These things happen

I'm back in Philly at the Children's Hospital again.  I still have my full time job in Minneapolis, don't get me wrong, but there's something about Philly that keeps drawing me back.  It takes me from my home, makes me miss my kids, my wife, my dogs.  I should be happy in Minneapolis, but I keep getting drawn back.  I have tried to figure it out...  and today I got the flash:

I go there because I think they're doing good work for the world, and I think I can help them.

At one meeting today, I had my agenda, the person showed up, we talked, and within 5 minutes, we had figured out that my questions had been answered.  This area will not be impacted by my project (which incidentally is to select a patient monitoring system for the pediatric cardiac cath lab - where they fix kids' hearts).  I should have stopped the meeting, but the person said something about their plans for 2012, and I just sat forward in my chair:  I think I can help her.  I had seen that very thing attempted at my previous client and I just wanted to share some insight.  We talked for another 15 minutes pinging around ideas that had nothing to do with my project, but that will hopefully help her deliver HERS more successfully.

Later in the day, we were sitting in a final meeting to determine if our company will help them select a new laboratory and pathology system:  The project manager and the lab guy from my team were there - I was there for continuity only - I won't be doing the work.  But halfway into the meeting, I felt myself leaning forward in my chair.  I couldn't help it.  I THINK I CAN HELP THEM.  I raised a few questions and found myself wanting to help them solve this problem.

I think there's something about this client that really triggers some sort of endorphin reward for me.  I'm not sure it's entirely healthy, but I will say the client seems to really appreciate it.  Fear not, I'm not hitting the road here - I have forcibly limited my involvement to every other week, just a few days here and there.    But I wanted to share this.

Related topic:  In the last 2 years, I have been called upon as an expert in the following subject areas:  Digital radiology image storage and review, speech recognition, inpatient electronic medical records, patient registration and billing systems, web-based personal health records, rehab documentation systems, echocardiography review systems, cath lab procedure recording and reporting, long term non-radiology medical image storage, and clinical and financial analytics.  And i'm about to learn more about anatomic pathology, pathology slide scanning and retrieval, bedside barcode systems for lab specimen collection, and much more.

I think that these opportunities are amazing, and I'm grateful every day that I'm "allowed" to learn things like this, and become an "expert" as needed.  I think I have some pretty unique wiring, and am lucky to have a life that indulges that.  Every opportunity to learn and share gives me a boost...  and that's probably why Philly is so rewarding.

I've got a meeting with a gang of Cath Lab nurses at 7:30am tomorrow, so it's off to bed.