Riding the waves of change

As of tomorrow, I will be officially a 40-hour work week girl! Some of you may know (and some of you may not!) that I recently pursued and was offered a new position at Duke. My new title is called "VDH Clinical Lead." VDH stands for Valvano Day Hospital, which is where I have been working weekends for the past two years (almost 3). The VDH is on the 4th floor of Duke's Children's Health Center (CHC) and during the week, cares for not only hematology/oncology kids, but bone and marrow transplant, brain tumor, allergy-immunology and basically any child specialty that needs infusion servies. We give Remicade to kids with arthritis and growth hormones to endocrine kids. It's quite a place and has needed administrative management for quite some time! My 8:15-4:45 job will be to coordinate care in the day hospital and hopefully improve the process of patient flow here. I will also:

• Serve as on-site resource and expert for nurse billing and coding


• Collaborate with the manager on non-clinical issues such as personnel management, provider relationships; regulatory compliance


• Collaborate with the nnurse manager in the interview process for new applicants


• Responsible for learning, implementing and teaching new technology/procdures and providing clinical/education updates to staff


• Providing patient care in the VDH as needed
  

Clearly, it is BIG job and one that if I am honest, I am quite apprehensive about. But Christopher says I am never confident in myself enough, so I am trying to just barrel ahead and hope for the best! What an opportunity this is for me...to be promoted and have a higher level administrative position without even having to change my locker! And the best part is, I get to park across the street!

So, what does this mean for the rest of the Ammon clan? First of all, it means that Elias will be in full time daycare. We found a delightful place named "Master's Garden Preschool" just down the road from our house. We have already started transitioning him there slowly and in fact, he took two naps there last week...on a cot! He shows us more and more everyday what a big boy he is and what big boy things he can do. He is in the two-year old class, but is the youngest. This however does not indicate his size, as he is the TALLEST!

This week, he will go 4 days, and on Thursday and Friday, he will go all day. I start working some this week, but not yet full time, as I am still working the weekends through March 9. My first month of weekdays will be mostly orienting to various new tasks, including some patient scheduling and other administrative tasks. I will still be in scrubs everyday (yeah!!!) and perhaps the only sign of my new position will be the carrying of a pager. = )

I am really excited...nervous, but excited and thankful for the support and encouragement from my coworkers. I had to go through SIX different interviews, including an interview with the Medical Director of the CHC and a panel of my fellow nurses. I have received a lot of positive feedback from them and I just want to do a good job for them and make our day hospital a better place to work!

And yes, I am STILL going to school! My classes are all online, so I'll just have to be disciplined in the evenings and on the weekends. This is where Mr. Ammon comes in. He has already agreed to increased domestic responsibilities and has recently been promoted to Chief Accountant (though not quite the Chief Financial Officer)! Seriously, though, he is 100% committed to making this new schedule work for us. We are most looking forward to having some weekends off together and actually going to church! Christopher, Elias and I make a great team (although Elias' compliance can be somewhat lacking!) and I have confidence in US to make this new change in our lives a good one. As Charles Darwin says: "It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change." I know that we will not just survive...we will THRIVE!

For your viewing pleasure, I have included some pictures from Elias' birthday party. Click HERE to see the whole slideshow of pictures!