Just call me Professor

today was the first day of my intro to psychology class, and although brief, i have to say i think it went quite well. i mentioned before that i'm teaching a couple of college courses to my marines through a local university's deployment education program and i must say it's kinda cool. haven't really taught anything in a while and it's nice to have a new thing to do.

i also had to school a couple of the other officers in how to handle questionable medical situations, too. pretty simple, actually....call the medical officer! it's prolly worse in a real aviation community but a lot of these folks really believe that with their rank they can diagnose and treat all that ails them, whether it be physical (suck it up devil dog!) or mental (this guy's crazy, he needs to be kicked out of the military!). we had a young marine who's having some problems here and his shop was able to recognize that fact and approached him about it which is great. they knew to look for me, but since i wasn't around, instead of trying to find me, they go ahead and decide he's pretty much good to go and say so when i ask them later what they needed me for. now that would be fine and dandy except for the fact that he wasn't good to go and came to me expressing so. i talked to his shop again today and they reemphasized that they solved the problem when they really had no clue as to what's going on.

i guess it's a fine line i have yet to master between protecting my patients' rights (which i believe to be paramount) and balancing it with protecting the mission of the command (which is why we're even here in the first place!). i sort of go by a need-to-know basis, but i'm deciding when i feel skipper needs to know something and it's a little dangerous cause while fairly in the loop, i don't always know how a marine's health status may affect the evolution of our work here. right now, it's a risk i'm willing to take, i guess.

and that pic up there? it's the courtyard of the alamo from my doorway. nope, don't live at the office on the flightline. we have this old building affectionly called the alamo where the officers and staff nco's stay. it's actually not bad. i'll post pics of my room next.