Can't tell if I'm struggling because of my clinic or the profession itself
I'm a new medical assistant working in a primary care clinic. I'm still training under my preceptor and am having an unexpectedly hard time adjusting to the culture of my clinic, and can't tell whether it is normal or not.
My main concern is I've noticed that almost every time my preceptor and I finish rooming a patient and go to speak to the doctor before they go in, both of them gossip negatively and condescendingly about the patient (their mental health, hygiene, way of speaking, etc.). This almost always happens unless the patient happens to be a doctor, surgeon, or employee of the hospital our clinic is affiliated with. I generally like our patients and this has made me paranoid that my own health visits are being negatively scrutinized like this behind closed doors (especially since my PCP works in a different part of the same hospital).
Furthermore, even though I've been working full time in this clinic for 2 weeks, the doctor has never spoken to or made eye contact with me, and ignores me when I speak to him. He only talks to my preceptor, who seems to get along very well with him (they joke around a lot, buy each other gifts, etc.). I always feel invisible or in the way, and constantly sense that I'm annoying and/or slowing down my preceptor.
Am I being overly sensitive, or should I seek to transfer to a different clinic? I enjoy the work itself but worry that maybe this is a common dynamic in clinics and would hate to throw myself out of the frying pan and into the fire. I've never been this depressed by a job before and am worried I might not be cut out for this job if what I'm experiencing is commonplace.