The Ship

After a completely sleepless night (I assume the combo of time change and excitement) we went this morning to orient to the ship. My first impression was "Man this boat is huge" (although you never call a Naval ship a boat). At capacity it can manage 1000 hospital beds (we won't using that many). Most of the crew are on liberty as they have been on since early May when they left San Diego. However, many, many more volunteers than I ever imagined. Medical crews from armed forces of New Zealand and Canada, dentists and veternarians and pharmacists and MDs, NPs, and nurses from all over the US. There were some Mormon LVNs and predental students from UC San Diego. Even Elvis (more after I learn something about him). Turns out the Navy has as much paperwork as hospitals these days. Anyway, got my bunk assignment. Yep, didn't get officers quarters as originally was indicated. I am bunk 72 of 100, bottom of 3 stacked. Oh and there are a number of these large rooms with 100 bunks. We have so many volunteers this trip the fact that I am precepting and won't do night shifts was my downfall. I do have a little privacy curtain though. We ate lunch in the mess hall and wasn't bad. Salmon, veges, salad, and Starbucks coffee. We don't have to be officially aboard for 48 hours so I came back to downtown to stay and see the city and hopefully get some good sleep. As far as what we will be doing? Not completely clear but think will be doing mostly medcaps which means primary care ashore (seeing many, many peope each day). Heard from the previous group the hard part is that many people have serious issues that just can't be dealt with. For example, women with breast cancer. Can't really do anything as no continuing care. Going to be hard to see people in need and turn them away. I'm not at Kaiser SF anymore.