u/FablingFox — reddlx

Good day to you all! I’m in a bit of a pickle.

For context, I was having some health problems that I thought were a normal experience. Turns out, they are certainly not normal: my doctors are ruling everything out from an autoimmune disease to cancer.

I work in an outpatient neuro based setting. My treatment sessions are an hour, a day has 8 treats, and I have a 30 min lunch. My current caseload is extremely hands on and dedicated, so my weeks end up being anywhere from 80 - 100 % productivity. I get told last minute that there’s a cancellation and that time is either spent catching up or These patients are also currently dealing with grief/emotional processing of their conditions. Sometimes I spend sessions working on emotional regulation and processing.

Here’s the problem. My doctors call me during my sessions to discuss treatment/further testing protocols. Not only are the offices open only during my working hours, their lunches are the same as mine. I’ve tried to call during my cancellations, but the doctors are not available at the time.

I cannot really leave the patients to do their exercises independently as they are very involved and need a lot of hands on work. Besides, I already had a patient make a side comment when I warned them I might be getting a call from my doctor. (“I don’t get a lot of visits, so I hope it’s not during my time”) I Know my doctors can leave a voicemail, but I have questions, especially if we are ruling out the big C. My supervisors advise to try to call between sessions, but it’s not a guarantee that I will be able to reach them between the 2 minutes I have between the patients transitioning between PT/SLP to me.

TL; DR; My personal doctors call me during my treatment sessions to discuss my health problems, and I am unable to call them outside of work/lunch.

What’s the most professional way to handle this situation? I’m scared enough, but I don’t want my patients to suffer for my own health failures. Thank you.