My Typical Day at Work in Thailand...

written February 10, 2008:

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything. Well, what can I say…I’ve been working. So what is my day like, you may ask, now that I’m all settled in, working at a 5 Star Spa in Thailand? I’ll paint a picture for you….I have two kinds of mornings: wake up at 6:30 and head up one floor to the gym in my 4 story staff house building, do aerobics on the roof, or head for the beach and take a swim in the ocean. My other morning is: lie in bed until the very last minute possible, grab a quick breakfast in the staff cafeteria on the main floor, and then head to work.

At about 8:30, I’m off to work and embark on my commute….a 3 minute walk down the alley that runs along the outside of the resort. I head out the door with an umbrella of course, like all the other Thai women, to protect my skin from the sun. Being a Seattle native, I’ve never imagined I would ever do such a thing! But if you add up 3 minutes x 4 commutes a day (I return to the staff house for lunch), that equals 12 minutes. 12 minutes x 6 days a week x 52 weeks in a year = that comes to 3744 minutes, or 62.4 hours, of sun during my commute in a year! And that doesn’t include all the other times I’m in the sun! So you see, the umbrella suddenly doesnt sound like such a silly thing anymore, does it?!

I cross over ‘the wall’ and enter the resort through a little maze of very industrial looking, stark hallways that run underneath the resort. I think whomever designed these secret, underground, staff-only hallways must have done so borrowing ideas from the layout of Italian fortress cities, making sure that the design was so confusing that if one’s enemy ever entered the city, they would surely never find their way to the center of town. Nonetheless, I have been here for a month now and have successfully made it to my office everyday.

I sit down at my computer and check who I will be seeing that day. We are sent a little email with their photos and the proper way to greet them. It could be Mr. and Mrs., Lord and Lady, The Honorable and the Honorable, King and your Highness…no joke. Havent personally worked with the later, but have with all the other titles. “The Honorable so and so” whom I worked with, he asked me to just call him David…and suddenly that was who he was, simply David.

Let me digress…I find it absolutely fascinating to be working with people from all over the world. Today I had 2 Japanese women, a Russian man, an English woman, a woman from Ireland, a couple from Switzerland, a man from Malaysia (well, actually they weren’t all today…more like the last few days, but anyway…). What this job does is it makes me acutely aware that each one of us should put aside all the cultural barriers, colors of skin, style of clothing, financial status, etc….and realize just how similar we all are. Everyone has some sort of physical issue, family stuff, emotional situation… Upon arrival in my office, I may at first feel nervous that I will have a difficult time talking with this person for x, y, or z reasons…but as the hour goes by, it becomes very clear to me that this person and I have a lot in common. It’s an awesome experience. We really are just one big global community.

Anyway, I meet with them upon their arrival at the resort to go over their medical history and any present conditions that we need to be aware of before taking part in the activities at the resort. We have a full physiotherapy division for those needing help with bad backs, shoulders, knees, recent surgery recovery, etc. We have a full fitness staff with personal trainers, yoga instructors, Thai kick boxing master, etc for those here to improve their fitness. We have a whole team of holistic healers…meditation practitioners, reiki masters, EFT, Chi Nei Tsang, breathing techniques, etc. And of course, we have over 30 massage therapists that do a whole host of various massage techniques.

During their introductory visit with me is when I encourage them to come and see me for an hour to talk about their health from a Naturopathic perspective and to give them treatment and lifestyle suggestions that the MDs out there have never informed them of. Here is the quintessential example of that: I had a woman in my office with osteopenia (pre-osteoporosis) and asked her if she did weight training as a part of her routine to keep her bones strong (which is the most BASIC suggestion that every woman with brittle bones should know about and do). Her answer was, “Why should I do that? My doctor said I would be fine if I just take this pill for the rest of my life.” What more can I say….

Right now I’m doing more first day consults than Naturopathic consults, but that will be shifting over the next months because they have plans to hire people to do that part so we can be freed to practice fully as NDs, and drop all the first day check in stuff.

And that’s my day at the office. I head out for my commute at 6pm, usually go the long way via the beach to take in a few breaths of the beauty of the ocean and the sky, head back to the cafeteria for dinner, and then to my room to catch up on emails and writing to you guys in my blog. As for today, its my day off so I’m headed to do some errands at ‘the mall’ and then off to relax on the beach! Love to you all!