So you’re unhappy with your job and don’t want to be there anymore? Follow these sure steps in any order to guarantee a termination in your future. Make sure your execution is flawless, if not it may take longer than 10 days.
- Cup everyone. Literally. If you have time leftover, prescribe the pulleys
- You took a con ed course a few months ago that included cupping. At first your patient couldn’t touch their toes and after 15 minutes of cupping, they can touch their toes now! You are pretty much practicing Eastern Medicine; tell your patients that.
- Pop quiz: your initial eval shows up s/p ankle sprain what do you do? Obviously have them disrobe so you can cup their erector spinae. This is connected through fascial lines and will guarantee that they don’t roll their ankles anymore in the future
- Your cupping session only took 45 minutes. You have some time left over, so you should prescribe the pulleys. Low back pain? Rotate with the pulleys to improve ROM!
- Read over a colleague’s notes and tell them to make corrections
- I just want to emphasize that the more control you can gain, the better. Start looking over your co-worker’s notes and proofreading them. It doesn’t matter that they’re licensed because you know better than them. Why would they write a goal of shoulder flexion to 120 degrees when the patient has frozen shoulder? Confront them immediately!
- TELL the patient where their pain is until they walk out of the clinic.
- Make sure to correct the patient when they tell you where their pain is. She points to her lower back but tell her that her pain is actually in the IT band. Her script even says IT band syndrome. What would she know, she’s not the PT, YOU ARE!
- Call in sick often from “food poisoning”
- This one is self explanatory. Don’t do it every week because it will start to get obvious; maybe every other week. Also, make sure to inform everyone less than an hour before work starts because any earlier would just be inconsiderate.
- Be rude on the phone
- Someone on the phone wants to talk to you. It’s a professor from a nearby DPT program trying to confirm student placements. How dare they call right now! Don’t they know you have a patient and 3 notes to write? Let them have it. It’s the phone, so you don’t ever have to worry about seeing this person in real life anyway.
- There are many different ways to be rude on the phone. This was just a specific example
- Show up hungover on Monday and loudly brag about your weekend galavants. Don’t forget to be very descriptive!
- Tip: If someone is too far away to hear your stories, you can either move closer to them or talk louder. Try both for increased effectiveness.
- Tip: Did you forget if you already told them a specific story? Tell them again to make sure!
- Berate a patient for being late to their evaluation and refuse to see them. How dare they get lost in the rain coming from the other side of town!
- Look your time is important, the patients should know that. They should have left 2 hours early if they didn’t know where they were going!
- Write less than four words in the subjective and assessment all the time. Also a re-eval? What’s that?
- What’s documentation but just a bunch of words anyways. Re-eval? That’s just more work; you already measured them the first visit and that should be enough
- Tip: for subjective just write “No P!” and for assessment write “Tol tx well”. This will save you so much time to talk at your co-workers while they are working
- Swear at your patients
- Look this one may take some finesse. You’re not just going to do it on the first few visits….you’re better than that. Befriend your patients first, gain their trust, thennnnn you will be free to swear with them, at them, whatever. You guys are friends now; clinic or bar, in friendship the setting makes no difference
- Corner your co-worker’s student when your co-worker is out of the clinic. Yell at him into submission to establish your dominance
- This one will be your ace in the hole. It’s been a whole week and this student hasn’t asked you any questions? Doesn’t he know who you are? Suggestively let him know that this is your clinic and there should be questions being asked at him to make sure you are getting the best learning experience. They need your mentorship, they just don’t know it yet!
This article is a satire on unprofessionalism and is an homage to one of the best rom-coms of all time. If you are really unhappy at your current job, then I suggest you move on and do what’s best for you. Life is way too short to be stuck in a rut. In no way do I advocate you actually do these things in real life. To be an excellent professional, you should do the exact opposite of the 10 tips I have listed. Unfortunately, these stories were based on a real person. Working with this person was the worst 3 months of my professional life, but I could say I have learned a lot from the experience and it made me mature a lot faster as a PT. Silver lining, everybody. Sigh. Silver lining.