I’m Monica, an Operating Room Nurse in the Lisbon District, now applying the discipline of high-stakes OR work to technical study towards DevOps.
I started using computers at a young age, and in healthcare I noticed the increasing addition of systems that worked detached from each other.
Then a Raspberry Pi entered the scene. I found these small devices transmitting live data from medical equipment to a newly implemented application in the OR.
This set off my search to understand how software integration and APIs could solve the issues I kept seeing: healthcare IT systems that don’t communicate with each other. In a hospital, that seamless communication is essential for patient safety and team efficiency.
That led me to the software development life cycle, including deployment and automation. Then I realized I’d found what I was looking for.
I learn by experimenting and building in my home lab, troubleshooting issues, breaking things, to then rebuild them in a better way.
After a few hardware experiments and my own laptop repair, I’m building the foundations now: Linux system administration and Bash scripting.
Here I share what I’m learning and the processes involved. I also write about productivity and efficiency: note-taking, learning strategies, and deep work practices that support dedicated learning.
While still working a rotating shift schedule, I studied 103 hours in a single month against an 84-hour estimate. Getting up at 04:30h to study before morning shifts in the OR is what built the habit, even on my days off. That experiment is the reason I can study full-time now.
About This Website
Building this website with the Hugo framework was my first project. It was both challenging and rewarding, since I had never worked on something like this before.