I am heartbroken I got fired for the first time as a nurse

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In May I got laid off my 1.5 nursing job at a clinic and landed a job three weeks ago in a physician practice. The doctor was moving out of a several care group to on his own. They hired me as the only nurse and they wanted me to run the lab too. I had not done labs for many years but they said the receptionist worked at medic several years and she could train me. The launch date was August 4. I was nervous but I had many successful sticks and needed help with a few. I was also learning the new emr and we has 18 patients the first day. I was expected to do MAWV visits in 15 mins, room and do vitals do all labs answer phone messages run the labs and learn to check in and check out patients, do injections, nurse visits. The office manager occasionally roomed and the doctor would jump ahead and room patients if not done to his time frame. The office manager put down pulse readings as respirations. I worked so hard learning the lab procedures and I finally achieved the perfect TB bubble! I was proud of my accomplishments of the last week and a half. Then the office manager called in hr and they fired me for not being able to perform the duties of the job. BTW they didn't wanted me to rush the answers on the Medicare wellness visits to save time and get more money which I did not want to do.

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I am not surprised they did this to you under the circumstances. I would not waste any time obsessing about it. Just start a renewed job search and keep in mind, as you gain experience, you will be less susceptible to fiascos like this one.

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Specializes in Case mgmt., rehab, (CRRN), LTC & psych.

Perhaps they felt you moved too slowly to keep up with the busy pace of the doctors' office if the both physician and the office manager were having to occasionally room patients.

I'm so sorry this happened to you. Learn a lesson from this, then dust yourself off and get back into the swing of a new job search. Good luck to you!

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Thank you for the kind comments. Many of the patients are elderly. I am not rushing elderly patients blood draws shots labs. I was using a school desk and propping peoples arms on a pillow for a lab chair. I worked in a very fast paced pediatric clinical and did it well before being laid off. The office manager suggested we use a cut in half pool noodle for lab. It was a very lovely office but not well thought out clinically.

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Not well thought out clinically if the receptionist is doing lab draws, and other non-clinical staff are rooming patients and doing some vitals.

Sounds to me as if your main focus, according to them, was doing the Medicare computer work as to get the max reimbursement, because you had the letters after your name to do so. Otherwise, ya, ya, ya, stick em, and get em out and move on.....

All about the dollars, no sense, and thank goodness they let you go before someone was not well on a wellness visit--and you got thrown under the bus as your focus was on getting through the computer, and on to the next money maker.....and "they wanted me to rush" would not have saved your career.

They did you a huge favor. Go forward and don't look back.

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Greedy doctor went out on his own .. to rake in as much Medicare bucks as possible.

Greedy doctor hires bare minimum amount of inexperienced staff to keep as much of these bucks as possible.

It's not you, it's them. Assess the situation, learn from it and move on.

Good luck.

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Specializes in Clinical Documentation Specialist, LTC.

I know it stings right now, but they absolutely did you a huge favor. Brush yourself off and go get that great job in a much better run clinic :)

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Specializes in HH, Peds, Rehab, Clinical.

I'm really not sure what qualifications the receptionist would have lab-wise with a medic background. Red flag right there to me. Be glad you didn't have to make the decision to leave!

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Specializes in Med/Surg, LTACH, LTC, Home Health.

I worked at a doctor's office for 10 months. I left when I got tired of having to cash my paycheck at the corner liquor store, being made to look like an idiot because HE forgot to order a particular lab (so it was not collected), and the final straw was when a patient came in for a routine check-up and was complaining of being thirsty. Given other details of symptoms, I knew his blood sugar had to be elevated although he was not a diabetic (until that moment). Long story short: glucose reading of HI, referred to ER, venipuncture glucose of 890, and the doctor scolding me because I checked the man's sugar when he didn't order an accucheck in the office. That was the LAST time that doctor ever saw my eyes. I turned and walked away, never to even THINK about returning to office work!:no:

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Specializes in Clinical Documentation Specialist, LTC.
I worked at a doctor's office for 10 months. I left when I got tired of having to cash my paycheck at the corner liquor store, being made to look like an idiot because HE forgot to order a particular lab (so it was not collected), and the final straw was when a patient came in for a routine check-up and was complaining of being thirsty. Given other details of symptoms, I knew his blood sugar had to be elevated although he was not a diabetic (until that moment). Long story short: glucose reading of HI, referred to ER, venipuncture glucose of 890, and the doctor scolding me because I checked the man's sugar when he didn't order an accucheck in the office. That was the LAST time that doctor ever saw my eyes. I turned and walked away, never to even THINK about returning to office work!:no:

Wow...What a donkey's rear! When I triage patient who has not been diagnosed with diabetes, and the patient tells me he/she is always thirsty along with other symptoms, I automatically check the glucose level without the provider ordering one. I may be wrong, but Isn't that considered a nursing judgement?

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Sometimes the hard lessons aren't a message about who YOU are, but about the situation in general. This is about them, not you -- so refuse to take it on as a personal failure if you can?

*Hugs* to you! I'm looking forward to you reopening this thread to tell us how you put this behind you!

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Specializes in Dialysis, Facility Administrator.

When I was an LPN, my first job was in a pediatric physician's office and I lasted 12 weeks. The expectations are unrealistic and dangerous.

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