trying to acquire physician practices. Our little practice is doing pretty well, for a small town practice that has a ton of Medicare and Medicaid patients, but for some time it has been getting harder and harder to manage the practice due to the constraints of all the additional paperwork doctors' offices are responsible for, the costs of running the practice, and the increased demands of pay-for-performance type incentives that every insurer is starting (which require us to keep track of a lot of data and give it to various insurance companies, and then keep track of whether they pay us appropriately for this stuff.) Also, from a recruiting stand point, we pretty much can't afford to recruit a decent doctor - the costs of recruiting and starting up a practice are hard to bear in a small office. The partner that left us almost a year ago left 3 years or so after starting, before his practice had broken even, and it was a big financial drain on the practice. So, my partners decided to sell to the health system and we will all become employed by them. Our staff is understandably very nervous about what this will mean for them as we transition over to new management.

A couple of folks from the corporate office were supposed to come and meet with the staff today to help answer questions, and they were supposed to bring lunch for every one. So of course, they were over 30 minutes late, and there was some kind of miscommunication and no lunch appeared. These guys kind of rub me the wrong way - they are suits, and don't seem terribly understanding of how to run a practice (this health system medical group is less than a year old, so there isn't a lot of experience yet.) To further rub me the wrong way, the guy who did all the talking always referred to my partners as Dr. R___ and Dr. W____, but always referred to me as Jennifer. Our office staff is all female, and it rubbed them the wrong way, too (as the only female doc, my staff is always a little protective of me.) Of course the guys (my partners) didn't even notice. Anyway, the cat is out of the bag now, and we'll see how it all goes down.

On the plus side, becoming employed by a big corporation is going to mean a big raise for me, and better benefits (I essentially have none now - a small profit sharing plan and that's it.) Also, I'll get an extra week of vacation, and more money to pay for continuing medical ed, so that'll be nice. We'll see how I like being employed by a big corporation, instead of my partner who himself has practiced in this same office for 26 years!

RR - I'm trying to work up the gumption to run outside yet tonight. It's only in the high 50s and misting a bit, and I'll have to run after dark. Doesn't sound real appealing, but I have to get some runs in!

[Geofizz]

Jen, I was wondering if that was the event you referred to last night. FWIW, I've stopped putting up with the Dr. Man and Wendy crap. It's one of the few things to which I react every time. "You can call me Dr. P." I do it once I hear two instances of Dr. Man vs Wendy.

DS made a sidewalk in our living room tonight.

Nice walk tonight with the fam. Each kid got a parent-assisted jump for doing either a multiplication problem or saying a word with an ending consonant. They kept it up for a mile.

[doctorjen]

Geo - I was really struggling after the first time or two how to respond. This was in a setting where we were all sitting and listening to this suit give his shpiel - it wasn't in conversation, and no one else was talking at all. I'm not a very formal person and have quite a few patients that call me by my first name, although my staff is all very respectful and calls me Dr. at work (several are personal friends and call me Jen outside the office, but not in front of patients.) My patients who call me by first name I feel do so as a sign of affection and trust, it doesn't come across as a lack of respect at all (most of them are folks I know from church, who listen to me play piano, and have kids my kids age, etc. I don't like to be called Dr. social settings where everyone else is on a first name basis.) This was a whole different ball game though, because even though it seemed unconscious on this guy's part, he was definitely differentiating and I have the same degree and position as the guys! I call my senior partner Dr. because he's much older than me, and it feels respectful, although whenever he calls on the phone me he'll say "Hi, it's Glen" so I know he doesn't expect it. I call the younger partner by his first name and he does me, because we are buds - similar age and interests and are friendly outside the office. I don't know, this is a long rambling thing - but do you have suggestions for a setting like this? Should I have gone up to the guy after and said "I'd appreciate being referred to as Dr. T"? Or interrupted him during his speech? Or what? I could tell my staff didn't care for it (multiple of them mentioned it to me after) and since they are all women, it sort of set an odd tone.

[cornflake girl]

plady - on passing the cyclist. I've always wanted to do that!

real - you sound almost as crazy as me! Mmmmm, iced latte.

drjen - sounds like exciting changes! Hopefully you'll get the regular breaks that you deserve now.

rr: 6.5 miles. I looked up my milage for June on dailymile and, holy cow, it was 192! No wonder I've been eating like a teenage boy.

[kerc]

Drjen, I'm with Dr. P. on this one. And since several of the other women mentioned it, in the future I would just but in when he said Jennifer and say, "You can call me Dr. Jen" (Sorry I know your last name but you'll always be drjen to me). What gives with these idiots? My college students all don't know what to call me and I'm fine with Kristin, but thing is they aren't. So I now pretend to call myself on the first day of class and identify myself as Dr. R-C.

[Realrellim]

drjen--I agree with Dr. Kerc and Dr. Geo on this one. Since I had finally earned the title this spring, I signed all my messages Dr. Real and corrected students who attempted to use Ms (or more commonly, Mrs!) to address me. You could have interjected "that's DR. Jennifer" during his speech (but I probably wouldn't have said anything until afterward because I would have chickened out). How annoying! : It makes me wonder though-is the company going to pay you as much as your male colleagues with equivalent experience, or was this just a random moron?

[tjsmama]

drjen~: for an improved work situation for you and a big fat to male chauvinist pigs.

real~Glad you got your iced latte. We had fun, too, although it didn't wear DS out nearly as much as I had hoped and he failed to nap once again. Sigh.


I just spent another freaking hour + working on the same $#&* histology lab I spent five hours on last night. The instructions were not written very well and contradicted some of the grading information, so I had sent a list of questions to the instructor last night when I quit working. She finally responded tonight and barely answered the questions, so I'm still not sure I did everything right. It's due at midnight, so I had to get it turned in, though. I really hope that if I screwed it up, she'll at least give me the chance to fix it for partial credit. I am so so so : about this stupid lab. I really can't wait for the next one...

I went out to dinner tonight to an informal baby shower for a good friend, and got a phone call 10 minutes from home that DS had thrown up after the babysitters (12 y.o. twins...they come as a pair!) put him to bed. Sigh. Trying to get accurate information out of a three year old is next to impossible. By the time I got home, he said he felt fine, so I put him back to bed and he's been down two hours now. Here's hoping it was just a random act of vomit and not anything more. :

[Geofizz]

In situations like that, I actually interrupt and make a "joke" of it. "Oh, no! I guess being part of the hospital system means I lost my MD!"

I start each quarter by telling my students that I'm Dr P, I'm a professor in the department, and I got my PhD from Berkeley in geophysics. I find I have to hit them with a clue bar just to get them to realize I'm not the TA.

[JayGee]

I started a new thread HERE!

[mommajb]

Dr Jen, I would send a note/email letting them know that you and your all female staff noticed and hope it isn't a sign of their disrespect for women but I am like that in situations that call for it. I would cc a couple of levels of admin. I would worry about pay differences. It leaves a bad taste, especially knowing it is a Catholic hospital system.

No run for me this am. It was planned but now I feel yucky about it. It is perfect running weather too. I'll have to fit something else in later today. Little ones are calling...

[Runningmommy]

oops wrong month...duh!