one year down

In honor of medical mondays and my one-year anniversary of being an occupational therapist, I tweaked my blog title to take away the word "new" and just leave... "therapist".

I'm no longer the new grad/new hire/novice/beginner.  I am a full blown occupational therapist, calling the shots with assessments and goals and barely needing to stop and ask a question, supervising the assistants with confidence and motivation, and holding my own to represent OT in meetings with other therapists and run-ins with the scarce docs, and most of all just the plain old making patients' lives a little better. 

I'm also doing paperwork out the wazooooo and sitting behind a computer 90% of the day........ Because I supervise several COTAs, I'm stuck doing orders, evals, progress reports, recertifications, discharges and G-codes for a caseload equivalent of 3-4 therapists.  I don't really get my own caseload anymore-- the COTAs treat, and then I pop in every 10 visits/30 days to talk to them and "observe their progress" from behind a laptop.  It mostly consists of sifting through pages of typed notes of OT jargon and trying to sift out the real meat and determine where they are and where they are going with the fab five-- dressing, grooming, bathing, toileting and feeding.  And THAT is reeeally hard to do in 30 minutes!

My problem is, when I haven't seen my patient in 10 visits and then I see them and I find out how much progress they made, I can't help but be so excited just to see them in the first place, then catch up with how they are doing, and celebrate their achievements a little bit... that makes it really hard to get the paperwork done.  I also can't STAND to sit in front of a patient typing away and pretending to listen to their story... or worse, sit in total silence except for the click-click-click of my fingers and mouse.

I have too much personality and energy and compassion to be a paper-pusher.
This just isn't for me.  I want to put down the laptop, and the i-touch devices, and the paper and pen.  I want to have both my hands free to work hands-on with the patients, and I want my whole mind free to really get to know them and observe and get in their world so that I can do an even better job of helping them meet their goals for independence and a lot of the time, going HOME.

I officially made it one year in my job and I am really proud of my accomplishment... but sadly, the dream job I thought I was getting myself into a year ago did not turn out to be that way.

It is so hard to be a good therapist from behind a laptop.  I don't feel that my skills as a therapist are growing anymore and my excitement for patients isn't there because I can't make the same connections when all my attention is on paperwork and productivity.  I just can't do it anymore.

I was really hoping that I would have good news to share today about a new job...  but it is still in the pipeline.  I have been a candidate for a pediatrics job that has been looking VERY hopeful...  I last spoke with the therapist that interviewed me, one week ago, when she said she'd be in touch with an offer by the end of the week...  still waiting.  If I get my offer and have it signed this week, I will be putting in my resignation on Friday, according to my very carefully planned out calendar!  I am really hoping everything works out with the timing.  (Not-so-secretly I was planning to have the week of Thanksgiving off completely in between the two jobs, so hopefully this all goes as planned!).

You can be sure I'll be posting with any potential job updates! :)