Hey,
Well, my wife politely informed after reading and “critiquing” my last letter that I don’t need to include in my emails everything we do. I thought I was being descriptive of the land we have chosen to call home. I did receive a response telling me it was the best one I have written yet which I promptly waved in Patty’s face but the debate continues. It is a friendly debate though. On another note; I’m wondering why when I got home from work Friday there were two pairs of boxing gloves on the table and a gauntlet on the floor.
I mentioned in my last email there was something else I wanted to write about but I ran out of steam. It seems like four pages is my typing limit these days. Guess I’m gonna have to practice harder to get up to five. To you terrified folks-I’m just kidding. Ok, Ok, I’m getting to it…………
I have mentioned a couple of times in past emails about having itchy feet and possibly being ready to move on. A couple of things occurred here with the job I am in at PHN that kindled the thoughts of leaving (understatement). We have been talking for the last two months about the logistics of leaving Kotzebue and going elsewhere. I sent my resume out to a number of hospitals in Alaska and we had loosely decided on Kodiak Island. Well a couple of financial setbacks occurred since we decided on Kodiak (kids, gotta love em). Christy and her roommate split up so there went half the rent they were paying on the house. The split was a good thing though and long overdue even though it puts a hole in our pocket. The other child needed some help also which carved a large hole in our pocket. The decision then became move to Anchorage or stay in Kotzebue. There were a lot of things to consider but I was at the point that even though we like Kotzebue and the Inupiat people, I was fed up with the facility and my current job. There was one job here at the hospital that was coming open at the end of September that I had thought about in the past. The man currently in the job has been doing the job for years and is now retiring. I had spoken with him about it in the past and I had also discussed it with Patty. I just did not know if it was something I really wanted to do. As a last effort to remain in Kotzebue I reluctantly applied for the job weeks ago. I had heard nothing by the time we went to Anchorage and Denali and after seeing all the things there are to do within a reasonable drive of Anchorage, not to mention the convenience of the stores, movies, food other than Chinese, cost of living, no sales tax................. we decided to make the move there. Last week after returning home I was called in for the job interview. I was honest with the supervisor and told him I was not sure I wanted to stay and that if he had any qualified candidates to take them. He still offered me the job and he made me a very reasonable offer. So after discussing it with Patty we have decided to stay. All of this is the reason I have not written since the beginning of the month; we were a bit preoccupied.
I have not mentioned what the job is so I guess I should do so now. It is as the hospital Infection Control/Central Sterile Manager. I have tried to avoid management but it's kind of tough to sit back and not get involved. While it is technically a 24/7 job (I can be called and called in any hour of any day) and management, believe it or not it is a paid by the hour job, 8-5 Monday through Friday with anything over that overtime. I will have only one boss to answer to and I will not only do Infection Control for the region, I will be over Central Sterile/Supply, (where they take care of all the instruments we use and maintain medical supplies in the hospital) and Environmental Services, housekeeping to you not so politically correct folks. It is a daunting prospect as I need to know not only Joint Commission rules, but OSHA regulations too. I am excited about it and a bit scared at the same time, but as they taught us in nursing school, a little bit of anxiety is a good motivator. This is also an opportunity to learn something new that may serve us well in the future. All the job offers I had in Kodiak and Anchorage were for ER of course, Cath Lab, ICU, a hospital based Cardiology clinic, and oncology.
I have to say that I look in the mirror now and wonder about the fact that this will be the third job I have had here in 17 months. I am constantly doing soul searching trying to see if the root of my unhappiness with my past jobs is a fault in me. That seed will remain in my mind probably always. I have to say in my defense that the turnover here of folks leaving Maniilaq and Kotzebue is around 25%. In Acute Care where I started there are 18 full time nursing positions right now and the hospital has five full time openings posted for nurses in that department (the actual need is greater than five). There are including the Acute Care Manager who was promoted from staff, only five full time nurses now in Acute Care that were here when I first came. Two of those are there only until their obligations for loan repayment are met, then they plan to leave Kotzebue. At the time I joined PHN in February there were just two full time RN's one of which took the supervisors position just prior to my going there. There were also three support staff in the office at the time. Since my start there all three of the support staff have either transferred to other jobs or quit. The number of nursing slots for the department including the manager is six. The nurse that took the managers job had been in Kotzebue about a year and was in the job about three months when she resigned and left Kotzebue. There was also one nurse that was brought up after I started who worked a couple of months then left. Currently the office has the one nurse still there that was there when I took the job (he has lived in Kotzebue and worked in PHN for years and has taken the managers job) one nurse that came up just after I started in February, one nurse that just arrived about a month ago, one nurse coming up, and one support person who has been in the office about two months. When I look at those kinds of figures I have to think that if I was on the outside looking in, I would realize there has to be problems in these areas to say the least. This, along with my rationalizing that I'm taking advantage of opportunities to try new things, helps assuage my feelings a bit.
