One of my fellow blog readers ended up working with the same company as me but at the St. Petersburg, Florida site. It’s about 45 minutes from my assignment in Bradenton. We didn’t have the chance to meet in person, because she was told she didn’t need to go to the regional meetings, although I always go to them (and they expect me there).
It was cool to connect with her over the phone and to guide her a bit as she adjusted to working with the company for the first time. She even asked me to look at her notes when I had the chance to make sure she was doing everything correctly – which she was.
Her training was brief – about one week for orientation and to shadow other providers. She agreed that working with this company is a learning curve and the patients are quite sick. Unfortunately, there wasn’t another nurse practitioner at her clinic that could train her further.
The following month, my clinic hired another locums nurse practitioner. After her orientation, I suggested that I train her a few extra days so that she could get a hang of things.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have a good experience with this locums nurse practitioner. She kept showing up to work at least 20 minutes late. She had quite an attitude that I thought maybe was just towards me, but then other employees started commenting on it as well. She told our employer that she speaks Spanish but when we went to see the Spanish speaking patients, she asked me to translate. Now I know why sometimes potential locums sites will ask for you to speak some medical Spanish during the job interview.
Additionally, the patients complained about her – they didn’t want to see her again. I am not sure if it was an attitude issue or a knowledge issue. She tried to stir up some drama telling my referrals person that people told her my referral person, the girl who sits next to her, and me are a clique and to stay away from us. This was during her first week – when no one even spoke to her besides me so I doubt anyone told her that and I thought it was weird for her to even bring that up. What new person would instigate drama? Not to mention that my referrals person and the girl next to her are one of the most liked people at the clinic.
Normally, as a locums my job ramps you up quickly. One week seeing 5 patients a day, then 8 patients, then 12, then 16 etc. They started her slowly at 3 patients per day and when they wanted to increase her schedule to 5 patients per day – three weeks later, she said she wasn’t comfortable with that. I found that strange since she has over 10 years of experience, and only 1 out of her 3 scheduled patients even showed up per day. Seeing 5 patients per day is absolutely nothing, and I was surprised she wasn’t bored out of her mind.
Our Medical Director decided one day to make her the walk-in provider. We have 20-30 walk-ins per day so I was curious how that was going to work. You can’t go from seeing 2-3 patients per day to seeing 20 patients per day. On her first day being the walk-in provider, as expected, she failed. There were so many walk-ins waiting, that the other PCPs ended up having to see their own walk-ins. I think she ended up seeing 10 patients that day but obviously that wasn’t ALL of the walk-in patients. So the following day, she went back to her 5 scheduled patients per day – no longer the walk-in provider.
The funny thing is the locums nurse practitioner wants to become permanent here but she is clearly not a good fit. It’s not only a ‘needs more training’ thing, but her attitude doesn’t mesh well with the culture here. In fact, she has a negative 100% patient satisfaction rate. Based on patient surveys, they complained that she is rude and without compassion, and they never want to see her again. Our boss agreed that she isn’t a good fit. I am not sure why they don’t just end her contract early.
At least leadership will learn that not every locums is like me. And I don’t like when the new locums nurse practitioner tries to compare herself to me. I leave work early once I finish with my patients and work flow. So the locums nurse practitioner made a comment to someone else that next time she will negotiate that in her contract too. People want to make demands when they barely start working with a company. Meanwhile, I worked my butt off to show my worth and that’s why over 6 years later I can do what I want.
