Hmm. I wasn’t sure if I was going to write this or not. This could be boiled down to incredibly simple terms. Or I could write a novel on this topic. I mean, I did spend 6 years in this field, lolz.
But in general, I think it prepared me for a lot more than I think I realize. Especially in life lessons and an insight to humanity; more so than I think I would have experienced elsewhere. I will not be including how scribing has helped me so far in medical school. You can hop on over to my post “How Scribing Has Helped Me in my 1st year“ to see the info there.
Initially:
- Learning to be resourceful
- Thinking quickly on my feet
- Taking constructive criticism
- That the real world/work force will not hold your hand. You either perform and prove how worthy you are/that you are quickly learning and are worth holding onto. Or you get let go. End of story.
- Most physicians are great people who really like teaching or passing on knowledge. But, just because you don’t know what you are doing doesn’t mean they have to stop and help you. They already have to do that with residents, medical students, and sometimes the PA’s/NP’s they work with. They may not want to take additional time to help you figure your shit out.
- As a scribe, you are dispensable. You are not at the point in your medical career where you are worth much to the hospital or the employer. Know that if you do not try or put in the work, you will not be around long enough to continue. Again, prove your worth!
After scribing for a few months:
- You can chart like a boss
- You will probably know more about what goes into each section of a chart for billing than the provider. Help them with this or help point them in a direction they can use. Their resources and brain power will go to saving patients; not properly billing.
- You will know all the medical terminology. (Well, a very good chunk!)
- You get a head start on learning what signs and symptoms are correlated with what common diseases (that you see in your field), what tests to order for that, and likely a small amount of how to read those results! You won’t however really get a good understanding for why things are going wrong. That’s for medical school.
Longer term:
- You will experience burnout to a degree. I worked in ER. This was very much a burnout type of area of medicine given the flow and how jaded the people I worked with were. I had to step away from the ER to be reminded of why I wanted to go into medicine again. You see a lot of shit and unfortunately some really aggravating patients in the ER. But you also see a lot of great things as well.
- You may get jaded early. See above.
- You learn to stop or not react to plenty of things you see.
- You will likely be empathetic at first. You may become completely emotionless or show little emotion the longer you do it. Again, depends on what specialty and who you work with are. This happened to me in the ER, and it was as way to protect my overly empathetic and sensitive self from all the loss I saw. Don’t be too hard on yourself if this happens. Just know you will need to step away to regain it.
- It’s going to sound awful, but don’t completely trust your patients. A fair amount of them are lying about something regarding their care. Until you can prove it, take it with a grain of salt. Go at it with an analytical & problem solving mind. Even though you aren’t making decisions, it is good practice for the future.
And that’s basically it! Or at least everything that I can remember and care to share at the moment. I figured this post could be short and to the point; mainly because all the rest of my posts are practically novels.
If you decide to go into scribing or are a scribe, I hope you take the lessens you learn with you on your future endeavors. I personally learned a lot of important work and life lessons during my time in scribing. I hope you do as well!
Cheers!
