Major vent/rant ahead-TL;DR at the bottom:
I posted on another subreddit about a year ago with struggling in the clinic scene (I’m an RN of almost 2 years now), it’s gotten worse and I’m finally making a leap to get out of this mess I’ve found myself in.
The coworker I mentioned in a previous post walked out back in August, ever since I’ve been trying to pick up the pieces and manage most, if not everything by myself. The providers had friends of theirs who have worked in healthcare reception before to help manage check-ins while I did triage and patient care. Whenever our help failed to complete their work or flat out did not do it correctly I was the one to pick it all up and fix it. All of this while managing 30-70 patients a day everyday. This means I handled check-ins, insurance verifications and issues, billing, referrals, direct patient care, labs, etc. etc.
I’ve shown up everyday and did the best work I could possibly muster while handling the work of what normally takes 3-4 people at once. I did manage some vacation time a couple of weeks before Christmas, but ever since I’ve been back I’ve been talked down upon, treated and talked to like I’m stupid and not doing anything good enough. Referrals have been very behind (at least 1-3 months+) which I feel terrible about but for most I have NO time to sit on the phone to conduct the referral, some take upwards of 15 mins before I get to talk to anybody.
Light cleaning has only been possible, light sweeping and basic sanitation in between patients and at the end of the day, god forbid I take too long and I get started yelled at from across the clinic to hurry up and/or how they have other places to be so stuff can be finished tomorrow. There have also been plenty of comments about how providers shouldn’t have to clean up/take out trash/clean bathrooms etc. etc. which I can agree with if there were at least 3-4 other employees to help out with everything. The clinic “fully staffed” right now is 2 employees and 2 providers, it’s just not possible to keep up with all the little stuff while seeing 30-60+ patients everyday. Any training/questions/help our new receptionist has falls on me, anything the providers don’t want to do or shouldn’t have to do falls on me. My desk looks like a tornado hit it all day everyday.
It’s gotten to the point I get snipped at by the providers for small things, like not hearing me when I call out room numbers to them when I put patients back because they have music blaring in the office or they’re too busy hee-hawing and it drowns out anything I could say anyways. They refuse to look at me in the face now, it’s been so stressful over this week that I’ve been dealing with headaches/neck pain, chest tightness, and probably high BP just from the squeezing sensation I get in my ears. HR stays 100+ until I’m at home for the night.
I’ve applied to another local clinic but they decided to not move forward with my application (which is encouraging /s), I’m making applications to the VA and even the IRS because I’m about ready to toss my license to the wind at this point. I feel like my skills are lacking and my license isn’t even worth the paper I can print it on.
TL;DR: The clinic I work at became 10x more toxic and I’m drowning with no help. Ready to give up on nursing entirely. I do also have a therapist I will be bringing this up with, I just hope someone here can at least understand how insane this is.