A long overdue update

Sorry it has taken me so long to get a post up here. I've been meaning to for the past few days but haven't had ten minutes. Actually, that isn't entirely true. I certainly could have Wednesday or Thursday night, but I had a bad migraine and spent my evenings trying to remedy that. No fun. In October, the doctor's gave me Imitrex for them. I take it when I feel one coming on, but I can't take it more than once every three weeks. It dulled the pain a little on Wednesday night, but wore off by Thursday. I discovered Excedrin Migraine is awesome. Well, I'm fine now and this blog isn't entitled "Amy's Many Medical Mysteries" so I suppose I should get to the point and talk about what I've been up to in Washington DC.

I started my internship at Nemours last Thursday (the 22nd or 23rd, which ever was a Thursday). The office is brand new so everyone is still getting the hang of how to make the copy machine work and we are still operating one computer short and off the network. But, I've been getting some stuff done. Mostly, I have been working on the graphic details for a PowerPoint presentation my boss has to make to the CEO and the Board of Directors next month. I have also done some research for a few meetings - one was about Health Information Technology (which is like Electronic Medical Records) and another was background on Congressman Ander Crenshaw from Florida (we are building a new hospital in his district). This past Thursday, I went to a Senate hearing on improving quality in health care. The expert "witnesses" basically said Health Information Technology is a huge part of it.

Not to scare anyone, but medication errors are really common in offices/hospitals that don't use electronic medical records, because no one can read doctor's handwriting. Fact of the day: 98,000 people lose their life due to a medical error in the United States every year. So make sure you know what you are taking and how much you should be taking. And be thankful if you go somewhere that does electronic medical records.

So in addition to working on small projects and going to hearings and such, my main job is going to be to establish a advocacy communications plan for the company. When SCHIP passed this week, we had a lot of Nemours people (doctors, etc) e-mailing us to let us know... as if we didn't know. So I will be working on establishing some plan of how we can do internal communications within Nemours, and externally for other health policy groups, legislators, whoever.

Wow. That's a lot to take in. Sorry for being so long-winded. But there is still more.

My classes started this week. On Wednesdays, I take two "classes". One is an actual political science class that I think I like and the other doesn't qualify as a "class", at least in my mind. My roommate calls that one "BS101". No joke. That one is "Internship Seminar," and we basically sit around for two hours discussing our internship and developing a Professional Development Plan (what do you want to do in the next three months) and a Cognitive Map (reading log). They told us we all need business cards. I could barely hold the laughter in. I'm not paying $30 to get 500 business cards printed with my work phone and e-mail that will do me absolutely no good in three months. Call me cheap but I don't see the point. My actual "class" seems okay. I like the professor; he teaches at American University. It's about public policy and we get to do formal debates, write a 5-7 page research paper about and political policy topic (ie: abortion, gun control, same-sex marriage, etc). There are other assignments, but those are the big ones. Shouldn't be too bad.

What else... I went out to dinner with Kelly, my friend from high school and her boyfriend, Kyle on Friday. I was super craving a bacon cheese burger so we hit Chilis because it is cheapest and fairly close. Local, only in DC restaurants are ridiculously expensive (about $30 for dinner). But if you find a chain restaurant, especially outside of DC (like Arlington) its reasonable.

Last Friday, I went to the funniest show ever. I seriously almost peed my pants I was laughing so hard. It's called Capitol Steps and its basically a live, musical comedy show about current politics. Its put on by former Hill staffers and they satirize the people they used to work for. The four liberal "Supreme Court Justices" sang Staying Alive. They poked fun at President Obama, John McCain, Sarah Palin, Hillary Clinton, former Pres. Bush, Larry Craig, Blagojevich, Elliot Spitzer, Joe the Plumber, etc. Definitely recommend it.

Today, I've just spent my day doing laundry, cleaning my room, the bathroom, nothing too fun. I made pancakes and bacon for breakfast! Nummy!

Alright I absolutely promise to write more often so you don't have to read this much again. I apologize. Until then, over and out!