Is this normal?
I’m a new grad PMHNP working in outpatient community mental health in a big city. My orientation consisted of 4 hours of shadowing the senior NP and company wide orientation. On my first day my patient caseload consisted of seeing patients presenting with schizoaffective d/o, schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, and possible withdrawal symptoms from alcohol use d/o, all of whom I saw completely by myself. I have not shadowed anyone and nobody sat in with me during my psychiatric evaluations. We don’t get admin time and our supervising physician is not on site but we are free to email him “when we need help”. When I interviewed I was told that our company is “new grad friendly” and that we would get “a lot of support”, however I am not necessarily feeling very supported. I absolutely am not opposed to seeing patients with serious mental illness or any diagnosis or population. I specifically chose this community mental health center to learn because they see an underserved community from ages 5 and up. However I did think I’d at least get 2 weeks shadowing NPs and that I would at least have someone sit in on my first couple of evaluations to offer me feedback. Alarm bells were going off in my head and I even drafted a resignation letter, but I am wondering if anyone has experienced a similar orientation process as a new grad and if this is just the experience I’ll have if I move on to another job. Thanks for any input.