Just got back

[DarksideAllstar]

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I got back from a 13-day excursion on Sunday night, and I have to say, it was probably the greatest 13 days of my life. I was down in Rarotonga, which is about 3-4 hours NE of New Zealand, and it was phenomenal. No cell phone. No internet (although, admittedly I checked my email once on the first day I was there). Nice ocean breeze while having dinner in open air restaurants and bars. Snorkeling, bike riding, reading novels, sleeping. I felt completely at peace with the world--refreshed and relaxed--probably for the first time in more than 5 years. Now I come back to packing and moving and 105 degree desert heat. A cell phone that won't stop ringing. A full inbox and about 3lbs of mail to sort through. Completely destroyed my peace of mind. I've only been back in the US for two days, but it seems like I had this experience 20 years ago already.

What did everyone pre-residency and post-med school do (besides pack and move) with their well-deserved time off?

Here are some select pics:

 

[deschutes]

Looks gorgeous. Innit starting to get cold there this time of year??

What made you decide to go there?

And isn't the flight killer... which airline did you end up taking?

 

[DarksideAllstar]

Looks gorgeous. Innit starting to get cold there this time of year??

What made you decide to go there?

And isn't the flight killer... which airline did you end up taking?

There is some info on the location here. Essentially, it is at the same latitude as Hawaii, and sits about the same distance from the equator, only south. This time of year is the tail end of the rainy season, and essentially the beginning of winter. The temps while we were there usually hovered in the high 70s/low 80s during the day, and didn't usually fall more than a few degrees at night. The water temp was probably also in the 70s, and was quite nice.

The flight wasn't that bad. My girl and I left San Franscisco for Los Angeles (1hr 10 min) for our Air New Zealand flight (9hr 15min). There are non-stop red-eye flights from LA to Rarotonga and vice versa available once a week. I had a terrible time trying to sleep leaving LA. I slept maybe an hour of the whole flight (girlfriend hid the Benadryl from me before she passed out). We arrived at 6am and I was completely disoriented. On the way back, I probably slept 7hrs out of the 9. Overall, it wasn't terrible. It is in the same time zone as Hawaii (about 3hrs behind PST), so there were no real issues with jet lag. I met some Germans who had flown 30 hours with 3 stops to get there, which I thought was completely insane.

For like 4 months I scouted out South Pacific/ Indonesian-type vacations. I really wanted to go to Bali and surf, but its just too dangerous. Fiji is in the middle of a coup, and Tahiti was too expensive. I went on the lonelyplanet website and just scoured a list of places and it essentially camedown to Rarotonga or New Caledonia (French controlled). Rarotonga seemed like less of a "run-of-the-mill" American citizen destination (we only met 4 Americans the two weeks we were there), plus it was primarily English-speaking (Cook Islanders are actually New Zealand citizens), and wasn't too costly. Originally, we had planned to spend a week in Cairns (Australia) and then fly to Rarotonga, but overall, it was looking to cost each of us on the order of $4600. Turns out that the country had a really interesting history and culture that really made the trip worthwhile--plus the people were super nice.

 

[amygdala_path]

HI
It seems you had a great time. Thanks for sharing the pictures.

 

[yaah]

Between the end of my med school and start of residency I went to a wedding, went to NH for a few days, then moved. Not quite as exciting I guess. Then again, I am not an exciting person.

 

[CameronFrye]

In between med school and residency, I hit up the Outer Banks (NC), Vegas, Ocean City (MD), Atlantic City, and visited friends in DC and Richmond. I also played a lot of golf and went out every night (of course, that was true for most of 4th year).


I most certainly was not reading pathology. If you have to be productive, try getting Step 3 out of the way.

 

[LADoc00]

exUCSFbound-Where is your pad in SF? You living the UCSF Mission Bay thing?

 

[DarksideAllstar]

exUCSFbound-Where is your pad in SF? You living the UCSF Mission Bay thing?

I'm in the Inner Sunset, about a 10 minute walk to Moffitt-Long. You got some work for me? I'm pretty broke right now and could use some extra scratch right now. I'll be back in SF next Tuesday (the 19th).

 

[LADoc00]

I'm in the Inner Sunset, about a 10 minute walk to Moffitt-Long. You got some work for me? I'm pretty broke right now and could use some extra scratch right now. I'll be back in SF next Tuesday (the 19th).

Not at the moment but will keep you in mind.

I like inner sunset. I dated a chick in the outer sunset which is cold as hell. She had this massive dog who hated me, but that is another story.

I just back from hanging with real bona fide rich people, not the "I have a Maserati" Ibanker wankers either...I walked into a party in a 5 million+ dollar estate in Truckee near Northstar (LaHontan) and host popped a $17,000+ bottle of Chateau Mouton Rothschild like it was nothing. I never knew what real wealth was before this weekend. Work is an utterly foreign concept to the ultra wealthy fo sure.

