| i'd spent the morning interviewing ridiculously qualified candidates for our family practice residency. my program was supposed to give me their files last week so i could read up on them but something fell through so i spent the morning cramming. these people were about as smart as you could be and had been volunteering for years with the poorest people they could find.
my biggest challenge was shutting my enormous mouth. (i have a tendancy to drone on and on about whatever i'm interested in) and what i'm interested in right now is my new elective rotation.
this month, i'm going out with the mobile psych people to take care of crazy homeless people. well, they were homeless until the mobile psych people got a hold of them. now they're mostly in board and care facilities. which brings me swerving wildly back to my point.
so i'm riding along with the psychiatrist to go see this guy who's getting suddenly very much worse and we pull into the front of one of the board and cares. and it's pretty bleak-- just a parking lot with a bunch of psych patients outside smoking. but they're sitting on these fairly charming little freshly-painted park benches, and there's a litle patio with screens up for shade, and then one of them smiles and waves and says "happy thanksgiving" in a big, happy voice to the strange lady hanging out with her psychiatrist.
and then we meet the lady who runs the place-- smiling, warm, gentle, ridiculously dedicated and patient. she takes very good care of about a dozen people who are pretty mentally ill: the place is clean, they're all well-fed, they get their meds on time, and when there's a problem she;s all over it. things are a little beige for my taste, but it's otherwise not half bad.
which reminds me of when i saw a caterpillar in the front yard. it was a monarch butterfly caterpillar-- i'm almost sure of it because 1) i'd planted those plants specifically for the monarch butterflies 2) i'd seen a big orange butterfly flopping around earlier in the day and 3) i think that's what they look like. we're supposed to live on the migration route for monarch butterflies and i'd put the plants down as sort of a rest stop for them. never did expect them to settle down and raise their children there, but they seem to have minds of their own.
so i went to check this morning and there were four caterpillars out there where i really wasn't expecting any at all. and there's a nice lady who runs a board and care. and there's a pile of smart young doctors who can't wait to work in underserved areas.
sometimes it seems like everything's gonna be alright after all. |
