Pros
Flexibility of hours though irritating that we often never get our schedules until two to four weeks prior, and sometimes shifts would all be packed on in one week while the rest of the month left empty- for a part timer who is working 8 shifts a month and having everything packed in two weeks, but isn’t given notice of this until the week before... doesn’t allow for as much advance planning to juggle family care, as I had once thought. Friendly staff and employees- despite the ridiculous constant lack of upper mgt support, the staff I work with has usually been as positive and helpful as possible with genuine concern for patients in their care. Interesting cases from time to time- if I have the time to think outside the box and be more thorough I have been able to catch things that would have otherwise been missed as many of these patients use sporadic urgent care as their primary medical care around here. (Eg, advanced breast cancer, dermatomyositis, SLE, and Scarlet fever have all been seen in the last year.)
Cons
Zero management support Overworked with low staffing and high turnaround Often seeing up to 50+ patients a day on high flow days and will walk in to find we don’t have X-ray or an RN that day and just have to manage. Three times in a row I was a de facto trainer for a PA that had zero experience in urgent care and was new on the job; was basically teaching basic things like how to diagnose ear infections and preventing and co-signing their notes while also picking up the slack and seeing all my own deluge of patients. And yet, we co-sign their notes as MDs and the liability is on us. Meanwhile, we are told to take endless workplace safety and compliance webinars and modules just for formality- when in reality the safety of patients and employees doesn’t seem a priority. The pervasive sense you get is that you are simply a warm body there to pull as many paying patients through the door in as little time as possible. They say you work from 8-8 but in reality you must see anyone that walks in the door until 8 pm- so you are there until well past. On average until 8:30-9 and sometimes past 10pm. And you are salaried so none of that means extra pay.
