The Hospital

I finished my hospital orientation today.  It was 2 and a half hours of walking around the hospital, meeting people and finding departments.    I saw the Nursery, ICU, Post Op, Surgery, Waiting Rooms, Security, Registration, Emergency and all kinds of support areas.  Brunswick Novant Medical Center opened on July 5, 2011 and is a beautiful facilty. 

 

My assignment starts on February 6.  The hospital converted to a computer system for volunteers to sign in and out and half of the volunteer population is freaking out because it's a computer.  Seriously, you type in a six digit numeric code, touch "continue" confirm your name and then hit "enter."   That's it.   The volunteers want someone to stand next to them as they sign in because they don't trust computers and "don't know how to use them." 

 

At any rate, I won't have a volunteer ID in the system until tomorrow and I have signed up to work on Wednesdays so February 6 is the first Wednesday I will work.   I will either be in Patient Registration, signing people in for X-Rays or Surgery, or I may end up in Marketing and Administration (which is more likely) helping with presentations and advertising campaigns.

 

The volunteers are really nice, but I'm sensing that I am the youngest one again.   I got my photo badge today and an older gentleman who is a volunteer took my picture and put my badge together.  He asked me to spell my name and then with one finger, he  typed in each letter on the keyboard.  I told him that I had a hyphenated name and began to spell:                M  O  R  G A  N...and then I said, "now put in a hyphen."    He looked at me and said, "what's a hyphen?"    I had to reach over him to type in the hyphen and then type in  Swegle because he kept leaving out the "g."  He wasn't the  most keyboard savvy person I have ever met, but he was very nice.

 

We had to take a computer based education course on hazardous material.   The length of the course was 59 minutes and 55 seconds.  I finished in 59 minutes and 10 seconds.   The volunteers I was speaking with were amazed that I completed it in that time--they told me when they did it,  it took them 3 to 4 hours!!    They really, really don't like computers.   I hope Tony and I don't digress to that level when it comes to computers as we get older.

 

It was a beautiful day today, getting up into the mid 70's in the afternoon, but when I got to the hospital at 9:30, the building was shrouded in fog and the temperature was chilly.  Mockingbirds were on the roof lined up and spaced evenly like clothes pins on a clothes line. 

 

After I got home, Tony and I went to the driving  range to try out Tony's new clubs.   I sucked, so I quit quickly.  David will be visiting this weekend and he and Tony  will be going golfing. 

 

Not much else going on.  I'm going to call Lori, our breeder and see if we can go visit Dixie and get some updated pictures.  

 

We have started the birthday cycle already--my sister, Lynn turned 62 in January, Jon will be 34 in February, Tony will be 66 and Coleton is 6 months old now.   How quickly time goes by.  We will blink and 2013 will be a memory.

 

Here's the front of the hospital. 

Here is the side view, this year they are putting in an outdoor cafeteria where you see the windows on the side.  There will be palm trees, wooden benches and umbrellas.