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Attending a Master’s part 2

Prior to leaving for my master’s program I was in the middle of training about 5 people between 2 different offices, and working in between 3 clinics. It was very hectic, incredibly stressful, and I tried to make it so I could fit in as much training with me (as the trainer) before I left. I had it planned out to a tee…

Let’s just say at least 2 of the people I was attempting to train as scribes before I left were not getting it very well. It happens. Not everyone who wants to be a scribe is actually good at it. But at the time we were very short staffed and a main Junior Project Leader/trainer (me!) was leaving for good. But I had planned to have my last training day on July 31st, to travel on August 1st, have one day to settle in at my (now) ex’s sister’s house, and be ready to go for orientation on August 3rd.

I had to cancel the last 2 days I was supposed to work because I couldn’t fit my packing schedule in during the time I gave myself. I definitely got an earful from many people, and it made trying to transition out of my position way harder in the next coming days to weeks. I did leave early in the morning on August 1st, but the Uhaul truck we picked up was very difficult to drive and trying to hit 70 mph was a bit difficult to do without the truck vibrating like the gates of hell were trying to shake you into its hole and swallow you up.

Bonus points for this! I couldn’t drive the truck either. It was too much for me to handle so my ex had to drive it the whole way down, which meant we weren’t getting there on my pre-planned timetable. The drive should have taken us 12 hours. It took us almost 20 because of how much slower we were going than anticipated and additional things that kept popping up along the way. We thus kept having to stop to sleep in awkward positions because we were exhausted, and didn’t have the money to get a hotel.

I got to Kansas City on August 2nd at about 1pm. I was able to sleep when we arrived, but had no time to fix my room up to try to feel somewhat settled in this new place. Although this story isn’t uncommon; I noticed a lot of my roommates still trying to find a place or weren’t able to move in right away when they arrived, so they were living either out of their car or in a hotel for the time being.

Orientation for the master’s program is only 2 days. I didn’t feel we needed the whole 2 days, although I understand why they had us there in person for 2 days. I think a lot of us would have benefitted from either an email afterwards of some of the higher yield information, or a way to directly walk us through where to find it. I know I didn’t really remember much walking away due to the amount of information presented, and it took me awhile to learn where I could find it later on in the year. There are a lot of introductions and a couple of break the ice things you do to fill up the time, and most of us were ready for orientation to be over within the first half a day. For me personally, I just really wanted to start the program as I was pretty excited at this new direction in my life.

For the first 2 months I drove 45 minutes to get to campus at the expense of free housing. Don’t do that to yourself. Do not drive 45 minutes to campus everyday because in morning traffic it always turns into an hour + . You will be exhausted just from having to get up super early to be to class on time and too tired to do much studying by the time you get home. I usually left by 6 or 6:30am to get to class on time and grab some coffee beforehand, and waited until after 7pm to miss the rush hour traffic to get home. Also, just because your rent may be free or very discounted doesn’t mean the roommates you live with are going to be decent human beings.

Just don’t do it to yourself.

Scribing: How long does training take?

 

Photo Credit: https://stetsubi-111.deviantart.com/

In a previous post “What is a medical scribe?” I briefly touched on what classroom and floor training is. Here I will give you more of an in-depth view of the time-table breakdown. For a further breakdown of classroom training, visit my post “Scribing: What to expect your first week of training”.

Hopefully by this point you trust my experience and advice when it comes to scribing…

Classroom training is the first step in your training as a new scribe. This is where you will learn the basics: the medical terminology, what is a chart, what your job entails, and each section of the chart broken down in a nauseatingly in-depth fashion.

Or at least it feels that way when you’re the one giving giving the lectures!

Not only is this step necessary to give you a foundation and allow you to learn without putting any legal charts at stake or embarrass yourself in front of patients, we also need this time so you can get all of your on-boarding documents in and you can get badged.

