a woman, a wig metaphor, and one very unread essay
Okaaay, so I have officially been out for a while. I cannot even tell you when my last post was, and honestly, neither can you, so let’s just agree it’s been a minute and move forward like adults. I haven’t wanted to write, if I’m being honest, but I got a little nudge from one of my readers, Noell, and this one is for her. The rest of you can read it too, but don’t be too nosy, okaaay!
Here’s what nobody tells you: working full-time, taking care of the people you love, and going to school at the same time is not “a juggle.” It is a hostage situation, and the day only gives you 12 usable hours to survive it. Yes, I know a day technically has 24 hours. I am aware. But I am not awake for all 24, and neither is anyone else who is honest with themselves.
People keep telling me the answer is time management. Time management, my wigs. I cannot accomplish one single thing the way I planned it, because something always shows up to personally ruin my schedule. Case in point: the other day I woke up and declared it Cleaning Day. 8am breakfast. 9am dishes. 10am sweeping. 10:30am vacuum. A whole itinerary, color coded in my head if not on paper. I got through 8am breakfast. That was it. That was the entire day. Breakfast was the beginning, the middle, and the end. I think therapy is not working.
Meanwhile, in College
School has been humbling in a way I did not order and would like to return. It is not the same going after a certification, sitting a quick exam, and calling it a day. College is a completely different arrangement of suffering, especially when your professor lives in a time zone that makes every email feel like a long-distance relationship. Somehow, despite all that, I have been holding my own on the assessments, and I am genuinely proud of that, wigs on or off.
The Part I’m Not Saying Out Loud
Here is the tea, and it’s the kind that scalds a little. Many of you remember I was working at CARTI as a Health Information Technician. That’s over now. I’m not doing the two-year retelling, and I’m not getting into details, some of it is privacy, some of it is HIPAA, and some of it is just mine to keep. What I can say is that I miss it. It was a good place, and it taught me something I never thought I had in me, which is apparently a talent for phone calls. My former manager once told me I logged around 500 calls in a single week. I don’t know if that number is real or if she was being generous, but either way, I’ve decided to be flattered and slightly concerned for my own hearing, which I am choosing to consider “selectively retired” rather than damaged.
The Essay Nobody Asked to See Yet
Back to college, because apparently I live there now. This week I had to write an essay, and I want you to know that essays and I have history, I failed one of these back in my Language and Literature class, mostly because my brain writes in a hundred directions at once and a college-level essay wants exactly one direction. But I did it. I finished it. I am now too scared to hit submit for evaluation, so if any of you have spare encouragement lying around, send it my way. I cannot show you the whole thing before it’s graded, that feels like tempting fate, but here is the introduction, framed and under glass like the evidence it is.
THE EVIDENCE
Traditional Medical Records vs. Electronic Health Records:
Medical records have been an important part of healthcare because they preserve information about a patient’s medical history and care. Long before electronic records and paper, medical information was recorded on different materials. In ancient China, medical documents were written on materials such as oracle bones, bamboo or wooden slips, and silk (Zhang et al., 2021). In Greco-Roman Egypt, medical information was also recorded on papyrus, including prescriptions and instructions for preparing and using treatments (Andorlini, 2019). As paper became an important medium for written records, paper medical records became a common way to document and store patient information. Eventually, advances in technology led healthcare organizations to adopt electronic health records as another way to record, manage, and share patient information.
The purpose of this essay is to compare traditional medical records and electronic health records and explain how their differences influence patient care. This essay is intended for healthcare professionals and students preparing for careers in Health Information Management.
Traditional medical records and electronic health records differ in how patient information is accessed, organized, maintained, protected, and shared between healthcare providers, which affects patient care.
“Oracle bones held up for a few thousand years. My nerves are not made of the same material.”
And because apparently one writer returning to the site wasn’t enough disruption for one week, welcome my friend Ariadne to the site. Her column is live, her voice is nothing like mine, and I think you’re going to enjoy the chaos she brings. Go say hello.
More soon, I promise this time. · N.
Leave a Reply