My new placement

Monday was the first day of my new placement. I am working at a community health center in town, and so far I really like it. We start work at 9 am, we finish at 5 pm, we get a one hour lunch break and everyone is super nice. My kind of place! :P

I had a bit of an adventure Monday morning, seeing as it was my first day I wanted to be a bit early. I think it's nice to be early on the first day just because it's nice not to be all rushed and flustered. But, seeing as it was my first day, Murphy's Law had to come around and kick me in the pants.

I checked Mapquest on the weekend to figure out how to get there and how long it would likely take me - Mapquest said it took 15 minutes but since I was heading downtown in morning traffic, I left the house at 8:30 am. The center is near the end of John St, and I got to John street around 8:45 so I was sure I had lots of time to spare. However, John St is quite slow, lots of stop signs and residential area, so by the time I got to the end of John St it was probably 8:55. However, I got to the end of John St and there was no center. I was freaking out at this point because I had 5 minutes to spare and couldn't find the center and John was a one way street, so I had to drive around to find another street that would take me back up. Needless to say, after several frantic phone calls home to get the phone number for the center (because of course the letter I printed off from my preceptor didn't have the phone number, the email did!) - and I say several frantic calls home because Tim was in the shower - some jockeying around side streets and a naval forces base with Tim on the phone, I found my way back to John St, only to realize that I had driven past the clinic the first time. I felt like such an idiot. But there's a good reason I drove by. Because I'm such a good girl and I wanted to be all prepared for my placement, I had actually read up a bit on the health center on the weekend and had seen a picture of it online. It was a white building. However, when I got there, the front of the center is actually red. The back side that's on another street is the white part, so I had driven right past it because it didn't stand out to me. That's what I get for rushing. :P

That was the adventure of the morning. My preceptor didn't mind that I was a little late, and he's super nice! I feel like I'm learning so much already and I'm really enjoying the people I'm working with and the coworkers as well. This place is really neat - it's a really cool model of care. They are a publicly funded health center that provides primary care and all of the allied health professions as well (PT, OT, social work, Kin, nutrition) for free to people in their geographic area as well as immigrant and refugee populations. It is so amazing! They have such a diverse clientèle and everyone is really friendly and grateful for the help they receive. And the programs! Besides access to health care professionals, they run all sorts of community programs - a fall tune up for elderly people, an albanian women's exercise class, parenthood programs for moms and dads - and the possibilities for creating other programs exist as well. It really is a motivating and inspiring place to work. I think I'm really going to like it. :)