I survived my first day of orientation. It was a general orientation and started with 4 hours of really boring talks about all kinds of administrative stuff--HIPAA, disaster planning, reducing medical errors, work hours, and stress. I got to meet a few of my fellow residents in pathology, which was cool to finally put faces to the names. Everyone was nice and seemed a bit overwhelmed but excited to finally be getting started.

After the morning of boredom, we were scattered to complete a number of tasks like fingerprinting, clinical skills workshops, the benefits fair, and getting an ID badge. The whole thing was a bit of a circus with long lines for everything. Luckily, I managed to hit the benefits fair at a lull and got some good information from the folks there. I also got through the clinical skills stuff pretty quickly and now am checked off as competent to use syringes, draw ABGs, start IVs, and do many other things that I am sure will be not used very much in my particular training program. Then it was on to get an ID badge which took well over 2 hours to get. It was a strange bonding experience with the other residents and fellows in the line as no one could figure out why it took so long. Oh well, at least it is done and I do not have to go back to get it another day.

We were given our long white coats. It was really strange to put it on and see the coat reaching down almost to knee length. After four years of the short white coat, this is going to take some getting used to.

Now I have a few days to do all of the online orientation stuff I need to do on my own before it all starts next Tuesday. It's going to be a busy next few days.