In my selfishness I have not mentioned Patty. She has done well in her job with Human Resources and is respected by her peers and hated by some of those she serves-mostly the managers of the different departments she is over. In the past HR was ineffectual and blamed for almost everything that went wrong. In the last year or two there have been folks in those positions that care and are making positive changes and one of them is Patty. Of course I'm prejudiced toward her but I believe I am being objective. The folks that have been here for a few years still blame HR for all their problems. Anyway, a lot of these people do not like Patty professionally because she is a by the book type person. They go to her with an issue and an answer they want or a preconceived expectation, then they get angry when they cannot manipulate her into doing what they want or not getting the answer they expect. Obviously it is not an easy job for her. She takes pride in what she does though, way more so than I do. She was reluctant to contemplate leaving because she felt she was abandoning folks that needed her help. I had to reassure her that these problems existed long before we came and will exist long after we are dead and gone. (Although moving the mark a bit towards better is not unrealistic and what we now use as a goal for our personal satisfaction.) She also had a job offer in Anchorage with Sports Authority the company she worked for in New Orleans. Heck, they were salivating to get her. The choice for us was to go back to doing what we had been doing in New Orleans-me in a big city emergency room and Patty in retail, with the positive part being living in Anchorage just a stones throw from the rest of Alaska with all the good points I mentioned above. Or, stay in Kotzebue........... (I know, some of you are saying what choice?)
As far as the kids.............. Christy currently resides in Anchorage living in the house we bought and working at Providence Hospital, the largest hospital in Alaska. She works as a Health Unit Coordinator (unit secretary) in the Emergency Department. She is saying that she is considering going to medical school at the urging of one of the doctors there. She has been bumming around with a fellow that is an X-ray Tech who was recently divorced. They are "just friends". Cathy works here at Maniilaq as a PCT (Patient Care Technician) in Ambulatory Care, the hospital clinic. She and her significant other Gary plan on moving to Anchorage next summer where she plans to start nursing school. She currently lives with Gary in a house in Kotzebue that belonged to Gary's mother but now belongs to Gary, one of his brothers, and one of his sisters. Do not ask me the details as I could not explain them. I think I mentioned this before but Gary is a local originally from Noorvik, one of our villages. He is over six feet tall and boy can this guy eat. He seems like a good kid though and comes from a good family. His mother is one of the few that went to school, became a professional (she's and X-ray Tech) and returned here to work. They are making plans for the future but no plans I know of are in the works for making it legal. I think Cathy is smart enough to not have kids either. Being that she went to Nursing Assistant School and graduated and also currently works in the medical field, hopefully she knows what causes babies and is taking proper action.
So for better or worse it looks like we are set to spend another winter here in the Arctic. The temps for the last few days for the most part have been in the 40's and 50's so I guess winter is on the way. The tundra is changing colors so Autumn's here. The cranberries are ripe and at any given time you can ride out and see the older women picking them. Most migratory birds are gone except for a few ducks and their late broods, the seagulls, and some type of waterfowl in the middle of Swan Lake that are just to far out for me to see what they are. We had the snowmachines uncovered last weekend and were looking them over. Salmon netting season is almost over. A new seaplane has made it's presence known bringing the total to three and today when we went for breakfast, there were tables full of men all dressed in camouflage. The seaplane and the camouflaged men signal moose season for non-residents which starts September first. I am hoping to get a chance to get out with someone and get maybe a moose or a caribou for the freezer myself although the way my luck has been going with the fish............
Well, let me know if I'm including to much fill or personal stuff. I used to enjoy reading Steven King but his later books are so full of fill I quit reading them. Thanks to you folks that do write. It lets me know some folks are still out there not just hitting the delete key when they see my name. (There he goes whining again {and writing in the second person-where's a psych doc when you need them?}).
Take care all,
The Sam's
PS Dang I'm slipping, only two and a half pages!
For problems or questions regarding this web contact
carlo@samsicles.net
Last updated:
08/29/05