I spent last week in Washington DC, at the annual ACP meeting.
It turns out that many thousand internists gather each year, not unlike druids, to attend lectures on the latest medical issues and network. I think I'm still too jet-lagged (just got back Monday) to go over in exhausting detail everything that happened during the week, but here's a brief recap of the highlights.
-I thought the conference was great. It really rejuvenated me intellectually and medically. I think, like in most jobs, doing the same sorts of things over and over again (and in my case having lumps of administrative crap dumped on top of it so that the percentage of actual medical care is relatively small) can result in the doldrums, or a working rut. (Guess where I am?) It was refreshing to go to medical lectures, be updated on the material (man does our thinking change more frequently than you'd think) from some of the field's big-wigs, and basically feel like a damn doctor again - rather than like an Army cog and administrator, which I feel like all too often currently. The whole thing sort of excited me about medicine again.
-In a similar vane the end is in sight, the end of my military career that is. In little over a year I will be like most people at the meeting, i.e wear civilian clothes, have adequate support staff, and not have to get my car inspected before I travel places on weekends because it's 'policy'. It seems almost too surreal to believe. I'm really looking forward to the civilian world. I don't even mind that I'll have to drop a small fortune on suitable work clothes, of which I have very few right now. (Apparently civilian MD's don't wear the Army Combat Uniform to work.)
-I had a great time catching up with people. Pete and I shared a room for the week, and we spent our nights dining, drinking and catching up with old friends, chief among them "Big" George ("I'm not your friend, buddy!") and other associated Madigan folks who are now at Walter Reed or who were in town for the conference. I also got the chance to see several old acquaintances from medical school and even Landstuhl (my old boss). Pete and I even got together with our Iraq buddy Steve for dinner one night, one of the other docs stationed with me at old FOB Falcon.
-Washington DC is for the most part a great town. Good food, good scenery, good sense of history. The traffic really is miserable, however, and Pete and I spent our fair share of time in it going to and from the conference in our shuttle. Luckily the Metro is a really solid way to get around and beat the gridlock. Pete and I saw a good chunk of the city and the surrounding areas during our week. We also went out running one day, doing a "monument tour" on the Mall, running from one place to the next, starting at the Lincoln Memorial and making our way to the Capitol building and then back to the hotel. I maintain that the Vietnam Memorial is the best of the bunch (though admittedly I didn't get a chance to see the Korean War Memorial which is supposed to be cool) - it's so understated and powerful - really good stuff. As I walked through it this time I couldn't clear the thought that some day there will be an Iraq War Memorial somewhere and that, if like "the Wall", they print out all the names of the casualties, then I will recognize several on the list. A sobering thought.
-Got to eat sushi twice. Most of you have no idea how huge that is for me. (Damn I need sushi back in my life...)
-Unfortunately I didn't get many pictures from the week. Perhaps I'll post the few I have at a later date. I'm too lazy to do it now.
And that's that. It was a great week. A refreshing re-look at medicine, a chance to see old friends, and a good break from work in the process. Thumbs up. Next up is London this weekend, and then after that - back to Croatia. Summer travel season is definitely heating up.
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