I left a perfectly good cardiology job to work for my primary care doc, whom I'd known for 26 years, after he called and nearly begged me to come work for him. Historically, the man hated NPs, so I was flattered, to say the least.
Never having done primary care to speak of (with the exception of the infamous "All is not Well" incident), I had a lot to learn, and we both knew it.
In the course of three months, I was seeing upwards of 20 patients on some days (not all), had passed my 2nd set of boards (meaning I was double certified), and had been farmed out to a satellite clinic that doc had gone in with, where they needed an NP to cover some days. This did not sit well with either me or doc's wife, as we found out about it on the same day, but I went and made the best of it.
Today, fresh off a weekend that doc was away, where we saw upwards of 50 patients, worked down 2 nurses, and treated doc's wife for food poisoning, I figured I'd at least get an "Atta girl".
Wrong.
I went in after clinic to ask if I had made any major oopsies that we needed to discuss, and he had 4 charts on his desk out of the 50+ that I had seen (not too bad for 3 months in, if I do say so), but he said we had bigger problems.
He shuts the door, and proceeds to tell me that the business is not picking up like he had hoped it would, and that I am not seeing enough people to cover mine and my assistant's salary. It went on, with him saying that I WAS improving, majorly so in the past two weeks, so that he felt that he didn't have to follow me so closely, but that the practice was taking a hit.
So I asked him, "Are you firing me?"
He said "We can't afford to keep you".
So, in a nutshell, I'm improving, but I cost too much. Kinda like telling someone that they have cancer and have 3 months to live, but GREAT NEWS!, their cholesterol levels are fabulous!
I don't know what to do. He made mention of possibly having me back as hourly PRN, but I don't even know if I can stand the thought of seeing him again as my doc, let alone working there anymore. His wife (also the OM) was just sobbing when I left, she apparently had no idea, we've been talking on Facebook all evening, with her thinking that I'm mad, and once I get past the numb, I probably will be, but not at her.
This wasn't what I signed up for. Any advice would be great. Thank you.
