No foolin' - it's official. I AM RETIRED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[3catwoman3]

Last edited Fri Apr 2, 2021, 01:22 AM - Edit history (1)

Yesterday was my last day at the pediatric office where I have worked since June 14, 1996. I've been a nurse practitioner since 1976, and 45 years feels like enough. Time to hang up the stethoscope.

I'm sentimental, but not sad. About 2% of me feels bad about bailing 10 weeks before completing my full 25 years with the practice, but not bad enough to stay any longer. Bit by bit, much of the joy has drained away from the job, fueled mostly by the ever-increasing demands of EMR - Electronic Medical Records, which we started using in 2013. Most days, I have taken home 2-3 hours of charting to do, hours for which I was not paid.

Many of us in health care have come to feel more like data entry clerks than clinicians. I have to look parents and kids in the eye when they are talking to me, not bang away at a keyboard, so I listen, scribble notes on paper, and then do the documentation later. Kinda like working twice, and I'm exhausted after 8 years of that, but it's the only way I can deliver the quality of care that I demand from myself. COVID provided the proverbial last straw.

The thing I will miss the most is first time parents and new babies. Watching parents fall in love with their babies, and helping them learn what they need to know to feel comfortable and confident in raising them has been an enormous joy. If I could do only that, I'd probably stay forever, but no such job exists.

Many of my regular families has told me, either personally, or in emails and cards, how much they have appreciated having me care for their children, so I know I've made a difference in people's lives. Yesterday, my colleagues set up very lovely lunch, with more cards and good wishes, and we actually had time to eat it! (There have been plenty of days when we would not have.)

I have often speculated that by teaching parents things that can help them be as calm as possible when meeting the challenges of parenthood, not only will their kids benefit, perhaps that calmness will carry on from one generation to the next, and maybe kids 500 years from now will have a better life because of something I taught someone during my career. I hope so.

My two immediate plans are to take all the alarms off my cell phone, and, unless I am at the vet's office with one of our cats, to never talk about poop, EVER AGAIN -

It's been a good run.