Dispatches from the Evening Shift Disclaimer Sunday 1/11/25

I usually do this on the first day of the year so I am a little tardy this year.

Happy New Year!

Let’s get down to business.

Every year I write this disclaimer. And add to it. And tweak it. And if I knew how to pin it to the blog start page, I would.

I began writing the yearly disclaimer to be able to point to my posts and say, see nothing to give away the patient here. You know, HIPAA. In case the corporation, that I work for and discuss my blog openly in meetings etc., tries to tell me I cannot write this. Not that they have, but I can believe they would.

I believe in protecting patients’ and staff’s privacy.

I do not include details that make it clear or easy to figure out which patient or staff member I am talking about. If I am talking about any.

I do not use names. And if I do, they are changed.

I change ages. I change gender.

I change details such as which limb is fractured. I change details such as which surgery is performed.

And the cases that I do talk about obliquely are changed in how time is perceived as well. The cases/people/staff may not be the same at the time of the surgery.

I definitely change aspects of time. By that I mean there is no relationship between the moment I write the post and the actual events that prompted it.

Some of the stories aren’t even mine, but even they are changed so as to be unrecognizable.

That being said, I change a lot.

So that, if you knew where I worked, you could not figure out who I was writing about or when.

I discuss issues that impact healthcare broadly.

And, after the events of the two past years, issues that impact women’s health. There has been a LOT to unpack here.

And covid. Can’t get away from covid. XEC is the newest variant and it is currently causing over 50% of the cases. People continue to die; not that we know it because they stopped keeping track years ago. And there is a new game in town, or should I write games. The bird flu that has made the jump to infecting and killing humans, and the human metapneumovirus which isn’t new but is making noise in China.

I do swear sometimes. But mainly to make an emphatic point.

I write themed days. Post-it Sundays which are from notes to myself, usually on a Post-it or a gown card. Monday I take off. Tuesday Top of Mind is the most political day of the week where I write what is weighing heavily on my brain. Wednesdays had been a free day that I wrote exclusively about OR things. This has morphed into the Best Kept Secrets of the OR where I divulge the secrets of the OR. Cookie Thursday is a Thing is where I write about the cookies I make for the department. This is a long-running morale project in the OR of homemade cookies or candies are brought in around 1400. This started as an evening shift things and remains so. FFS Fridays is the newest day that I write about things that begin with F, F, or S. This is the day that has the most swearing and I started it as a reaction to the 2024 general election. Buckle up, it’s gonna get weird. On Saturdays, I write about being an adult learner.

Phew.

I may miss a day here or there because 6 days is a LOT, even if the blog posts are shortish.

This month marks 10 years of Cookie Thursday is a Thing! I had no intention of baking cookies for so long, but it gives me a handy bookmark for my week. I also theme the months and this month’s theme is Favorites. Along with the departmental favorites, I also tell a story about CTIAT.

School Me Saturday 1/4/2025- The to do list is yesterday’s productivity hack

I was tooling around on the internet like you do when a post caught my eye.

It claimed that the to-do list was dead. I love a good to-do list. Nothing more satisfying than making a list and crossing things off.

Yeah, I can see it. Especially for today’s young adults and teenagers. Heck, even the older adults.

It introduced the concept of a bingo card instead of a to-do list. The idea is that you populate the card with what needs to be done and you cross the squares off as you do them.

Genius.

That can be an exciting adjunct to a student’s portfolio of items to encourage productivity.

I used Canva to make the Spring semester 2025 bingo card and it was easy and free. Both of these things are important to a student’s life. I would make a bingo card for each class, filling in the squares with the details of the class. This includes reading, tests, quizzes, and papers.

The beauty of this is that it can be whatever you want it to be. Each row can be a type of thing for the class, or it can be staggered.

In the bingo card that I mocked up as an example, I staggered all 14 weeks of reading, added the 3 tests, the quiz, and the midterm and final. I left a line to be filled in for exact dates.

I also added a second free square, just because.

My personal Spring Semester 2025 bingo card looks a bit different as I have finished with classes and now all I have left are tasks. I have already mapped out my spring semester, including all the tasks that need to be done for the dissertation.

As with many things, I wish I or someone else had thought of this when I was actively in classes.

Because this could be a game-changer. Gamification is exciting.

I am going for a blackout on my bingo card.

School Me Saturday 2/3/24-first assignments of the semester

It is hard to go fully into the semester. I know. All the reading, all the getting to know the professor. All the getting to know the other students. It is hard.

Especially if you are not socially gifted.

Believe me, I know.

However, the first month of the spring semester should be just about over. This is about the time that the first assignments are due. This can be a variety of assignments, a paper, a discussion post, a test. School does it all.

The only thing I can tell you is to have a plan for the assignments. Make a schedule if you are gifted like that. Or, if you are like me and write a schedule only to ignore it, write down the assignments everywhere. As discussed, part of my process is largely mental and I do a lot of thinking about structuring assignments. I have heard over and over to use an outline for written assignments. Yesterday I did and I wrote down what each section of the paper was to cover, and the broad strokes of the beginning and conclusion. Where has that nugget of wisdom been all my life?

We’ll see how far that gets me in the next three months.

It wouldn’t be the start of the semester assignment season without technical difficulties.

You are not alone in this. My computer got replaced for the second time over winter break. All the software had to be re-installed. Including the specialized software for statistics.

Oh, boy!

Take a deep breath and make a plan to conquer your first assignments. The first one, I find, is often the hardest to get started. After all, students, like us, are coming off a break where we did little to nothing to prepare for school. It might take a minute to get our brains in gear.

Start your assignments! The checkered flag has been raised!

Yeah, that is a veiled attempt at a NASCAR joke.

Humor me.