The whole Tahoe pathology thing is intriguing me now..I might consider an "alliance" if you want to roll out an operation out there.

 

[microdot]

Not at the moment but will keep you in mind.

I like inner sunset. I dated a chick in the outer sunset which is cold as hell. She had this massive dog who hated me, but that is another story.

I just back from hanging with real bona fide rich people, not the "I have a Maserati" Ibanker wankers either...I walked into a party in a 5 million+ dollar estate in Truckee near Northstar (LaHontan) and host popped a $17,000+ bottle of Chateau Mouton Rothschild like it was nothing. I never knew what real wealth was before this weekend. Work is an utterly foreign concept to the ultra wealthy fo sure.

The whole Tahoe pathology thing is intriguing me now..I might consider an "alliance" if you want to roll out an operation out there.

Dude you were probably hangin hand solo again with your six of BUD and some twinkies. You have a fertile imagination.

 

[DarksideAllstar]

Not at the moment but will keep you in mind.

I like inner sunset. I dated a chick in the outer sunset which is cold as hell. She had this massive dog who hated me, but that is another story.

I just back from hanging with real bona fide rich people, not the "I have a Maserati" Ibanker wankers either...I walked into a party in a 5 million+ dollar estate in Truckee near Northstar (LaHontan) and host popped a $17,000+ bottle of Chateau Mouton Rothschild like it was nothing. I never knew what real wealth was before this weekend. Work is an utterly foreign concept to the ultra wealthy fo sure.

The whole Tahoe pathology thing is intriguing me now..I might consider an "alliance" if you want to roll out an operation out there.

I'm all for a Tahoe alliance. I'm still angling for that gig in So. Lake even though its less than ideal for a noob. I'm not sure of the opportunities in North Lake, but I'm willing to go as far west as Auburn. Drinks all this week on me (I might as well get the credit card balance sky-high) if you are in the city.

 

[LADoc00]

I'm all for a Tahoe alliance. I'm still angling for that gig in So. Lake even though its less than ideal for a noob. I'm not sure of the opportunities in North Lake, but I'm willing to go as far west as Auburn. Drinks all this week on me (I might as well get the credit card balance sky-high) if you are in the city.

Truckee area has some unique advantages and is more affluent IMO. There is a private hospital in Truckee itself (which is booming) and a Sutter in Auburn. Not sure about Grass Valley, but there are also supposedly 2 guys in Placerville/Placer County.

Any of these small 1-2 person posts can be peeled off a larger group's coverage area with some political acumen if you are interested. You would need I think about 2 years post fellowship to do it, then just take COO/CEO of the hospital to lunch and propose your ideas.

 

[DarksideAllstar]

Truckee area has some unique advantages and is more affluent IMO. There is a private hospital in Truckee itself (which is booming) and a Sutter in Auburn. Not sure about Grass Valley, but there are also supposedly 2 guys in Placerville/Placer County.

Any of these small 1-2 person posts can be peeled off a larger group's coverage area with some political acumen if you are interested. You would need I think about 2 years post fellowship to do it, then just take COO/CEO of the hospital to lunch and propose your ideas.

North Lake is definitely more affluent. Wasn't sure about potential opportunities in the area though. I'd much prefer living in North Lake to So Lake.

OOC, what specifically do you propose to the CEO/COO? How much better of a job you'll do? Faster turnaround? More expertise? All of the above? None of the above? I think it'd be difficult to compete for a contract with a large group with multiple people with subspec training.

 

[LADoc00]

North Lake is definitely more affluent. Wasn't sure about potential opportunities in the area though. I'd much prefer living in North Lake to So Lake.

OOC, what specifically do you propose to the CEO/COO? How much better of a job you'll do? Faster turnaround? More expertise? All of the above? None of the above? I think it'd be difficult to compete for a contract with a large group with multiple people with subspec training.

Far easier than you imagine. In fact, the bigger and more bloated a path group is, the quicker you can peel off small coverage hospitals from it. You need to really have a powerpoint presentation ready to go with lots of numbers, which is what a CFO or CEO really understands.

The reality is this, most groups centralize the technical component. This represents a potentially big revenue source for a hospital if you offer to turn this over to them and run it for a increased med director fee. Before you reply that this screws pathologists, it really doesnt. Ive ran the numbers, especially in California's heinous workmens comp system, having TC employees, overhead rent, equipment and vendor contracts and thus being forced to hire layers of non-"Pro-Billing" employees (as in non-pathologists) really hammers your bottom line. Hospitals have a well entrenched HR system to deal with this because they have tons more employees than any pathology group outside of Quest/Ameripath class corps.

I will tell you, hospital CEOs really dont give a flying crap about mutli-subspecs. They dont, they care about financial systems. Clinicians also dont really care that much about subspecs as you would think, Derm is really the main exception.