I am down to only one nurse in the clinic (I'm supposed to have 3). In our advertising for the position, I am "in the process" of hiring the only RN who applied. I knew of a physicians assistant (PA) who wanted to work so I modified the second RN position to try and accommodate her. We offered her the RN position too, only to discover bureaucracy and legal issues so I had to go push for changing the position to a PA. That means paying her more money but also, she can work in a greater capacity. I won't go into the details of all the obstacles but now in the final stages, it looks like I won and we are hiring her as a PA. Smooth talking persuader.
As you know, we went to the inauguration celebration at Spasso House. The Embassy has been buzzing in anticipation of Hillary Clinton being sworn in as our Secretary of State. Her swearing in was to take place live via webcam in one of our conference rooms and all were invited. The technicians were unsuccessfully trying to get connected. After about 20 minutes and just before her speech, someone walked in and said, "Hey! They are broadcasting it live on CNN in the cafeteria!" We all raced there and watched on 2 large screen TV's. A new picture popped up on the wall. My new boss.
I am preparing to go to Finland next week to see patients. There was a lot of wrapping up to do with the PA job, second round of interviews for the secretary position, hosting a representational meeting and lunch with my docs of other embassy health providers, and taking care of our patients. A busy week.