29 Jan 14

It's 5 am and I am at the SLC airport. It is not the best time to think of a blog name.

I am going to Denver, meeting a client and coming back home tonight. My client is a cancer clinic in the Aurora area. I am on a new clinical trial and this is my first solo visit. I I were a rookie CRA, my stomach would be in knots...like a first day of work where you happen to be doing a presentation...do I know the 400+ page protocol? Can I answer questions? Will the PI and the SC be workable? Did I forget something?

But I have been doing this a while now. I can travel anywhere and walk into a place full of experts that know a lot more than me and into situations that may create problems. I can handle it.

I don't say that to brag.

I can always look stuff, up, I can call someone , I can think, I can read. I can remember, I can say "I don't know, let me find out".

I say it to convey a lesson I have learned in life: you will not always be prepared for all things, but if you become a problem solver you will be alright.

I learned this lesson from Chuck, he was my doctor a long time ago. Once I fell off a bike and had a concussion. I was 19. I did not know where I was or what I was doing there. I went to chuck's office. Thankfully, he knew who he was and who I was, so we were ok. Chuck was a country doc. In his office, on his bookcase, Chuck has a few souvenirs from his practice. Some of these were snake heads, from real snakes. He used them to help identify which type of snake had bitten you. Smart. I asked Chuck a lot of questions. It seemed like the only conversation I have ever had, which since I did not remember any other one at the time, it kind of was.

We got talking about memory. Chuck told me that he had forgotten just about everything from medical school. But he had learned one thing: how to problem solve.

Funny that I found out 10 years later that he was teaching medical school. Funny that I remember that so clearly.