The Christmas Letter for anyone who missed it

Sampert Family Christmas Letter 2009

Merry Christmas! We hope you’re enjoying the season and all is well with you and your families! Things are well here—busy as always, but good! I’m now in the last 6 months of my residency which is pretty exciting! We also have BIG news—I found out yesterday that I got my fellowship in pediatric gastroenterology!!!!!!!!!! (Fellowship is 3 years of training in a sub-specialty after residency) It’s pretty uncommon to get selected for fellowship right out of residency in the Army, so we were NOT expecting this at all, but even more surprisingly, I was selected to get a funded spot at a civilian program, which means that we can go anywhere! There are 50+ Peds GI fellowships so we’re narrowing it down now.

The Army will fund me wherever I’m accepted, but my friends/colleagues who’ve received this opportunity in other subspecialties have had their pick, because essentially I’m free labor—the Army will still pay my salary and like residents, fellows do quite a bit of work! This opportunity is especially reassuring because the majority of my friends have been deployed within 6 months of graduating residency, so we were a

bit anxious about the prospect of deployment coming up soon for me,

but now I’ll be non-deployable for another 3.5 years until I’m finished

with fellowship, and then I’ll go for 6 months as a subspecialist instead of

12 months as a general pediatrician when my time comes! Let’s all keep praying

for world peace in the meantime! We’ll keep you all posted on the

search for a fellowship program—we’re looking at Salt Lake, Denver,

San Diego, Houston, and San Francisco so far, and would like to stay

West, although the majority of the programs are definitely out East..

In the meantime we’re so excited that the busy pace of residency

will soon be behind us! My fellow residents and staff are amazing

people, but being on call for 30 hours straight every 4th or 5th

day is not so great. Although I’ll still be busy as a fellow, I’ll take

call from HOME which will be an exciting transition! We’re looking

forward to getting to spend more time together starting in July! ☺

Bob is still staying busy himself, working for Bath Fitter

remodeling bathrooms and showers. He took a weekend

off this fall and put a new shower in for his grandma which

she loves, and he got to enjoy some time with his family

too. He’s stayed busy with projects around the house too,

and that trend will definitely continue as we get ready to

sell this spring! He’s still involved with the Scouts at church and

that keeps him pretty busy too. He’s had some fun camping

trips with them and went white water rafting this summer and

I’m sure will plan some fun snow trips this winter!

We were able to relax a little this year as well. With as much as I work, we try to make the most of the 3 weeks of leave I get to use each year! Here are the highlights:

March: I got to go to Alaska for work—I was in Fairbanks and it was very pretty even during the “melt” which the locals kept apologizing for—not as pretty as the winter or summer I’m sure, but I loved the highs in the 60’s! I was expecting COLD!

May: Alaska cruise with Bob’s folks! Despite never going there before, somehow I went twice in a few months! We had a wonderful time! The ship had tons to do so even at sea we were very entertained, and in port there was always a lot to see. We went to Juneau, Sitka, Ketchikan, Glacier Bay, and Victoria, B.C. on our way back and had a great time. We saw tons of animals including a fair amount of whales and dolphins, and got see some glaciers calve too which was pretty impressive. We did a bunch of ziplines in Juneau, watched a lumberjack show in Ketchikan, did a neat wildlife boat tour in Sitka, and had fun exploring all the towns.

June: we went to the San Juan Islands for a weekend and kayaked with orcas, which was incredible!

July: I was home for a month rotating at Sacred Heart in their

PICU (Pediatric Intensive Care Unit) and Bob came out for a

week of it so we loved getting to see our families and friends

and watched the fireworks from the boat on Lake

Coeur d’Alene which is always a treat!

August: DC for 9 days to interview for fellowship (the Army

program is there at Walter Reed) and got to visit Cristy and

Nathaniel and a good friend from high school.

September: Home for a weekend for Joe and Sandy’s

wedding which was wonderful

November: Orlando for a week of vacation and went to

Disney World, Sea World, Universal Studios, and had

a great time!

December: We’re excited to be home for Christmas and

look forward to seeing many of you!

We wish all of you a very Merry Christmas! We

hope the New Year blesses all of you and we’re grateful

for the many blessings 2009 has brought us!

Love,

Cathy, Bob, and Lilo