Sorry, this is my first post so let me know if I did anything wrong!
Basically I don't know if I should look for a new job or continue working at my current office. I am in my early 30s and I work for a small-medium private practice in a specialty (I don't want to give too much away) in the southeast. I make 80,000 per year and the practice I work for doesn't really give raises. That said, I don't have kids and my husband and I are DINKS (double income no kids) so while more money would be nice I admit it's not a HUGE deal. I get 10 vacation days per year and after 5 years I will get 15. And that's the max I will ever get. No sick time. If I'm sick that comes out of my pto for vacation.
So on to why my job is amazing. Relatively low stress, 30 minute appointments and usually I'm not fully booked. Sometimes I will have like 8 patients a day sometimes 16. A good mix of office visits and procedures. Most of the patients are very nice. Our medical director is great, extremely intelligent, very nice and respectful. He has become like family to me at this point. I know so much about our specialty and feel very confident with almost everyone who walks in the door (or if I don't I call the medical director/supervising physician and he will walk me through it. Sometimes I even just text him a picture if I'm not sure). It is very important to me to have low stress at work. When I was a floor nurse I was constantly stressed and I promised I wold never put myself through that again.
On to the cons:
I feel some of what we do is pointless. Some of the procedures I really think we go overboard and are treating people who ultimately aren't going to get much better. The 10 days of vacation is also simply not enough. I want to see the world and feel I can't do that. My husband gets like 4 weeks of vacation. Also I don't know if how much I make is in line with other people of my experience level. I'm not sure if the knowledge I'm gaining is going to be super helpful in any other area. If I got fired and had to work in primary care I would be like a new grad unless their complaint was something related to my current specialty. Sometimes also we don't get a medical assistant and that can be really stressful especially when there are a lot of procedures or new patients (aka lots of charting). I also feel really bad when we have patients getting serious side effects (health wise or cosmetically displeasing) from our treatment. I also have to drive really far sometimes depending on which office I'm in (sometimes as far as an hour each way). I usually have to commute 2-3 times a week. Sometimes less sometimes more.
ANYWAY, sorry for the wall of text but I just needed some insight from folks who have had more experiences than me. I will say all of our NPs and PAs (we have 8) have been working here for YEARS, very low turnover rate. Maybe I'm just being a baby and should leave well enough alone.
