Started my new job

I started my new job this week. Its basically all orientation for the next couple of weeks - nothing too exciting but its giving me a good feel for the organization. I was pleased to hear that the hospital system for which I work gives away almost $500 million in care every year. They are a nonprofit, so they turn profits back into the community by providing care for the poor and disadvantaged. That is an amazing thing.

I was, however, dismayed to hear that the unit I'll be working on will be giving up its transplant patients to a newly formed unit that will handle all transplants, including the intensive care patients that my unit formerly handled. The change hasn't take effect yet but it will by the end of the summer. Frankly, the opportunity to get experience with transplants was one of the reasons I chose this hospital over some of the other offers I had, so I'm disappointed that it won't be happening. I'm sure I'll still be getting good experience but I'm hoping there will still be some variety in the patients. Its a general surgical ICU and without the transplants, it could be little more than 'guts and butts', so to speak.