Thursday, March 20, 2008

Zoom zoom a zoom a zoom zoom!

First, I'd like to apologise for not posting for so long. I have let down myself, my family, the blogging community, and you.

On with the show! Hopefully, I will get to go out on a flight with the Flying Doctors! Last Sunday, I went off to the airport and spent the morning getting briefed by the Royal Flying Doctors on this great program they run, in conjuction with the Rural Doctors Workforce Agency, which allows medical, nursing and paramedic students spend a day on the plane with the flying docs.

It began with a breakfast bbq, which is a bit of a strange concept, but something I could definitely get used to. Sausages, hash browns, and a new thing to me: a piece of bread with the middle torn out, and an egg broken into the hole, which is then fried. They called it "Toad In The Hole", but what I call "Toad In The Hole" is sausages fried then baked in a doughy batter. It must be an Adelaide thing.

We then got briefed on a bunch of obvious dos and don'ts for the day we go up, such as do dress respectably, don't be drunk, don't try to do anything you haven't been asked to do, don't photograph the patients, etc. And some not so obvious dos and don'ts such as do take a credit card in case they have to leave you behind because you won't fit into the plane at the same time as the patients for some reason and you have to stay the night in Woop-woop and find your own way back the next day. And don't eat anything too spicy the night before because gases expand at altitude and it's a pretty confined space inside that fuselage anyway...

We had to fill in a form nominating which days we are available until the end of the year. Unfortunately I only remembered to send mine in today, Thursday, and it really had to be there today and now it won't arrive until Tuesday because of the Easter holidays. I have my fingers and toes crossed hoping that I can do this. I will be very disappointed if I miss out, but I'll have only myself to blame.

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