The penultimate week of orientation was another solid one. More quality information shared, more socializing, more good eats, more sporting events. The last two weekends have also been Embassy Open House around DC and Embassy Row near Dupont Circle. What this means is several embassies open up their door, let you look around, and have various cultural displays/events to view. It’s very cool and quite interesting, but also very popular. The lines were pretty brutal, so we were only able to see just a few places.

We are now staring down the final week of orientation which features both the all important “Flag Day” early in the week, and ends with the ceremonial swearing in. It’s exciting to finally be at the point where we can plan our lives around our new destination, and start planning our final pack-out, necessary car purchases, and getting the rest of our ducks in a row.

A heads up for folks that might not know what “Flag Day ” is, basically, a presenter will announce what country each person will be assigned to. It remains virtual, but in orientations passed, you would walk up to a little stage, shake hands with the orientation staff, and collect a little flag for your destination country. We will still get flags, but the ceremony will be conducted virtually.

The final week of orientation will culminate with a ceremonial swearing in, which at this point might be in person, and from there I move onto the meat and potatoes of my training regime, which should last into July.

It will definitely be bittersweet moving on from general orientation as folks head into specialized training or to post, but it seems for the most part my core group of friends outside MED will be hanging around for a bit, which is fantastic. I can’t express enough how wonderful the people I have met are, and I hope these connections last through my career. Otherwise, I’m excited to have my brain working like a provider again, and getting some focused medical training. General orientation is great, but it isn’t exactly mentally trying, especially if you have worked in healthcare over the last couple of years.

It’s getting exciting. Once I get my post assignment I’ll be sure to post on it here, explain my bidding strategy a bit more, and go into some details of how I’m feeling, and what comes next. Until next time! –Nick