Interpretation: Triumph

I bitch about it a lot, even though I don’t often write about work, but I actually kind of like what I do. And I’m good at it. I just don’t get the recognition I deserve, which fit in nicely with last week’s post. Since then our stats are now 15 percentage points higher than last year, without asterisks, and could, by some remote chance reach 90%, considering that we are in the dwindling aftermath. My team and my skills were very instrumental in these nifty results. I am boasting, and I am pumped. It’s a good feeling.

A few weeks before the results came in the Friday before last, I had registered for an AMA symposium that I thought may be interesting and educational. It was free to AMA members and being that I am a member through the medical school for which I work, as they are a good source of information, I thought what the heck. Yeah, I am an AMA member. So, this Thursday evening, with a certain amount of spunk from our most-excellent stats, I went uptown to the meeting and took a seat in the back of the room. There was a lovely spread, no coffee though, and I partook of the pre-symposium reception, eating mostly, but I did chat a bit with a couple of women from supporting organizations. I’m not a schmoozer, and really not good at small talk, but you’d be proud. It was a small group considering it’s the AMA, I’d say about 75 attendees, and specific to the field I am in. However, I was the only one there of my ilk, yet I did not feel out of place. In fact, I, who would rather not speak publicly, thank you very much, even stood up and asked a question, thus alerting others to my presence, though that was not my intent.

The meeting ended half an hour late, and we didn’t even get to the last topic. After the keynote speaker, who addressed working within the new administration given immigration restrictions and the healthcare bill, it was the third topic that most, including me, were there for, as it turned out, and which took a great deal longer than planned. But it finally ended and I got only as far as circling 5 for excellent for the first question on the evaluation form when I heard a woman seated next to me ask if she could ask me a question. Turns out she’s one of my students. I’m not a teacher, nor a physician, I’m primarily a writer, but she, and the five others I found standing over me in the aisle waiting to talk to me, had reached the stage in their educations during which my name is bandied about. I became Ms. Popularity that night, and was even approached by the chair of the AMA coalition that organized the meeting after I eventually shooed the students away.

I left feeling jazzed and woke up the next morning feeling the same way. In fact, the mirror reminded me that confidence and acknowledgement are very attractive qualities, and, even through my fuzzy eyesight, I thought I looked pretty.

BTW – Both I and the AMA are pleased by the outcome, or non-come, of Friday’s events and hope that all involved suffered humiliations galore from their failure. I just had myself a very nice week.