wednesday night bill and I flew out to spokane washington to check out the city and for bill to chat with Rockwood clinic, a large multi-specialty group in spokane. it is still really early for bill to be interviewing/checking out jobs, but this opportunity came up and we thought we should check out the city now to know if it is even an option in the future. obviously moving 2,000 miles away from our families would not be an easy decision, but we have always loved the mountains and if we were going to move now would be our time.
at the end of june, bill will have one year of residency left. we have two different options (well three if you count just starting work and not doing any fellowship training). one plan would be to do a one year otology (ear) fellowship in new zealand after residency. if we would do the NZ fellowship we obviously won’t be flying back and forth to look for permanent job positions so we would like to have that decided or nailed down before we leave. the other plan would be to go to a neurotology program (brain/ear surgery) in the US. those are 2 year programs and extremely competitive. the locations range from vanderbilt to LA to miami to columbus, ohio, etc. we won’t know exactly what we will be doing until late this summer. so stay tuned.
we heard about rockwood clinics from David, a friend of bill’s from residency. he was 2 years ahead of bill in the program and is currently finishing a facial plastics fellowship in florida and will be starting to work at Rockwood in July. bill spoke with the recruiter and explained that we would love to come and check it out. especially to see if it is even a place we feel comfortable. so about 2 weeks ago we got the news that they would love to bring us out. they quickly booked the flights we wanted and before I knew it we were on the plane flying out west.
as we were driving to the airport bill called a friend of meg’s (my future sister-in-law) family. randi, who is a radiologist in spokane and used to work with meg’s mom, quickly told us we would be skiing on saturday (ie: get ready to ski your brains out). as I looked down at my cute books and trench coat I was convinced he was crazy. I then reminded bill we had our real estate tour booked for saturday morning. so we got on the phone with the realtor and asked her if we could move it to the next morning. she was great and said she would work on it. we got ahold of the recruiter and made sure she was ok with us switching some stuff around. everyone was more than willing to change things around.
we arrived in super super late and drove the 12 minutes from the airport to downtown (which I LOVE). we stayed at the davenport hotel, which was beautiful. we crashed and were up the next morning for a delicious breakfast at madelines. loving the latte and a quiet breakfast with just weyam.
lisa, our realtor, picked us up and took us on a community/real estate tour and it was fantastic. spokane is a great city. I loved the little neighborhoods, beautiful parks, waterfall rushing through downtown, cute local restaurants and cafes. it reminded me so much of the neighborhoods I loved in madison. overall, we felt really comfortable there. the only bummer was that it was cold and rainy the whole time. what I fell in love with was “my vision”. packing the kids in the jogging stroller and going to a park, café, or dropping them off at a nearby school. then heading out on a trail run in the miles and miles of trails they have in the city. it is protected land right in your backyard. I was smitten.
here is the start of one the paths.
thursday night we met with randi for an hour before we had hors d’oeuvres with the 2 ENTs and their PA. the meeting with randi was great because he was able to give us extra details behind rockwood, spokane and the hospitals in town (he just so happens to be the medical director for rockwood, but is part of a small group of radiologists in spokane). the two ENT drs for rockwood started on the same day 25 years ago and are sweet, but they fully admit they are very inefficient and will be retiring in a few years. it wasn’t the most exciting meeting, but we had been prepared for it.
friday, bill had a full day of meetings (CEO, COO, etc) and tours. we had breakfast at this adorable café-Rockwood Café.
I headed back to the hotel to workout and get ready for lunch with one of Rockwood’s general surgeon’s wife – kristin. it was a great lunch and she was able to go into details about schools, mom groups, churches, rockwood clinic community, etc. almost everyone we met with had moved to spokane and it was nice to see that they felt at home there without having family nearby.
friday, after bill’s meetings, we had arranged to drive up to Schweitzer (ski resort) to Randi and Erin’s condo. Randi would not be able to join us, but Erin was going to be there with their two young daughters. they insisted we come and told us they would have tons of stuff for us to wear. Rockwood was kind enough to pay for us to upgrade our rental to an SUV as we were worried about the amounts of snow they had up there. it was a good decision. they have had about 12 feet (!!!) of snow over the last few weeks. we drove through Coeur d’Alene and then stopped in Sandpoint to grab dinner. When we drove over the bridge into Sandpoint we were stunned. the views were incredible. a blend between the northern lakes of italy and switzerland. big mountains spilling down into this massive massive lake – Pend Oreille. after dinner we started the 30 minute drive up the mountain. as we drove the snow began to pile up. I really can’t remember a time where we saw so much snow. near the top the condos had snow up the sides of the door and garage so you just see the door peaking out. if they left the snow on the roof it was more than 10 feet high. we arrived and settled in.
the next morning we put on Erin and Randi’s gear and it fit perfectly (while mine fit pretty great because Erin is exactly my size. bill’s was a bit sloppier, but worked great.). we drove with erin and her girls up to the mountain and rented demo skis. we met up with her and a local skier jimmy and hit the slopes. there were fresh tracks everywhere and we had incredible fresh powder. the light was pretty flat and it was snowing during the first couple of hours, but probably some o the best snow I have skied in years. the best part of the mountain was the amount of kids and families out skiing. there is a big USSA ski team where kids as young as 5 join. it was a saturday and there were no lift lines. it is a large mountain, but felt like it was a local place. definitely what we would like if it were our “home” mountain. after skiing for the morning we had a great burger at this little place called the outback. again – not a huge swanky lodge, just a little joint. loved it. we skied a few more runs, but our sloppy rental boots were killing our shins. I have huge bruises on my shins from where I was cranking my boots tight enough so I could feel in control. we had to be at a nice dinner at 6pm in spokane so we packed up our stuff and took off. we drove along one part of lake Pend Oreille to see what it was like. ideally, we would like to have a place on water and that would probably be our spot so we had to check it out.
on the hill. totally wearing one of their daughters (8 & 5 yrs old) old ski helmet. I have a super small beezer.
saturday night dinner was at a great local french restaurant called Sante. we went out with Sarah and Dan. Sarah is a pediatrician for Rockwood and Dan is an Anesthesiologist at Sacred Heart/Providence-a different hospital in town. Sarah is actually from Green Bay and went to med school at MCW where she met Dan. it was a delicious dinner and a wonderful way to end our time in spokane. so we are now flying home and I am journaling my thoughts so we can remember them years from now. who knows what our future holds, but we really enjoyed ourselves and I could see us thriving there. bill and I had a great trip away. it is always wonderful to travel together and be able to hang out alone.
2 things. the kids were crazy happy to see us when we arrived home. it was so precious. the cutest was how excited they were to see bill. they think he is da best! also – if you live in rochester – can you please keep this “meeting with rockwood” on the down low. bill is concerned he is going to get a lot of flack for checking out practices so early (I tell to forggetaboutit – but he doesn’t like that). thanks!
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