Should I stay or should I go...fellowship

[PAower]

Greeting all,

I am a newly minted PA-C that is 2 months in an orthopedic trauma fellowship. I have since had buyers remorse given the level of difficulty of the program and lack of supervision from my higher ups. I have been thrusted into doing trauma and ED consults from minor issues to severe poly-traumas. My training month consisted of me being paired with a senior fellow but unfortunately my entire month was quiet and i barely got to do much. Now, its gotten real and the advice of my seniors is to just roll with the punches and learn as you go. This is obviously very frightening given all the procedures, exams, images, reductions, and conditions I am exposed to. Now, I have been told to just watch youtube videos to learn what to do and to give it time but this doesn't seem entirely safe or fair to me given that I am here to learn and practice quality medicine with each of patients. Now, I am on the verge of cutting my losses and leaving the fellowship with the intention of looking for employment with more supervision and better hours. I am curious to hear what people think of my logic and perspective of leaving a fellowship for said reasons. Thank you. 

[LT_Oneal_PAC]

So you don’t present your cases or have a second year on call with you?

[dphy83]

Perhaps elaborate on your lack of oversight? But if others have gotten through it then it's likely that you will as well. So, without knowing anything further, I tend to agree with your seniors and recommend that you roll with it and give it a couple of more months to see how you like it then. 

[PAower]

Day-shifts

I have residents and an attending on site to help me navigate my clinical reasoning but occasionally they are hard to reach when in surgery. 

Night-shift & 24-hours

I have residents at are on-call but difficult to reach on occasion depending at what time I call them. 

Cases 

Usually discussed in the morning at sign-out, that is when the grilling and learning usually happens. 

 

I suppose my concern is my lack of experience and depth of responsibility. I was hoping to have some more supervised learning before I was left to fend for myself and am just wondering if that is fine at this stage of my training or is it a recipe for disaster. 

 

[LT_Oneal_PAC]

Well, having trouble getting in touch with upper levels is a problem anywhere. We would wait for hours in the ED for the plan to be shot up the chain and come back down as okay or different. I would have troubles getting a hold of the second year sometimes too on my ortho rotation. Heck, even in the ED I would have trouble finding an attending. Are they expecting you to make independent decisions at this point? I mean, you should be doing a little on your own like starting the work up, but not managing a polytrauma. 
 

I hope some ortho residents will chime in.
 

if you aren’t being properly supervised or being taught, yeah, it’s a problem. Though I think you’re going to find that private practice isn’t going to be much better at hand holding when it comes to ED consults and what not.