I’m pretty much brain dead.
These past two days have been a blur. I have stuffed so much information into my head that it feels like the top is going to blow off at any moment.
My job sounds so easy – I schedule patients for procedures. But I can assure you, it is NOT as easy as it sounds. I’m also responsible for pre-certifying procedures and making sure that patients are getting what they need BEFORE their next appointment.
Did I mention I’m scheduling patients for TEN doctors?!? Actually, me and three other girls schedule patients for ten doctors and all ten doctors don’t work on the same day – there are only about three or four that work at the facility in one day. All of the doctors can’t work at the clinic every day, there simply isn’t room for all of them and their patients.
I am feeling overwhelmed. And that’s putting it mildly. I’m brand new to the medical field therefore I know SQUAT. ZILCH. NOTHING. I’m reading pamphlets now to familiarize myself with the procedures and terminology. If all of that wasn’t bad enough, each individual procedure is unique AND THEN there are exceptions to rules.
Lots and lots of exceptions.
I honestly felt like crying today. I felt so out of my element. Everyone is so, SO nice to me and I really hope I don’t let them down. I’m going to try very hard to absorb all of this as quickly as I can – I just wish I was already at the point where I felt comfortable with the procedures. It’s so disorienting being thrown into the middle of so much unknown.
I bought a funky binder tonight, along with sheet protectors and dividers. All of the doctors do things differently, so I’m going to make a section for each of them and keep notes so when it’s their time to work in the clinic, I can pull my notes out and familiarize myself with the way they want things. In addition to molding my work habits to each individual doctor, I (and the other schedulers) often get emails requesting we do a certain thing when a certain situation comes up. So I’ll be printing those emails out and putting those in my binder as well.
Yesterday, I sat with the front desk girls and then sat with another gal to see how the whole process gets started and how they check patients in. Though I felt useless, it was really helpful to see how the whole process all fits together.
Today, I sat with my supervisor and she trained me on the program I’ll be using to schedule patients. I didn’t get to play around with it today, but hopefully, I’ll be able to click around and get familiar with it tomorrow. It’s one thing to have someone show you what to do, but quite another when you get to actually DO it.
I was signing onto my account and setting up my Outlook yesterday when I got an unexpected email sent directly to me. It was from a gal I used to work with at Wal-Mart! She had seen my picture on the company Intranet (they post a picture of their new hires every week) and sent me an email. Talk about a welcome distraction! It really made me feel good that she took the time to say hello. It also made me feel just a little less lonely, too.
I wish I could go into details about the type of work I’m doing and my impressions of the people I’m working with, but of course, I can’t. I do think I have a feel for the other girls’ personalities though. I’ll be honest, it’s a challenge to work with SO MANY different women, but I think I can manage. I plan on remaining neutral, keeping my mouth shut, my opinions to myself , a smile on my face and to be as friendly as I can be to everyone, regardless of what type of feedback I get from them.
That’s really all you can do when you’re surrounded by females. Women can be so cruel to each other and I’m not really sure why, but I’m determined not to go down that road. I’d like to A. keep my job and B. work for this company for many, many years.
Oh. I also bought myself t-shirts and long johns. The clinic allows us to wear t-shirts under our scrubs because it gets so cold and I wore a white t-shirt today. I nearly froze to death this afternoon. In essence, I’m wearing paper-thin pants and my legs and feet were pretty much ice when I left work today. I’m thinking long johns will really come in handy when the temperature drops.
Some gals came over from another facility today to talk to us and they took me back to their building and gave me a tour. When I make appointments for patients, I’m sending them over to this building, so it was really helpful to see what they did. They were super friendly (everyone really has been SO NICE to me!) and I really hope I don’t let them down whenever I start getting into the nitty gritty of things.
It’s really fun to wear different colored scrubs every day. So far, we’ve worn the teal and the lavender scrubs. Tomorrow we’ll wear the wine colored ones. I really felt like I was going to work in my pajamas wearing the lavender ones today. Even though they aren’t very warm, they are super comfortable to wear. I can see why so many women gain weight working in health care – when you wear scrubs, they aren’t tight, or restrict you, so it’s easy to let that pooch go.
I intend to buy a girdle to wear under my scrubs. No really! That way, it will restrict me and remind me that HEY, I have a figure under there (sort of) and if I sit around and eat Doritos all day, I’ll lose it. So yeah – girdle is on the shopping list.
It also doesn’t help when you have a candy dish, meant for patients, staring you in the face, either.
Overall, it’s been a wild, crazy and confusing two days at the clinic. I’m trying hard to retain everything that I’ve been learning and it’s my goal to completely wow them with my awesome multi-task abilities.
Oh. That’s something else. It is REALLY HARD to concentrate on any one thing. There is so much going on and so many people talking, that I’m finding myself paying more attention to what is going on around me than on what I’m supposed to be focused on. I’m really going to have to work hard to train myself to block all of those outside distractions out whenever I start talking to patients either in front of me, or on the phone. The other girls seem to do that quite well but I’m easily distracted and concentrating on the task in front of me is going to be hard, I think.
I’m glad tomorrow is Friday. This week has really stretched out and I’m ready to come down from my stress high, at least for a few days.
Write From Karen 