MCHAD

If your clinical coordinator is aware of problems with the rotation sites and won’t do anything about it He/She isn’t doing their job. Does your school let you do evaluations on the preceptor/site at the end of rotations? If so make sure to be brutally honest. You might get the attention of the clinical coordinator if you send an email with your program director and advisor cc’d asking for a change of rotation site due to poor learning environment.

I can’t give advice other than don’t worry about radiation exposure unless you’re going to an unsafe rotation site that doesn’t provide you with proper protective equipment. I don’t think a month or two is going to cause you to grow another eyeball or develop cancer. But hey maybe someone has done a study on people working in IR and I’m wrong. I thinking picking rotations based on weaknesses you want to strengthen or fields you are interested is a great way to do it.

Had a similar case recently...are non students allowed to chime in yet??

So basically you can’t be employed as a PA for 2 years after you leave the job within 35 miles?! That’s ridiculous! The first thing you should do is find out if non-compete’s are even legal or enforceable in your state. then id talk with them about it and find out if there is any wiggle room

Personally I would avoid pain management. Depending on the type of practice this could be rewarding (If methods include managing pain in ways other than prescribing opioids). Or it could cause RAPID burnout (prescribing opioids all day would suck in my opinion). I strongly believe that unless you are sure you want to work in a specialty all PA’s should work in a primary care field to start out. I’d include women’s health in this as I often see women’s health clinics serving as primary care for patients. We don’t usually get a residency (I know they are becoming more common but a majority of PA’s don’t do one). I feel like my first job in family medicine was my residency. It’s where I learned to practice medicine and helped to solidify the foundation of my medical knowledge and practice. The salary is a little low and it doesn’t hurt to counter when they make the offer. Ultimately only you can make the decision for what’s best for you. Personally, I’d run from pain management.

I’ve seen exactly 1 drug rep in 2.5 years at my job. I just wish we could get more respiratory reps, that seems to be the big thing patients struggle getting started on because of expense

Another BIG problem is Physicians and pa’s that don’t follow guidelines and do pass people with hypertension or diabetes for a 2 year certificate for example. Then I’m the bad guy in the future when I tell them they only qualify for 1 year.

Because I don’t set the guidelines and they are clearly written in the examiner booklet. I didn’t say I think it’s right. I don’t agree with my 65 year old rancher patients that have blood pressure 145/80 needing blood pressure medication all the time either (new guidelines say keep this subset under 150/90) but that’s the rules the feds give us. And I always double check blood pressures manually after letting them rest of the initial blood pressure is high.

Have you done DOT physicals? I have had to do them my whole career and they suck. My problem is the majority of people who don’t qualify repeatedly fail to address problems they know they have and then they come in the day before their card expires and I’m the bad guy because I won’t give them a 2 year clearance when their blood pressure is 170/95.

I received loan repayment from NHSC after school and I can tell you that they follow all their rules for that program very closely.

Yep, ask your schools financial aid department

I follow guidelines exactly. If they complain I tell them to write their congressman. Not worth me losing my job because someone is whining. Especially in the situation above when the person had 3 months and didn’t correct the problem.

My wife Has a friend on social media advertising this. It makes me so angry! I know several companies got in trouble with the FDA during the Ebola outbreak. Thoughts?

If you don’t have an external hard drive or online service like mozy or Dropbox to store all of the powerpoints and notes you’ll accumulate on you need to do something like that. My laptop was stolen during clinical rotations (from my rotation site) and I lost everything and had to beg my study group for all their stuff.

Wasn’t sure what to put in the title for this one but here’s the situation. Our rural primary care clinic has had an internal med doc coming in every 3-6 months for “complicated patients” for years...we now have 4 PA’s that rotate (I’m one of them) and also our medical director who comes in twice a month. The internal medicine doc is nice but every time he’s due to visit they beg us to give suggestions for who he should see. I guess in the past he has gone in with the NP that used to work here and advised on patients. Those of us that currently work here feel like we don’t really need him because the “complicated patients” already have multiple specialists and we have a medical director that we can consult with if necessary as well. Currently he sees patients, makes suggestions, doesn’t refill and chronic medications because he says he’s not here often enough to be anyone’s PCP, and if we don’t get enough patients for him to see the clinic loses money because he’s paid a flat rate. Administration has asked those of us currently working here what we think of the situation and we have all said that while he is nice he isn’t here often enough to really help us and isn’t really available for phone consults. His contract was just renewed and we aren’t really sure why. I mean he’s a nice guy but all he seems to add to our clinic is stress because we can potentially lose money on him. I may not have painted this picture well but any thoughts?