I am responsible for the health and wellness of over 3000 patients and counting. Patients will see me once a year for a check up where we discuss all of their preventative care including lab work, screening for STI’s, colonoscopies, Pap smears, mammograms, etc. In between those visits patients will see me if they are sick with a cold or if they have chronic illnesses like diabetes and hypertension.

When a patient comes in, they will check in at the front desk with their insurance and payment, then come to my waiting room or my nurse will pull them back into a room and check their vitals and go through their medication, medical history, etc.

Then, in my office, I will look at the notes that the nurse wrote, look at their vitals, looked through their chart and review any recent visits with any other providers or myself, review labs. Then go into the room and ask the patient how they were doing and find out if anything has changed since their last visit. If they have any ailments, I ask questions to try to understand what is going on so that I can come up with a treatment plan. I then do a physical exam. And then we sit and go through a plan of action on what our next steps are and what our follow up will be.

I then print out a visit summary and go over it with the patient and typically will walk them to either the lab or the waiting room. When I am not seeing patients, I am reviewing medication requests, lab reports, phone calls, and other patient oriented things that need my attention.

My work schedule

On Mondays and Wednesdays, I work from 7:30am-1:30pm in my office, seeing patients every 20 minutes. I see everything from newborn exams, to geriatrics, well woman exams, follow ups for diabetes, and everything between. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I see patients from home, virtually, for mostly the same problems.

Pros

The pros are obviously helping people to live healthy, happy lives. I also get paid well and generally am well respected and have a lot of autonomy.

Cons

It takes a lot of time and effort to become a doctor, there is a lot of stress and pressure knowing that you have peoples lives in your hands, there is a lot of work to be done and little time to do it, and also constantly battling with insurance companies to be able to get medication, referrals, and procedures done for patients.

Physical Therapist Aide – Jasmine Marcus

I was a physical therapist aide for over a year before going to PT school. Now I am a physical therapist. As an aide, each day was slightly different. … Read More