Availability

My biggest fear was achieved at the CIC last weekend.  A patient of mine that I had been treating for several months called in for an appointment and scheduled with a different intern.  I took this pretty hard initially but as I recalled what had transpired during the past two weeks, I figured out why.

Sadie (my lovely lady) and I have been trying to figure out where to live once I finish my requirements in the clinic this spring.  She accepted a job in Boise Idaho as the News Director for the local/regional NPR station.  This was sort of an unexpected scenario because she had been working at Colorado Public Radio as the Senior Producer for Colorado Matters, a daily local NPR talk show.  When the offer came up for her, we bounced several scenarios around with both Colorado and Idaho in mind.  In the end, we chose Idaho for the lifestyle and career change for Sadie.  And it has always been our home.

That said, a few weeks ago, I traveled to Idaho to check out some space for a possible chiropractic clinic and looked at a few apartments.  During that weekend, my patient was planning to come in but hadn't called to set up the appointment.  The weekend before this weekend in Idaho, I had a very serious conversation with the patient and advised weekly visits.  In the midst of a busy week, I forgot about it and ended up taking off the weekend to go to Idaho not knowing the patient was going to show up expecting me.  Not good.

The patient scheduled with a different intern and I lost the patient due to my lack of communication in regards to my travel schedule.  Of course, the new intern rocked the visit and impressed the patient so much that this past weekend, the patient scheduled with the new intern again.  I was shocked and a bit frustrated about it all.  I decided to be a secondary on the visit with the hope of regaining some connection with the patient, but it was really awkward.  I hadn't figured out what went wrong quite yet and I was helping this new intern perform therapies that I had been doing for several months.  The whole time I was thinking I must have made the patient too sore or something from the last treatment.

Once I got some rest and started backtracking, I figured it all out.  I broke the trust I had built with this patient by simply not communicating well enough.  It was a big deal for this patient to commit to coming in weekly and I was expected to be at the clinic to provide weekly services.  I screwed up.

Long story short, I intend on having a direct conversation with the patient this week to potentially re-connect and get the plan I wrote previously in place.  If I cannot patch things up, I will have to find a different intern to take over the case because the current one is nearly finished with his visits.

It pays to be available.

All for now