Appalachia--March 30, 2008

Well, it's been quite some time since I last updated.

I was back to Des Moines earlier this month for my board exam. It was much easier than I expected. It is hard for me to understand why things like this cost so much money--close to $1500 by the time I add in my air fare. Ridiculous. I got my results last week and I passed. The examining board only tells you if you pass or fail. So I have no idea if I passed "with flying colors" or "by the skin of my teeth". The dean of the college usually lets us know what the national pass rate was as well as the pass rate of our class. We haven't heard from him so that makes we wonder if some people had a little trouble.

I received my contract from Truman Medical Center. I signed in and mailed it back on Friday. Exciting. Now I have a ton of forms to fill out in order to get my license to practice, my DEA number (to prescribe narcotics), and privileges at all the various hospitals and surgery centers. But I can't do a single thing until I have my diploma. So I'm stuck for now.

I just finished an internal medicine rotation at the hospital. Very interesting. I took care of some very, very sick patients.

Back in Des Moines, things are stable---including the weather---it snowed again last week. We will be glad to leave there. If someone would just kindly buy our house...

Caleb's baseball season begins next weekend. Kirsten has a tennis match coming up. Cheryl bought a new camera so I may have some video and pictures to upload soon.

No plans to return to Des Moines before graduation week. It's just too far to drive for a weekend (14 hours each way, plus crossing a time zone) and air fare is RIDICULOUS. Usually, it is cheaper to fly out of bigger airports like Charlotte or Atlanta, but lately there hasn't been much difference. If you happen to find a reasonably priced flight, there are so many layovers that it doesn't save much time. I might as well be at the South Pole or the international space station!

But it's not much longer...