Looking for Career Opportunities?

Change of pace here, but had to share this one.

Had a drug rep visit the office today (at an inconvenient time; I know, it's shocking) to share the great new coupon program that gives patients $100 off every prescription and can be used an unlimited number of times.

Thoughts:

1.  How big is the profit margin on this drug if you can give $100 off every prescription?
2.  I asked if they needed a medical director, since it is apparently far more profitable to sell drugs than to prescribe them.  She didn't answer.
3.  If you ever wonder why your insurance premium is so high, look at the profits and executive salaries of insurance companies, drug companies, hospitals, and EHR companies.  Paying your doctor is a rather small fraction of your healthcare costs.
4.  If your career goal includes earning money, try to move up the corporate ladder in one of the above 4 industries.

That is all.

Brief Update - Ethiopia Travel Days

For those who have been looking for updates, I apologize for not posting in a while.  We have been in survival mode for the past 4-6 weeks and are just now emerging a little.

We returned to Addis Abeba, Ethiopia on January 21 to pick up our son.  We had a little anxiety on the way over since our flight left Atlanta 40 minutes late and we only had an hour and a half layover in Frankfurt.  On top of that, snow and ice were bad in Frankfurt at the time and we spent a little extra time circling in Germany before we could land (although the captain was nice enough to let us know that we had enough fuel to circle for "a while").  Our flight attendant (I will not use the word stewardess) told us we would not make the connecting flight, but that the airline would take care of us since we would have to spend the night in Frankfurt.  Not that I would typically mind a day of sightseeing in Europe, but we were supposed to pick up our son the following morning and we really needed to make the connecting flight.  Once we did land, we had about 30 minutes before our connecting flight was supposed to leave.  Unfortunately, there was no one manning the gate and we had to wait for airport crew to come open the doors.  We had Amy move to the front of the airplane so she could exit quickly and run to the next gate and ask them to wait for us before departing.

Once the doors opened, Amy sprinted to the next gate, but had to go through security again before she could proceed.  She made it through and got to the gate with about 10 minutes to spare.  They told her they would wait, but to hurry and get the rest of us there.  She quickly bought the water bottles with squirt tops that we wanted to take with us to Ethiopia (easier for tooth brushing) and ran back to security to meet us.  I had hustled with the kids to try to get to the gate, but we were slowed down by security.  They ended up looking through two of our bags before letting us through.  We ran to the gate with about a minute to spare, boarded the airplane a bit out of breath (which was only about 1/3 full since so many flights into Frankfurt had been cancelled) and then waited about 2 hours before we finally took off.  We waited on the tarmac so long that we had to be deiced again before leaving.

The late departure caused us to arrive in Addis around 11 pm instead of 9 pm.   Because there were significant delays getting our visas in Addis, it took about 90 minutes to finally get out of the airport.  By the time we got to the guest house, got the kids settled, and unpacked enough for the next day, it was about 3 a.m. and we were scheduled for breakfast the next morning at 7:30 a.m. so we could pick up our son early in the day and travel to meet his family.  Amy and I each got about 3 hours of sleep that night and hoped we would not be too exhausted when our son joined us the next morning.