Wednesday, September 18, 2013

dreading the backlash

This week I took an extra day off in order to spend a long weekend biking in Allegheny park in NY/PA. I took ONE DAY and came home to 40 messages in my EMR inbox and a backlog of crap to deal with. My stress level shot up to 13/10. Maybe even 20/10. I felt like I never left. I hope my 2 week vacation doesn't end up this way.

4 comments:

XE said...

Oh jeez.
Is it going to be one of those paradoxical situations where you take more time off and yet have less work to catch up because the rest of the practice will know that you're off for a prolonged period and so look after your patients while you're gone?
(A girl can dream...)
Have a great vacation! :)

Liana said...

Can you do something where you cover your practice partner when they're on holidays and they do the same for you?

medstudentitis said...

We do cover each other but there are inevitable questions that I can only answer and "FYI"s about my patients.

Dr. J said...

I spent my first 2 years out in a practice that owned my life, where my partners thought doctors were missionaries and where everyday that passed meant that I was a little bit farther behind on everything. I joined committees, tried to improve things and got nowhere. It was not until I left that I realized that all of my partners liked their crazy system just fine and I really was the odd man out.

I found something much better, something that gave me a happier life, but it took some risk, some time and great change to get there. I made some people angry, and I disappointed some others. It may be that I just wasn't a very good family doctor, and I've given serious consideration to that possibility (I've been an emerg doc for many years now). But, when a practice owns you, when you are stressed out everyday, when you stop enjoying the thing that you spent your life becoming, it doesn't matter if it is you or the practice. It is life, there is no second chance and no do-over. Sometimes it is time to move on to something else.

My 2 cents....Dr. J