Getting a job and getting there

So, I'm sitting around the house, reading and I get a phone call for Jean, from Global Medical Staffing, wondering if she's interested in working 6 months in Australia - she's not in, and probably not interested, but I might be, but not 6 months - only 3. A few more phone calls, a little paper work, a phone interview with Dr. Paul Pielage (director of the ED at Launceston General Hospital), and I've got a job offer. 3 other job offers included a smaller hospital in Tassie, and 2 hospitals in NZ. Very generous terms, so why not?

Now comes the hard part. Paperwork for assessment of a "specialist area of need", then a temporary license with the Australian Medical Council, a temporary work visa, hospital staff privileges (pretty easy, but slow). Pages and pages of documents, numerous passport photos, pulling up old documents that I hadn't thought of in years (I needed to prove that I graduated from an English-speaking high school, but couldn't find an original diploma - only copies - and my high school had lost records from the 60's in a flood. I think they finally just looked me up in a yearbook or something!), letters from organizations that didn't exist (the Nepali Medical Board???), a CV that had to be expanded to about 3 times its original length to provide the required detail, and all notarized by a single notary! When the notary I started with went on vacation, I had to get another notary to notarize a statement that the original notary wasn't available. Fed Ex stock prices skyrocketed on news that I would be doing all the paper shipping.

5 months should be plenty, right? Well, the hospital took 4 weeks to get the last couple signatures before sending their stuff to the AMC. The AMC had reorganized last July and was still backlogged, so took 6 weeks to even acknowledge that they had received my packet, and then were missing 3 pieces of paper that we had fax and FedEx receipts for, but needed to scramble to find them. Then, on to the Visa from Immigration - they were missing my blood tests - so a late night trip down to Boulder Community Hospital to print out (helpful to be an MD and know folks that can help do this) the lab tests and then fax them to Immigration. Finally had my Visa on Monday, a flurry of phone calls, and a ticket for a flight on Tuesday evening.

The original plan was to allow 5 months for all that stuff and be ready to fly on Feb 28 (with a months cushion after the expected approvals by late January), and start work on March 7. Instead, approvals on March 7, fly on March 8, and start work as soon as I get the final paperwork (one more step: drive 3 hours from Launceston to Hobart to the AMC office to show that I'm the person in the passport photos, drive 3 hours back) and do a little orientation.

Wow, this would have been tough to do on my own. Most of the hassles were borne by Amy Woods of Global Medical Staffing - without her, I may have been reducing to blithering, sniveling, burying my head in sand.

So, the packing is done, and I'm out of here in a couple hours.