The definition of insane…or just super bad timing

​So I got my edits back for Hell to Pay. Huzzah!

So I'm at a conference about physician leadership and the business of medicine. Huzzah!

Uh oh. No huzzah….

See, these two activities will not coexist in my head without something crossing over to the dark side to relieve pressure before the entire cranium explodes. I cannot sit through Death By Powerpoint without editing the stinkin' slides in my head. Or continuing to develop better ways to "spruce up" the presentation language. For example, "Physician engagement in management decisions" really should be "Driving a stake deep into the heart of the evil overload of administration…." And "payment incentives based on outcomes data" should really be "in a macabre effort to flay the humanity from every physician, the diabolical management machine has created unattainable quests, knowing that the physician will perish of thirst before crossing the ever-enlarging desert of reimbursement". (enter maniacal laughing and a "buwahaha" and you have what goes on in my head all day long)

I won't even comment about how I'm editing the book's sex scenes during this conference. All I can say is what I'm doing while innocuously tapping out notes on the computer should not count as CME (continuing medical education). Well, unless the characters were to pick up, say, trichomonas, from said activity. And then require treatment. But then they have the wrong insurance and have to pay out of network fees and then spiral into a larger exposition about how the entire health care system failed them by not providing appropriate education and how they now cannot get married due to having to spend all that money on deductables. In that case, then yup, here are my credit hours, AAFP.

It's a little like Clark Kent by day, having pleasant conversations with pleasant colleagues over coffee, chitchatting about various medical practice models and how we're all moving into a new paradigm of physician leadership and pay for performance. Then the conference day ends and boom, into the phone booth, and bingo bango, you've got a slobbering romance writer. Suddenly the hair is in a Pebbles 'do on the top of my head and I'm in ill-fitting jammies and I've got Word loaded up faster than you can say "misplaced modifier". 

It's true. The superman concept is a poor analogy on account of #1) I'm not a dude #2) no one wants to see me change in a phone booth (NO ONE, trust me) and #3) there's that whole thing about me not being able to fly, but those are mere details.

Can't wait to see how I morph tomorrow's topic of "contract negotiation and physician retention" into something truly naughty….