Month: March 2021

Finally made it to 1 month in my externship!!

Guess what that also means? Evaluation time!! I have to get evaluated when I reach 70 hours. I will hit my 70 hours tomorrow (Friday). I asked my co worker to tell her opinion on how she thinks I would do on the evaluation. She was being honest about it and she explained her reasoning for what she gave me. There are about 6 to 7 categories and there is a grading scale from 1-5. 1 being not good and 5 being excellent.  There were only 2 categories where she gave me a 4 but she said that I have gotten better but she still took it into consideration. I was total ok with what she gave me and I was understanding as well. I think I will do great though. 

This week I have been doing a lot better with rooming patients without errors or needing any assistance. Also, I have been getting better with the summary to the doctor to let them know what’s going on with the patient. And any extra things that the doctor needs to know. I have also gotten better with using the computer and phone calls. I had to call a patient and I didn’t make a lot of errors or was nearly as nervous. 

My third week into my externship and I have learned so much!

I got transferred into a different team in the same clinic. I am with the spinal team. We help patients that have pain in their back and neck due to the spinal nerves. The doctors that are on the team performs procedures that help with the pain. 

I had a very busy day for my first day on the new team. My supervisor texted me saying he wanted to talk to me about something. When I got to work I went to go find him to talk to him. I found him and he wanted to talk to me about getting transferred to a new team to get more experience. He wanted to move me upstairs with the spinal team. I was very excited to have the opportunity to get this experience. This team does a lot of procedures, which was something I was very excited about. I got to meet the other MAs on the team. I also got to see a few procedures that day. When we go in we have to wear a lead suit to protect yourselves from the X-rays. They have to take x-rays of the back or neck to find where they are trying to do the injection to help with the pain. Then while they put the needles in they use the x-rays to help guild themselves to the specific spot that they need to be. It was really cool to see how they used the x-rays to guild the needle and everything else through the skin, muscles, to get to the nerve. 

With the spinal team, I am learning more about how to room the patients quickly but efficiently. There are 2 ways that we need to know how to room patients. I have the normal check up with the doctor and the pre-procedure and post-procedure. Another thing that I’m getting the hang of is getting comfortable with knowing how to call patients about either medications or something they had a question about for the doctor. I once tried it and messed up a few time. I even said the doctors name wrong. But you have to give me some slack… the doctors name is kind of hard to pronounce. Anyways, I made a few mistakes but I learned a lot from them.

 

This week was definitely not as exciting as last week but it was still an experience. I had a lot of personal things to happen but that’s not the point of this blog lol.

So I guess I’ll start with Monday. 

Monday was my first day back with a full week of experience under my belt. Still don’t know much but I knew more of what to expect. I got more of the hang of how things worked in the clinic. I started to understand what my job was going to be like as a Medical Assistant in a specialized clinic. Like I said last week, it definitely not was I was expecting but I am appetitive of this opportunity. So, the most of the day on Monday I was helping with rooming patients and doing vitals and getting they ready for the physician. I also, started learning more about how work on the computer works and what is expected of me. 

Tuesday was basically the same as Monday. 

Wednesday on the other hand… I roomed patients with another MA, which is a normal day but I finally got to make my first phone call to a patient. I was so nervous… It was an easy call. All I had to do was call and let a patient know that their prescription was ready for pick up at their pharmacy. I as terrified that I was going to mess up or say something wrong. Or if they were going to ask questions and not know what to do then. I dialed the number, picked up the phone and heard it ringing. My heart was pounding out of my chest. It was so bad that I was worried that the patient would hear it in my voice. The call kept ringing and it went to voicemail. I’m not allowed to release any information so I just said what doctors office I was calling from and left the number to call back. Even through I didn’t talk to the patient, it was still terrifying. But in the end, it was all good. Later that day one of the front office ladies came back asking us to take her BP (blood pressure) because she was shaking and she was thinking she was having a panic attack. But she has a medical record of seizures so she was concerned. We took her BP and it was very high. The “normal” BP is 120/80 but it’s preferred to be a little lower. Hers on the other hand was in the upper 160s over 90s (Around 167/93). That is dangerously high. Most doctors or medical profession would send that person the the ER if that happened. We waited a couple of minutes and took it again. It went lower but still pretty dangerously high. We advised her to go to the ER but she didn’t want to. She then called her PCP (primary care provider) but they were going to close soon. So they couldn’t have done anything except advise her to go to the ER. We let her calm down a little but I had to go because I got off at 5 and I had to go home. So I didn’t know what happened after that. 

