checklist

tickets
passport
first hotel info
second hotel info
third hotel info
slide show (printed)
other slide show
memory stick with slide show
meeting program
rabbit
catlitter
plants moved to kitchen
email to catguy about plants
cats in
... er, two cats in. Third cat will be dining in the unheated cellar again.
camera, zoom lens, etc
socks & suchlike
package sent to Iasi
points for lab meeting sent to colleague
office plants moved to secretaries' care
grant to boss
...er, passed through a colleague but that should be good
taxi to the airport just in time!

Only failure I'm aware of so far: battery in camera is just about dead, and the two spares are at home. Shit.

I should have known

Really, what was I thinking?

A few weeks ago, the bossguy sent around the notice from the Ligue (one of the private non-profit cancer research funding organisations) saying it was grant-writing season for big equipment that could be co-financed. He wanted to know what sorts of things we had in mind.

So I responded that an automated DNA extractor for the diagnostic lab probably fit their criterea and is certainly something we need.

I thought, from the way he put his question, was that he was gathering up our ideas in order to make an executive decision about which one to put forth. After all, we can't send in half a dozen grants, for everything from everyday equipement to the lastest in genomic rocket science, with no rhyme or reason or coordination between them. They can only afford one Christmas present for us: better to send in one perfect request they can't deny than a packet of half-baked ones sure to fail.

I figured he'd get back to us on that. All he asked me was to identify a potential item.

So last Friday he just mentioned in passing I'd be sending in that grant by the deadline, right?

ah....
****
....
when's that deadline again? Thursday. Great.

the onion that is France

So last week there was the reprieve, and that's good. We're continuing our efforts to validate our methods in the international-norm-sense of the term, just taking a little breather over the All Saints break.
But at the Cancer Genetics Group meeting in Paris yesterday, our leader showed us the draft of the new texts coming up in parallel to all the other ones. Ready for alphabet soup?
The ABM requires that labs be accredited by the COFRAC to ISO15189 standards, ok we've been over that. Now the ABM is developing a best-practice guidelines document that we have to follow in addition to being accredited. Almost everything in there is stuff we're already required to do for the COFRAC! It goes a little more toward the clinicians prescribing tests, but otherwise it's just another thing to adhere to that we already adhere to anyway.
On top of that, as if one redundancy was not enough, the ABM is developing a guide to help the ARS inspect laboratories too!
Um, why does the ARS have to inspect labs that are already up to snuff with the rather draconian international standard?
What do they even know about inspecting labs? (thus the guide, of course) The ARS is the local body that says that hospitals in the region may exist, and you have to renew that agreement now and then. We send them an activity report every year.
Now they're going to inspect us too? Having audits and reviews is so fun, lets multiply them!

more not much

wow, that last one was a lame post. Have I ever written worse? Bo-ring. Usually I can get into that particular mood and draw a laugh or something from the surreal experiences of the French Bureaucracy.
This time, I appear to have broken down entirely.
I have become a lifeless drone.
I have become this dull being with pasty white skin and atrophied muscles from staying inside all summer and thus far all autumn, slaving away at work. The walk from my office to my living room is the only exercise I get, aside from the occassional detour to the bridge table.
Well.
It isn't raining.
Perhaps I should hike down to the train station & pick up my tickets for next week. It's not a marathon, but it'll get me off my butt.
.

Reprieve

Well, the stress is off for the rest of the week. The extra stress, that is: all that normal work piled up is still To Do.
I haven't been blogging much about it, but the lab is obliged to earn accreditation soon, and the initial dossier for partial accreditation was due, not a minute past and no exceptions, on Oct 31st. Our Quality Dude decided that our dossier was due this Friday, because next week there's the All Saints' school holiday & he is taking the week off. Ya gotta have your priorities.
So! Friday, huh, for having the Validation des Mèthodes for sequencing finished, and the 18 documents that make up the initial dossier all ready and signed, and all of it in the mail. A tall order, but possible with enough tearing of hair and gnashing of teeth and shivering in anguish and artful dodging and suchlike. Several of the 18 documents refer to other documents that make up our Quality System. Most of those other documents have names, at least the ones high up in the documentary heirarchy. Name, yes, but little else.
Monday morning we discovered that France, in its infinite wisdom and generosity, has changed the calender.
Oh, thank goodness.
What, now, with a week to go?!
Any reprieve is welcome.
The next deadline, the one at the end of May, is maintained. And at that time the various documents not only have to be named, but filled out. So we still have our work cut out for us. It used to be that we'd send an initial dossier now, and the COFRAC would ask for supporting documents as necessary before visiting us and looking us over in person sometime before May 31st. Now we just have until May 31 to send the whole thing.
Right now we're looking over our shoulders to see they're not changing the calender back. They've done that before. Last spring there was a law passed saying the whole thing was moved back two years, and just a week or two later they passed a new law cancelling the one that cancelled the old calendar.
Make up your minds!

We all think that the COFRAC looked up from its paperwork and noticed the gigantic tidal wave of dossiers arriving, all of which had to be gone over & the labs visited in the next 7 months, and realised there was just no way. They're drowning in the dossiers that have already been submitted.
It was certainly our plan to submit at (nearly) the last minute and thus be last-ish on the visit schedule. This is better.
The thing is to not take too much of a breather - just enough for our health - because even May 31 to have everything completed is pretty tight.
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