Hi again, all.
I just graduated as an NP in December. Right before I did, I got a phone call from a local doc with a job offer. This clinic is about 10-15 minutes from my house, and is a family practice/internal med clinic. I had known the doc for a while, so I took the job. It started out great. Then all heck broke loose.
I am an ACNP, or will be as soon as I sit my test. I'm training, trying to get "un-ERed", which was where I did the bulk of my precepting. ACNPs can't do women's health or see kiddos. This was explained and agreed upon at the interview. There was a second NP there that could see these, so no problem. Then she wasn't there anymore.
Now I am back in school, getting my FNP certificate, waiting to sit my test, training, and feeling a bit like I have landed in Bedlam. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE what I'm doing, but I am so on tenterhooks I can't think straight. My boss is paying my tuition, since the FNP certification is for the benefit of the clinic, so that I can run it when she is away. That generosity is not lost on me.
I got called into the office manager's office the other night before I left, who had a list of complaints that the doc had about me. (Doc will not say much to you herself, she lets the OM handle it). One was the fact that I am too loud. Yes, my voice carries. I sing, I have trained it to project, and there is NO insulation in the office, so you can hear a whisper in the next room.
Another was the fact that I spend too long with patients. Well, I'm sorry, I'm new at this, and when you have a patient who's on enough B/P meds to kill an ox, 300+ pounds, and whose B/P is still sky-high, it takes a while to calm him down. The suggested approach of "You're too fat, you need to lose some weight" is something I have not hardened myself to yet. I may never. I can't think I'd take it too well coming from my 130-pound self.
And then there was the issue of me cherry-picking the patients, taking the easy ones and leaving the hard ones for her. On this, I have no clue. The only reasoning I could come up with is perhaps she meant the times that I will clear 2 rooms who just need refills before I go to an illness, because the illness will take a bit longer, and while I am in there, 2 more patients can be brought back. I though that was time management, and with no idea who got where when, I did not realize there was a certain order. The rooms are not numbered. I have never left a harder case for her just because I did not want it. She will refuse to see certain troublesome ones, but she is the boss, and that is her right.
I am expected to see 20 patients a day, which is fine. I always see 15 or more, but I guess she felt I was slacking.
For obvious reasons, this bothered me, as I thought, for 2 months in, I was doing well. Th OM told me not to let it bother me, which begged the question, how can it not? I have begun keeping track of how many I see in a day, for my defense, should that be brought up again. I am now quiet to the point that the billing girl asked if I was sick. Nothing else has been said yet, but I have this niggling feeling like the other shoe will drop any time.
The clinic has a high turnover, yes, but I do not want to quit. I had thought that we had a good rapport until that OM convo. Doc hugged my neck before she left last week and said that I saved her butt on a particularly busy day. I appreciate the notice, but at the same time I wonder if I should check my back. According to OM, she "was just having one of her days" and "I got on her nerves".
What do y'all think? I LOVE what I do. I really like it, it's close to home, I like the people, it's where I grew up. Would you let it ride, say something, let it go? I'm new at this aspect, and were I not, my outspoken self would probably already be fired. Thanks for reading and for advice.
Angelfire
