ST3 starting to feel overload again!
I came back from sick leave just under a year ago after 5 months off due to burnout, into a new practice. Things are going reasonably and I'm already LTFT with just under a year left until CCT. My worry is I'm seeing between 17 and 20 patients a day, 15 mins slots, and supervisor is looking to cut some of these to 10 mins prior to SCA. Fair enough for me. I do find 20 patients of mixed complexity and a fair few calls seems a lot better than 16 patients of quite high-ish complexity and no calls (some days I've had no calls). He is quite specific to the absolute letter, about following portfolio requirements. Textbook to a fault. He asked me to do the QIP I had signed off last year, again, as he felt it wasn't substantial enough. I am doing a bigger audit and I am halfway through collating data, and I'll be presenting to the practice, but I'm worried he'll change the goalposts. He felt what I wrote for a learning event analysis didn't meet the GMC threshold of a significant event and he wanted something more...serious I suppose. I had an ESR meeting a few months back which lasted several hours and was quite a rigorous dissection of my portfolio. It was signed off anyway but a 4 hour ESR meeting I felt was quite soul destroying. My documentation is very very long more to make myself bulletproof in debriefs, which adds cognitive load.
I have made some changes to help my day go smoother such as not dealing with things that should really be appointments, in my admin time. That was somewhat daft of me. I am averaging 15.9 mins per pt on a good day and making progress in that regard. I am learning a lot and getting through the day (just) but I am finding myself feeling absolutely fucked at the end of the day. The heat isn't helping either as the surgery is boiling and at best 27 degrees indoors, but I ignore it as best I can.
Work thoughts are beginning to leech into the weekends again, I'm starting to get that pre work anxiety again. Rest assured, I am working myself very hard and have responded to every bit of advice my supervisor has given me and taken it literally on board. I am already seeing a therapist, I am already on meds, I am already doing a huge amount of life management on my weekends to help me get through the week, but this doesn't feel wonderful. Not to mention the commute, the expenses I'm owed, and it feels like I'm giving away a lot and not getting much back.
I'm celebrating if I have a week like last week where I have time to have lunch (lol), don't have a house visit (lol) and have a balanced case load, which is just a tragically low bar to clear. I'm delicately trying to be boundaried as I am prone to overdoing things.
Any tips, tricks, hacks on making ST3 easier? :(