Signing Day -- Ben Signs with OSU

There wasn't anything special about today, it was just the day I actually got around to sitting down with a pen to sign the contract, which officially arrived last Monday.  The signature on the page is pretty special though, for a couple reasons, one big one is that I have a job!  This is an academic position with the Ohio State University, so besides the traditional doctor job of seeing patients, I'll also be allowed (though I'm not sure how well qualified) to teach the medical students, residents, and fellows.  It's exciting to be moving on to a new place, and scary at the same time, since it'll be another big move for us, although this time to a place where we'll have family in the area and be a lot closer to Chicago.  The Endocrine Department at OSU is nationally recognized, mainly for treatment of thyroid cancer, and research in type I diabetes (they were one of the first places to do pancreas transplants), and I will be helping to form a new metabolic subdivision.  Part of my job will be to work alongside a bariatric surgeon (gastric bypass and other types of weight loss surgeries) to help co-manage the patients' endocrine disorders both before and after surgery.  The thing I'm excited about is the almost limitless potential in terms of research and developing future treatments, since gastric bypass is a fairly new approach to treating diabetes (although the surgery has been around for a while, mainly as a means of weight loss).  The biggest challenge for the short term is the upcoming move, and we'll be sad to leave RI since we do like this quirky little state, but this was an opportunity both to be closer to family and to move up professionally.  The folks at OSU have been very accommodating, living up to the "midwest nice" that we keep hearing about here on the East Coast.  At the end of March we'll be visiting Columbus to try to find a place to live when we move in July.  The one thing that will be a challenge for sure is being able to put up with OSU football fans and faking interest in the sports teams.  We've survived this long in New England though being both Cubs and Bears fans, so I'm sure we'll be fine in Columbus rooting for someone other than the home team (go Wildcats!).

Oh, and I almost forgot, that giant pen was given to me by my grandma when I graduated from med school, she said it was for signing the really important prescriptions in the coming years, so this also seemed fitting!  And no, I didn't sign everything with that pen, by the way, it's just too big.