Fired After Six Weeks At First Job - Need Advice

[PAGothamCity]

Hello, everyone.

I posted this on eluch15's thread & feel bad for taking over that PA's thread. So I'm posting on this new thread.

I'm in a similar situation as eluch15. I was let go this past week after six weeks at my first job at a family medicine clinic. I went from seeing no patients each day (shadowing) the first week to seeing four, then six, then eight, then 10-11 each day. Supervising doc said that the patients really liked me but that I was struggling with efficiency & multi-tasking - getting faster at my patient encounters, finishing progress notes quickly enough in the day, responding to labs & imaging reports & messages regarding previous patients quickly enough as they were coming in.

I explained to her that I'm going to get there, that it's just going to take a little more time because it's my learning curve & my first job after graduation. I just needed more time. But she said they couldn't wait for that & that I wasn't progressing quickly enough. Which still gets to me so much because I went from not knowing how to do anything the first week to being able to do imaging orders, lab orders (CBC, CMP, Lipids, etc.), specialist referrals, superbills, getting better at progress notes, getting better at sending meds to pharmacies, interpreting UAs under the microscope, communicating with patients through the portal, etc. by my sixth week. I thought that I had made a lot of progress in a short time. Maybe in hindsight I hadn't.

Obviously I'm very depressed now, as I loved this clinic & wanted to stay there for a long time. I know that I have to list this clinic on my job applications going forward & be honest about my termination after only six weeks.

Has anyone else experienced this or can give me advice going forward?

Will my state medical board record be forever tarnished?

Should I list this 6-week experience on my resume?

How should I explain this experience in (hopeful) job interviews at other family medicine clinics?

Edited August 27, 2023 by PAGothamCity

[ventana]

First.  You weee not fired.  You were let go during a probationary period 

second be thankful as it likely saved you a lot of headaches over next year

third. Next job needs to understand what a new grad can offer and what they need.  Too often HR folks only look at a license and think we are all interchangeable.  News flash we are not.  You are no more able to do my job then I could do a specialist PA job.  We are not interchangeable and as we practice at top of license later in career you realize how new you were in the beginning of your career.  None of this is bad or negative, just reality. 

turn it into a positive-“I tried the health care mill and didn’t like it.  Now want to learn medicine and truly help my patients”

 

hold your head high, you are still a PA!

[PAGothamCity]

Thank you, Ventana.

I'll list it on my resume & applications & try to focus on the positive, the self-reflection that I've done on how I could have bettered my performance & what I learned in just six weeks of training. I just hope that another family medicine clinic will give me the chance to keep growing & improving.

[Jofriend]

You were probably being careful = an excellent quality.  Chin up!

[HMtoPA]

Someone may disagree with me, but I don't think there is any need to perpetually list this job on your CV.  Is that a lie of omission? Perhaps, but I tend to view a CV as a personal marketing document (i.e., not a legal document) that highlights what you want to highlight about yourself, and when you've accumulated some more experience there is going to be no benefit to listing a position that you held for 6 weeks.

You WILL have to list the position when asked to provide a credentialing history.  I don't know the legal requirements, but from memory the onboarding documents are pretty clear about wanting to know everywhere that you've been credentialed, ever.

I'm sorry that you were let go so soon.  To me that demonstrates a failure of leadership more than anything else.  If you have an employee that is missing the mark that early on, you should be providing mentorship and a path toward success.  I understand the reality is that many places just want to get you up and running ASAP and don't have the resources to dedicate to systematic training - the reality is that most of us learned on the fly as we went along.  But I still think no one should be getting let go this early on barring some sort of gross incompetence or egregious personality defect.

I feel like I've seen a trend lately of new grads being let go, fired, or quitting within the first 6 months of their first job.  It seems different than it was even a few years ago.  When I graduated 10 years ago, people still talked about being nervous and having imposter syndrome, but this is different.  I don't know if it's a generational thing, a decline in quality of education due to the rapid expansion of programs, if many of these places are hiring new PAs for the first time and the reality doesn't match their expectations, or something else entirely.  Regardless, I think it's becoming a failure of our profession, especially because I think the younger generation of doctors is actually becoming more anti-PA then pro-PA.  

My unpopular opinion is that we should all be doing some sort of post-graduate training program.  Even a default 6-12 month family medicine post-grad "externship" (or whatever you want to call it) would be huge in easing the transition for people first starting out and better ensuring competence to practice.  And I also think that specialty residencies/fellowships should be mandatory (with grandfathering) for those entering specialties - flame suit on!

Edited September 27, 2023 by HMtoPA

[sas5814]

Don't skip listing jobs even if they will appear to not cast you in a good light. Some may call it the sin of omission. An employer will consider it dishonesty and brings your ethics into question. I have seen people fired after they had started seeing patients because their employer found something negative they intentionally omitted in their application.

A new grad getting let go during probationary period isn't that big a deal. That is why there is a probationary period.

The cover up is always worse than the crime.

[ventana]

really BAD idea to not list a job on a CV

[rev ronin]

I agree with HMtoPA here. There's a reason why every employer with a risk management or legal department says "Your CV is not your job application and can't be substituted for it"--you have the right to omit stuff from your CV. If they tell you to list everything on your job application, you don't, and then you sign attesting that you did, you've got clear dishonesty which is grounds for termination in pretty much any state.

[ventana]

15 hours ago, HMtoPA said:

 

My unpopular opinion is that we should all be doing some sort of post-graduate training program.  Even a default 6-12 month family medicine post-grad "externship" (or whatever you want to call it) would be huge in easing the transition for people first starting out and better ensuring competence to practice.  And I also think that specialty residencies/fellowships should be mandatory (with grandfathering) for those entering specialties - flame suit on!

I have been saying this for years.  
 Think the totally unprepared new grad NP are going to end up forcing this issue.  

[sas5814]

Doctoral degree and some kind of residency/CAQ is going to be the new normal. It is just a fact of staying in line with other medical professions and market expectations.

[iconic]

I don't think you have to list it if you are applying to private practices. If you are applying to hospital systems and they require everything to be listed, then yes I would not leave it off

[rev ronin]

11 hours ago, ventana said:

I have been saying this for years.  
 Think the totally unprepared new grad NP are going to end up forcing this issue.  

I'm very glad that my first job at Group Health was in a building with ~50 physicians and ~20 PAs, in an office with 10 physicians and 3 PAs, and in a team with 4 physicians and 2 PAs. It was a great system in which to learn the ropes, and the ability to secure message specialists via Epic was great.  Of course, there were also some drawbacks, which is why I moved on after almost three years, but the physician support and collaboration wasn't one of them.