Finding a new patient relations manager has been so much tougher than I ever thought. It is so imporant to me that there are no weak links on my team. Each person I hire is a representation of who we are and those decisions need to be made with careful thought. For the last 4 months we have been searching for the right fit. I think I must have run at least 4 newspaper ads and received over 100 resumes. With the economy as it is, we received resumes from so many qualified people that it made this journey extra tough. Once we sorted through the resumes we brought people in for working interviews. Many places don’t do that but I like to approach things differently. A professional athelete never gets the job without a try-out so why should employment be different. I want to make sure that our new teammate can step up to the plate. We conducted about 6 working interviews and the people we met were all nice. We narrowed our list down until it came to two people. They both did working interviews and after the “try outs” were over we made our choice, Erikka. We offered her the job and she said yes. She is a mom of two school age kids (Go Cheetahs and Wallabies!) and she was a great fit. I think that patients will like her as much as we do. Welcome to our team Erika!!

In my efforts to lose the perrenial few pounds I decided to start running for weight loss.     I ran into one of our long term patients at the South Point Mall, Mrs. I and she and her husband told me that they biked there from Apex on the American Tobacco Trail.  I asked her about the trail and it sounded like a good place to run.  Andrea, my dental assistant of five years who has already lost 30lbs, decided to join me for a run.  We were running there together and to my surprise, Andrea was faster than me.   I asked her if she would consider coming to the Disney Princess Half Marathon and running the race with me.  The Disney Princess Half Marathon is an all female run that is set in Disney World and Epcot Center this Feb 2012.   I can’t think of a better place to run….the magic of Disney, lots of characters to cheer you on, running through the Disney Castle and tons of princess power!    Andrea is from California and has spent lots of time in Disney land so she was excited to come.   Her cousin Eujenia, who is also my practice manager decided to come as well.   From this point onwards, we have been training weekly getting ready for the race.  It has been both fun and miserable. Getting up early on cold days and endless miles of running and running. Running the Tobacco Trail has been interesting, though. Andrea and I have run into lots of our patient’s mom’s on the trail. It was pretty funny because one day all three of us were running and one of our patient’s, Mrs. F was running as well and we saw her on the trail. She saw Andrea and I and then Eujenia a mile down the road. She asked if our whole office was running that day! I came in the next morning and told the rest of the staff that we ran into Mrs. F on the trail and in the funniest coincidence she happen to be in our reception room that day and said, “That was me!” We all had a great laugh. Unbeknowst to us, she is a seasoned marathon runner and we picked her brain for tips on making our run better. Thanks to Mrs. F for all the helpful tips! We had no idea that many of our parents were runners, too. Not just average runners but marathon runners. Pretty Awesome! Thus far, Andrea has run about 60 miles over the past several months and so have I. Eujenia is a much more advanced runner than we are so she trains solo. Andrea and I run about the same speed so we are well matched. It has been so exciting to feel the progress and accomplishment of starting with a one mile run back in September and doing 9 miles together this past weekend. We’ve come a long way and of course, the grand finale of our hardwork…the princess half marathon in less then 2 months away. The next challenge is to figure out what Disney Princess costume to wear for the race?  Belle is my favortie and Andrea’s favorite is Ariel.  We’ll keep you posted!

This is our first official post!  For the past several years our wonderful graphic designer Jennifer Ray has been taking care of our website but now, with her help, we have taken it over.  I am looking forward to posting updates about the office, our staff and the fun stuff that is going on over here.  Stay Tuned!