So 'somehow' "management" gave the two full time internists a month off in June/July AT THE SAME TIME. This left me (0.5) , a PA ( o.7) and occasional clinic people (0.2) in clinic.

Then the PA's son got pneumonia and was hospitalized. This left me as the only provider for many, many days this month and going into July. PA came back yesterday but still...I will fly solo for days.........

Issue one:
On Friday june 14th bebes theater camp was doing a 30 minute show that the kids had created, written the story line and the songs. it was from 3-3.30. I found out the day before ( very poor advance notice). Bebe cried and cried when I told her I would not be able to make it, most likely.Thursday morning none of the " management" people were around so I asked to leave at 2pm on Friday allowing overbooks for all appointments in order to accommodate patients. I finished all my and the missing providers paperwork, prescriptions, phone calls in addition to seeing my own patients. Well, management wants to have a 'talk' with me. My lead physician agrees that I was diligent, zealous abot the work and although in a perfect world I would have more advance notice sometimes work/life balance can be a tight rope. I meet with clinic manager and lead physician tomorrow.

The big issue:Fast forward to June 18th Tuesday. tons of overbooks, 35 phone calls to answer, 21 prescriptions to take care of in addition to the overbooked and scheduled patient. Around 3 pm ( work until 4 pm) one of my nurses came to me and said a cardiologist wanted to talk to me about a patient's stress test. she was scheduled to have surgery the next day. Finally got hold of the cardiologist who was from another group and should have never gotten the test to read in the first place. Frantically called the surgical center and anesthesiologist and told them the surgery needed to be cancelled. Got hold of our cardiology group after many phone calls. Tried calling the patient constantly: no answer.

Meanwhile my last patient who was a brittle diabetic and nearly blind had sugars ranging from 50-500. Home health care had stopped coming to her house for unknown reasons. She had also pooped over herself and the house one time. She barely was able to take a shower when she came in to see me. So I tried and tried to contact her caseworker and kept getting the ring around: call this person, call this person, etc.
Then my last patient of he day is running late because he went t another clinic erroneously. He was brand new to the clinic and new patients require extensive time to gather information and formulate a plan. The only manager around insisted I see the patient instead of having him reschedule. Mind you this was while all the phone calls were going on. I started crying at my desk,
sobbing as though someone was dying. This was when the manager said she would try to contact the patient ( the surgery/stress test patient) and see if she could get someone to talk to the caseworker regarding the diabetic.

meanwhile I got two more phone call and 4 more prescription requests. Red eyed and red nosed I went in to see the 'new' patient saying I had severe allergies. There was nothing urgent about his issues. After more running around trying to take care of all the 'fires' I left at 4.53 pm. My nurse manager said" We handled it. You handled it. Everyone was taken care of. You did a great job"
Sobbing I said " What about me?" and left the building.

I am going to ask for more support at the meeting tomorrow. Since my discharge from Mayo in the last 4 months I have needed to use one FMLA day: for back pain not mental health.I am beginning to feel burn out in the current situation and burn out often leads to depression. So do not want to go down that path.

Any advice?
And for those who think doctors make a ton of money we make a pittance for all that we do.