How To Know When To Change Jobs As A Nurse Practitioner
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Show notes:
The thought of your Nurse Practitioner job not being the right fit can be scary. You’ve invested a lot of time, money, and energy – not to mention all the things that you have sacrificed – to get to this point, and now? You may have spent a lot of time imagining what it would look like to be working as an NP, and this isn’t it.
Scary as it may be (and as surprising as it may sound), this is very common, especially for new grad Nurse Practitioners. And if you think there might be some time limit for feeling this way, there isn’t; even experienced Nurse Practitioners find themselves asking these same questions. Whether you are working with a collaborator or not, whether you are in primary care or a specialty, whether you have your own panel of patients or not – sometimes it’s just not the right job for you, and the grass is looking a lot greener on the other side.
How Do You Know When It’s Time To Change Jobs As A Nurse Practitioner?
In this week’s video, we will talk about not being in a job that’s the right fit for you, and how to know when it’s time to change jobs. We’ll discuss:
Questions to ask yourself if you are considering a job change
What a normal first-year experience as a Nurse Practitioner looks like
What to expect from the transition from student to clinician
When to consider a job change
Sometimes the need to make the change is very clear, other times it is not. If you are feeling like the assistant to your more experienced colleague or collaborator (and don’t want to), or if you are feeling like the setting is not right for you, or if you are feeling completely over your head every day and wondering whether you will always feel this way – consider whether what you are experiencing is standard first year growing pains or something deeper.
If you liked this post, also check out:
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WEBVTT
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Hey there, welcome to the Real World NP podcast.
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I'm Liz Rohr, family nurse practitioner, educator, and founder of Real World NP, an educational
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company for nurse practitioners in primary care.
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I'm on a mission to equip and guide new nurse practitioners so that they can feel
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confident, capable, and take the best care of their patients.
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If you're looking for clinical pearls and practice tips without the fluff, you're in
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the right place.
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Make sure you subscribe and leave a review so you won't miss an episode.
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Plus, you'll find links to all the episodes with extra goodies over at realworldnp.com
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slash podcast.
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Well, hey there, I'm Liz Rohr and you're watching NP Practice Made Simple, the weekly
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videos to help save you time, frustration, and help you learn faster so you can take
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the best care of your patients.
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So I'm doing something a little bit different today, I'm doing a Q&A from the community.
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I have a question here that I had an email about and I really want to be able to
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share answers to your questions within a larger community because if you have a question,
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it's very, very likely that other nurse practitioners have the same question.
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This question is from Beth from Oklahoma City.
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And what her question was is about how to know if you're on the right path.
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And so for her, just to kind of sum up her question, what she was asking is she's
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getting the same feelings like she got when she was a nurse of what did I get
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myself into?
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And how do you know when it's time to, like what is your path in the first year?
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And how do you know when it's time to change jobs?
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Because I shared recently on a video that I changed jobs and she wants to know
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like when is the time to know that?
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And in her current practice, she really is grateful for everything that she
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learned, but she feels like she's so busy charting and putting out fires that
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she's not really learning the basics.
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And she also kind of feels like she's more of an assistant to a medical
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provider, more so than her own clinician, kind of following up with
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questions and tasks instead of doing her own kind of panel work.
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And family is really important to her and she's not happy charting all the
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time and feeling really stressed and working late.
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So, Beth, thank you so much for this question.
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And I just, my heart goes out to you and I'm sorry it's taking me so long
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to respond to you, but I just wanted to say that this is an incredibly
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common experience.
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I like literally could have written this myself with a few changes, but I
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think that this is a very common experience from what I hear from new
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nurse practitioners in that they feel questioning what did they get themselves
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into?
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Is this the right path?
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Did they make a mistake?
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Should they go back to like their old job where they knew what they were
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doing?
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Like it's crazy how common this experience is.
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I do a ton of talking to new nurse practitioners and I am observing the
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landscape in many different platforms and I really hear it all the same.
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And even just working myself and working one-on-one with other new
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nurse practitioners in person, it's very common to at the very beginning, I
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think it's just part of that transition of just feeling completely
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overwhelmed.
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Like for me, for example, like what I would do is I would see a patient.
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I'd have to look something up for every single one of them.
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I'd go out of the room, look something up very quickly on up-to-date, ask my
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colleagues because I didn't believe in my own confidence, my own abilities, my
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own knowledge, just to get verification until I got a little bit of pushback
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from one of my mentors who was like, you know what?
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Like you can do this, make a decision and move forward.
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And so that's how my daily life looked like.
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And I also just felt like I was constantly working.
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I came in early, I stayed late, like an hour on each side.
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And I also worked on the weekends and for a really long time, I
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worked like that.
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I mean, I think I probably worked like that for the first full year, if
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not later, I think it took me about a year and a half to two years to
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really feel like I got things under better control.
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I didn't have a child at the time.
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I have a toddler now and that was workable for me and my life.
