* Working every weekend gets old
You work either every Saturday or Sunday. In my experience Saturdays are always the busiest and you have the least amount of resources - imaging is wildly inconsistent. Its the exception when everything is up and running.
* They treat you and your license like a guinea pig.
Providers were randomly assigned to be on the "Family Medicine" team despite experience or lack thereof. It seems most problematic with internal referrals, ie having a complicated patient be sent to these random providers, instead of the actual Family Medicine MDs. The patient's expectations are completely mismanaged leading to frustration for everyone involved. To add to this our EMR wasn’t really set up for Family Medicine and instead of getting EPIC, the system that communicates with the 2 major hospital systems that we’re supposed to be “connected with,” they picked Athena. Don't even get me started on how the EMR roll out is going.
The question I keep coming back to.….couldn’t this have avoided this by asking for volunteers to join the Fam Med team?
* The set up is a pro/con depending on how you look at it, its just you and a “ZA” (functions as half front of house/half MA).
The ZAs aren't actually medically trained which feels like a liability at times. You are doing the entire visit including vitals/swabs/injections etc in a 15 minute visit.
Secondly if your ZA is physically or mentally unstable and/or isn’t well trained, it is extremely nerve wracking to practice in that environment on a daily basis and to have to consider if they may become one of your patients.
* Micromanaged by those without medical experience and to boot demonstrated many times that they can't actually differentiate urgent care vs primary care vs family medicine
The metrics they analyze miss the point on what good care looks like, ie a provider who gives out the z-pack with every cough/cold probably has a great NPS score.
For example, one of the things they do look at under a microscope is the time you spend with patients, the time you check someone in until check out. What this misses entirely is charting after the visit!
Its all delivered with a dose of toxic positivity which for me feels both condescending and crazy making.