The next day, Thursday, I came in and this was one of my longer days and I went to the front desk to let me back and I didn’t see the lady from yesterday and I was hoping she was ok. I got to the back to my desk and asked about her. They said she’s ok and she just went home and didn’t come in today. I was worried about her and hope she was doing ok. I kept going with my day. Rooming a few patients here and there. One of the other MA’s let me come over to her desk and let me watch and listen to calls. She then handed me the phone and told me what the call was for and what to say. It was about a DMV form and that it was sent to the DMV and scanned. It was scary but it wasn’t as bad because I had her there to help me. Later on I made a call myself just to let them know about their medication being ready. It went smoothly for the most part. It was still nerve racking lol. 

There wasn’t a lot going on on Friday but I was my Friday. I didn’t have to work after that day for the weekend.

My first week kind was very interesting and definitely not what I was expecting. 

On Tuesdays and Thursdays I’m there for about 5 and a half hours.  But on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays I’m only there for 2 hours and 15 minutes. 

My first day (Monday, March 1st) was actually great. I went to my externship clinic and I got assigned to a department in my neuroscience clinic. I got assigned to the epilepsy department. My first thoughts were, “I don’t know ANYTHING about epilepsy or neuroscience. What if I mess up?” I was quite nervous honestly. But I said okay and just went with it. I met the other MAs (Medical Assistant) in Epi. There are 3 others. I got a tore of the floor and they told me where most things were. Over all the first day was pretty good. I felt a little awkward but it was good. 

My second day (Tuesday, March 2nd) was much longer then my first. I got there and signed in and started my work. The boring part was that I had really nothing to do since it was only my second day. All I did for 5 and a half hours was sit next to one of the other MAs and listen to phone calls to patients and learned a little about the computers. It was like sitting in a chair and watch grass grow. It was so boring… but I still learned a little. So it wasn’t completely worthless. 

Wednesday March 3rd was probably the worth day this week. I got out of school and was driving to go to my externship. I got on the freeway and I looked down at my dashboard and my engine was overheating and the gage was at very hot. I pulled over and started getting worried and honestly kind of freaked out.  I’ve never had anything like this happen to me before so I wasn’t should what to do except sit there and wait. I called my dad, worried, and he just told me that I had to let my car cool so I did. I also texted my supervisor to inform him that I was having car trouble and that I might be late or can’t come in at all. My car FINALLY cooled down enough for me to try driving again. I turned my blinker on and merged on the freeway again. Not even 30-40 seconds of driving the gage for the engine temperature started to rise very fast. 1 minute into driving the gage was all the way hot. I just needed to get off the freeway so I kept driving. It’s not good but I had to. I finally got off and I pulled over to let it cool down again. It cooled and so I pulled into a parking lot very close to me, called my dad and let him know where my car was. I was now stranded at this parking lot with my car broken down… I didn’t really know what to do. I called my boyfriend to see if he was busy and asked if he could come get me. I let my supervisor know that I couldn’t come in today. Anyways, long story short my dad, my boyfriend and I went to go get my car to bring it back to the house. When we got home, we checked the car coolant and it was low. so we refilled it. It then went to the shop to find out what was wrong.

Today, Thursday March 4th, I went to school and had my boyfriend take me to my externship after so I didn’t have to miss anymore hours. Today was one of my longer days so I couldn’t miss it. I got there and I went in and just got straight to work. I tried to not think much about what happened yesterday but it was hard to not think about it. But luckily I was a lot more busy today so it kept my mind busy. Today I got to do rooming for the first time. Rooming is when the patient is taken back to the room and that’s when vitals are taken, questions about how the patient is and if there is anything that us, the MAs, can do. If not, then we let the physician know that their patient is ready. Today I also learned more about how scheduling and patient charts work on the computer and how to complete a refill request. Having more things to do today really helped me relax and get myself together from yesterday. The day went by a lot faster and at the end of the day I felt a lot better.  

I have one more day (tomorrow) and I’m hoping it is like today.