Dog Catcher and Pill Man

I realized today as we were putting more entries into the hysterical (ok, historical) report that I have told you almost nothing about my fellow inmates. Now I am faced with the challenge of trying to describe people without really identifying them closely enough that someone might be able to pick them out of a line up.

With rare exception – those of us working in Clinical Operations are PROFIS (Professional Fillers), i.e. augmentees to the unit. In garrison, those jobs don’t normally have someone assigned to them. When it comes to deployment, all of a sudden in a Medical Brigade, those jobs are what make us different than any other brigade and define our ability to accomplish our mission (health care delivery above the line level).

There was a different vet here when I arrived. She was one of the people with whom I did [not] participate in the Native American challenge. A cat person with the appropriate sense of humor, she tolerated us medical types in the office. This round we now have another single officer, this one a guy. I think I might be doing something wrong – he actually asks me for advice! Too bad he didn’t ask for some before his last round through the barber shop.

With a decent singing voice, he seems to favor country and western. Along with Pill Man, there were more than a few evenings of insanity in the office. Now that Pill Man has mailed his guitar home, I think things will be quieter. On a daily basis, his challenges just seem to cycle – support for the working dog population, feral animals, food & water safety and – did I mention the issue of rabies?

Another refugee from well inside the Beltway, our pill guy was a vaccine pusher in his previous existence. A bit on the straight-laced side, we have been able to get him to smile, especially when he talks about his family. It might be surprising to think about how much time is taken up with issues of theater formularies, vaccine shipments and accountability for controlled substances. But maybe not – these are the same issues as in any medical system with the added challenges of trying to restrict the availability of particular meds to only the hospitals.

They are good guys, and one of them leaving about the same time as I and the other up for the challeng (ha!) of working with our replacement unit for about four months.