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I don't know what it would be like now having my daughter, if it would be the
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same, but I think that's a very common experience for people and a lot of
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reasons why new nurse practitioners get really frustrated.
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And I think that for me personally, the path forward, I think I kind of
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accepted that as part of my journey and I was okay with it.
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I don't love that that's really common.
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You know, I think that really wears on new nurse practitioners and
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first years and I wish it wasn't that way, which is part of the
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reason why I have this website to kind of hopefully make that easier,
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that transition.
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But it's really common in terms of me and my own path and how I
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decided to kind of go forward.
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One thing, part of your question was feeling like you are someone's
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assistant and you're not really your own clinician.
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And I feel like it really depends on the state and the type of
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practice that you work in.
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But if you, for me in the setting that I work in, in Massachusetts,
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community health centers, typically the ones that I've interviewed at,
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at least, have a very independent practice model where they have their
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own panel of patients, they do their own work, they have their
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own patients, and they're only covering for other providers,
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whether NP or MD, if they're out, whereas in some other practices
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in the same state, potentially like hospital-based or something
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else like that, they have very different roles.
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Like one of my colleagues that I used to work with in a primary
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care, PCP type of setting, I'm still a PCP, but for her, she is in
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a specialist practice at a major hospital and she sees patients off
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of like the MD's panel.
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And so they see the MD and then every other visit, they alternate
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with the nurse practitioner and they have to do more of those like
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task-related things that have, each has its own side, right?
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You know, I prefer PCP because that just fits better for my
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personality and what I enjoy about my job.
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However, it would be really nice in some ways to not have like the
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onus of the responsibility on me when it's not my panel, if that
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makes sense.
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And there's more to say about that in terms of pluses and
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minuses.
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But yeah, I mean, I think the unfortunate part of what I've
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seen for people is that if that transition of taking that
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long of a time to get used to the amount of workload, I
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think the reason why it takes so long to get used to it is
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that you have to stop and think really hard and do a lot of
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really good research for every single decision that you make
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when you're brand new in the first year to two years.
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Whereas now, like I've looked all this stuff up, you know,
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a million times.
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And so I can make decisions a lot faster.
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I finish my notes faster.
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I know exactly what to ask in my visit based on the
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notes and the differential diagnoses that I've seen
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before.
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And so it's a breeze now and I barely take things home.
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I mean, I do have to come in early and stay a little
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bit late so I don't actually chart at home, but and that's
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a little bit inescapable in primary care.
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But I think the other thing to think about is like, are
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you seeing too many patients?
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Do you are you getting paid for administrative time?
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And is that or if you have all of those things that
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you want, like, is this is this a good fit for you
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in terms of working full time and isn't an option
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to decrease your time?
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Because I think that the other things that I've seen
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for people is if they can't handle that or they don't
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like that, they typically cut down.
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But I do have to say if there's any reassurance
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going forward, it does get better and better.
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I think one thing that I would encourage you in
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terms of making that decision of what's the right
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path for you is to really I think that sometimes
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especially as ambitious, smart, like really driven
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people that we are as nurse practitioners, I think
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it's very easy to override our own needs,
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especially as caregivers too.
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And I think what's really important is if you
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can kind of slow down, what I personally do is
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try really hard to just tune into my own intuition
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and my own body and think about what I want and
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how it makes me feel physically.
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Like, do I feel like contracted when I think
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about this particular job versus am I very
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excited about the prospect of doing like X, Y
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or Z?
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And in terms of my personal transition between
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two jobs, I think it was a variety of
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lifestyle factors.
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And my commute was really long.
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The population was really heavy in terms of like
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a lot of high burden of mental illness.
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And I just felt like it was time for a change.
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And for me, physically, I just felt like I wasn't
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lit up as much as I have been before, kind of
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going back to that feeling of like what
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lights you up and thinking about physically how
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that feels.
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So hopefully that's helpful.
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I mean, one reassurance that it does get
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better.
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And that's a really common experience of
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taking a lot of work home and feeling like
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you're constantly working or constantly
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thinking about work.
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And then the other side of it is like, is
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this practice the best fit for you?
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Do you want more independence?
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Do you want your own panel?
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Do you want to not be in primary care?
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Do you want to see less patients during the
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day?
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Like things like that.
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So if you haven't grabbed the ultimate resource
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guide for the new NP, definitely head over to
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realworldnp.com slash guide.
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I put together all my resources that are my
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favorite ones.
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And you also get these videos sent straight to
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I don't share anywhere else.
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Thank you so much for watching.
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Let me know if you have any questions and
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I'll see you soon.
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That's our episode for today.
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Thank you so much for listening.
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Make sure you subscribe, leave a review,
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and tell all your NP friends so together we can
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help as many nurse practitioners as possible
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give the best care to their patients.
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If you haven't gotten your copy of the
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ultimate resource guide for the new NP,
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head over to realworldnp.com slash guide.
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You'll get these episodes sent straight to
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just don't share anywhere else.
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Thank you so much again for listening.
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Take care and talk soon.
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