You are going to mess up. Like mess up all the time here. So much so because it is new and a lot to learn. Just accept it you little perfectionist you.

Are you accepting it now?

No?

How about now?

Okay good we can proceed. I was getting tired of waiting for you to get here.

Here is the breakdown:

Classroom Training:

  • Usually 6-7 shifts in total (may slightly vary)
  • Depending on when it is scheduled, can last anywhere from 1- 2.5 weeks
  • Shift times vary greatly between company and what is being taught that day
  • Shift times and how quickly you are put through the classroom training portion also depend on when there are trainers available to teach you.
  • This schedule does not necessarily have to jive with the schedule you are available to work, especially if trainers are limited and have limited time to hold classroom training.

For one scribe company and for the homegrown company I worked for, the shifts were done on site or near the site of the actual hospital we were going to be working at. For that reason, shifts were usually anywhere between 3-4 hours at a time. This included time to take quizzes, go through the powerpoint lectures, and do practice in the EMR that you would be working with. I usually scheduled them for 4 hours so we could do more practice if there was time left over. If there was still time remaining, I would just let them get out early.

In this scenario, training could be crammed into a week (all 6 or 7 shifts in a row) if the site was short staffed and needed scribes immediately. Ideally, optimal learning occurs when there is a day or two in-between classroom training days, especially if there is a large amount to go through. However in most scenarios, there is a high turn-over period during the year (spring and early summer) and training becomes less about optimal training times for you and how fast we can produce a scribe and complete training.

For the other scribe company I worked for, I was flown to their headquarters out-of-state for a week and had training from 8am-4pm (approximately) for 5 days straight.

Floor Training:

Floor training depends heavily on specialty. The amount of shifts varies greatly between standards for scribe companies and the speciality you will be working under.

  • In general, anywhere between 6-10 shifts is normal. 
  • Family practice, general internal medicine, general pediatrics, and emergency medicine are all usually 6-8 days.
  • Specialized clinics (such as ENT, ortho, neurosurgery, etc) require usually a baseline of 8-10 days as there is more specialized content to learn and providers tend to be much pickier about their charts. These clinics also don’t tend to have their providers working every weekday, so the shifts get spread out to about 1-3 shifts a week, which isn’t optimal for retaining information as a new scribe in training.
  • These shifts should be scheduled based on the availability you gave. So if you are only available Tues/Thurs/Sat, then you should only be scheduled during this time.
  • Depending on how frequently you are able to work (full time or part time) will depend on how quickly you will be scheduled for these shifts.

If you do well, then congrats! You may not need the whole 6 shifts! Should this occur, your trainer will probably think its a fluke and keep the full 6 days anyways. In any case it gives you more practice with a trainer there to help guide you, and they can be very hands off and get other things done.

If you are struggling, don’t worry! There is usually some leeway in adding a few more shifts. However, just know that if you need to go over the amount of allotted shifts + the additional shifts that are offered to you, you will likely be let go. Again, the amount of shifts extra you are scheduled for if you need them will depend on your speciality.

For general medicine (outlined above), usually up to 10 maximum. And that is being very generous. Most scribes are able to work in a relatively good scheduled time-table as their providers are working frequently enough you can actively improve and remember what you did well and what you need to work on. Additionally, these providers tend to be more lax or less worried about specifics when it comes to their chart (but not always!) and are much more willing to work with you to help tailor you to scribe for them how they like.

For speciality, the most shifts I’ve offered someone is 15. For this example, I was staffing an ENT clinic that had additional sub-specialties within ENT: such as sinus/rhinology, neuro-otology, laryngology, head & neck cancer, sleep medicine, etc. Because I had scribes that usually had to work with providers under more than one sub-speciality, they needed more shifts to start at baseline. Usually, they were given 12 off the bat but regularly they would need to be scheduled for 13 or 14.

I hope this helps clear the time-tables up for those interested in scribing! Please let me know in the comments if you have additional questions.