Our previous visit, 26 years ago!

We are returning to New Zealand after a 26 year hiatus. After Carolyn and I finished our residency in Family Medicine in 1986, we took a 6 week trip to Hawaii, Australia and New Zealand. We had a wonderful whirlwind trip with one week on the North Island and one week on the South. The trip was outstanding and we always meant to go back, never expecting it would take so long. Just last week I was able to get some of our old slides from our trip transferred to digital and it has been fun looking at the highlights of that trip. We had no slide projector so we had not seen these photos in probably 20 years.

For those of you who know us, you can see how we have aged from these photos! You can also see why we were so determined to make it back to visit again! We are now in the final couple of weeks of preparation and I am rapidly reviewing the ACLS algorithms, crossing my fingers that I will have no need for them. At my going away Party at Clinica Campesina last night, Mary gave me some flies to use when stalking those New Zealand Browns and my hope is that they will be muhc more useful than the ACLS algorithms.

Paperwork is completed

Welcome to the first post of our Westport New Zealand blog. My wife Carolyn and I are Family physicians in Boulder Colorado who are in the process of preparing for 6 month Locum tenens positions in Westport with the Buller Medical center. For quite some time we have wanted to experience working in a different medical system and the timing finally seemed right. It took many months of working with the excellent staff at Global Medical, a locum tenens company that specializes in placing physicians in Australia and New Zealand, but we finally received our working visas with our passports back in the mail from the New Zealand embassy last week . The reality of our trip is clearly upon us. Our departure date is January 8th 2013. We will initially fly to Wellington where we have a meeting with the New Zealand medical Board before our licenses are completely approved. While in Wellington, we will visit with some old friends we know from Boulder

, before heading down to Westport to start work.