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Friday, March 20, 2009

Making the rounds of updates

I've lost track: HOW LONG has it been since I've updated things?

I'd check, but I'm too lazy.

Right now I'm at work. It's just me this morning (Coworker right has a dentist appointment and won't be in until noon-ish; coworker left is just lazy and won't show until sometime after 10:30 most likely). Currently, I'm waiting on a visit for what is now considered MY study, who should be here any minute.

After my team went to Vegas... again... without me... it was decided that I would be in charge of the Natural History portion of our department. That entails screening of family members, processing samples (yes, of blood) and reading off results and notifying any families if they are indeed positive. Positive results mean that the person has the antibodies associated with developing Type 1 Diabetes, putting them at an increased risk of developing it. There are a few options at this point: depending on what antibodies they are positive for, they can either go for one of our two prevention studies (the newest isn't completely up yet) or stay in Natural History, where we do blood tests twice a year to follow up and see if they did indeed develop Type 1.

It is a lot of work, since there are more NH patients than we have of our other 5 studies combined. Plus there's the screening, which is several thousand a year from us and our affiliates... so yah, you get the idea. It's a lot of work.

I've been getting a bit of grief from Coworker Left in regards to this. Since I have been here, Coworker Right (my actual supervisor) has been wanting me to take over NH, making things more streamline, but Coworker Left (who THINKS she's my boss) keeps insisting on doing things her way, which was how things were done before. From what it seems like, it wasn't very successful. For example, by my count, our numbers for clinic last year were approximately 150 screenings the entire year, and I have almost caught up to that... in less than three months. I have also been given a hard time about how I delegate my time (IE You shouldn't go here that day, or you should stay in the office, or you have to do a half-day here and there). I approached Coworker Right about this yesterday, as well as other concerns, and I think it's finally dawning on her that Coworker Left isn't forthright with her own doings.

But enough complaining.

It looks like I will be at one of the Vegas events in May. Originally, Coworker Left took it upon herself to schedule all of our events. Anything that required staying in a nice hotel or a plane ride, she got. Anything that was a day trip was mine. I asked Right to go over this, and she helped stand up for me and let me go to one of the Vegas trips (as Left has gone twice this year, and plans on going again next month... there were three other Vegas events and she planned on attending them all).

So May will likely be another good travel month. After our Vegas trip, hubby and I would like to go to the east coast. I was not given the go-ahead to go to Washington DC with the rest of my team, so I want to go out before it gets too warm. Plus, hubby has a reunion in UT at the end of May, so the way I envision it, we will go to Vegas the weekend of the 16th, leave for DC the 20th, stay a week, fly to Salt Lake maybe on the 28th or 29th, and return home the 31st. At least, that's what I'd like to do.

Well, time to actually put forth effort at work.

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