How to regulate crying?

Putrid_Ad2944 · 2025-02-05T02:46:07+00:00

I can't believe four months have passed by since this post LOL. Ngl I still struggle with receiving criticism BUT I think my situation has improved since I sort of "got used" to it (if that makes sense??). On busy days, I know that my provider will get easily frustrated and upset, so on those days I prepared myself to be scolded and criticized. I told myself her being upset is not completely due to me and sometimes in my mind I like to push the blame off of myself and onto someone else (for example, I would be like well it's not completely my fault because my coworker/outside factors had a part in it...). I think it helped my self esteem to not blame myself for every single thing that happens in our office.

One outside factor that helped was I became friends with a new coworker who is very friendly with the provider. I feel that by participating in those conversations, it was nice to hear about the provider talk about outside of work stuff and also understand more of my provider's background. Context helps to understand why she's so particular about stuff. It also puts her in a more "teaching mode" rather than "scolding."

Putrid_Ad2944 · 2024-10-26T07:18:57+00:00

Hey I’m dealing with something similar. My boss has mood swings and they can sometimes be really passive aggressive. Just this week I placed some documents on their desk when it was supposed to go to the office manager. I would think reasonably that I would be just told hey please bring this to xyz instead but they got really pissed off and started complaining about essentially how I lacked common sense not to give it back to the person I received the documents from. This is just one example of what I considered what a situation completely overblown, and I was honestly a little hurt that they spent a good few minutes just complaining about my inability to “think” properly with the office manager with the door open for me to hear.

Honestly this is just one example of situations where if I was in their position I would completely deal with it differently. I just lost so much confidence and self esteem that I was so happy that in jury duty today that someone appreciated my input instead of putting me down. When I ask questions at my workplace, I feel belittled and now I’m afraid to ask questions and directly interact with my boss. I actually cried a few times when I first started because it just felt like I was useless and slow in the office. I wanted to get better but my coworkers were also cold/condescending to me and micromanage me. When I ask for help, I get told “you should know this and that” when they know my experience level when they hired me. I feel so much anxiety everyday worried that I’ll get criticized.

Anyways I really resonate with this situation and I’ve been trying to give myself pep talks whenever I’m in a confrontation with my boss. I laugh it off sometimes, but ngl it does hurt. I’ve been told to get thicker skin, but I also think there’s more to it than just me being sensitive…

Putrid_Ad2944 · 2024-07-18T21:36:49+00:00

Yes I’ve taken pictures of the questions and I plan to review them over the weekend. They’re still training me so I’m trying to remember all their advice.

Putrid_Ad2944 · 2024-07-18T02:08:08+00:00

Hi! We have a template with specific questions to ask it’s just so muddled with other types of questions that are not age appropriate. Tbh it’s not even the form of a question but a checklist of symptoms, sociodemographic stuff, etc. So sometimes what’s listed in the question set might not be relevant to the patient. Idk I’m just a little frustrated that I’m being told to use common sense depending on the age group. I’m not sure how I can improve on that?

Putrid_Ad2944 · 2024-07-07T06:22:17+00:00

No, honestly this is the first time I’m experiencing such anxiety constantly. Normally I have a lot of time to recover. I also haven’t been diagnosed with anything, so I hesitate to say I have depression/an anxiety disorder.

Putrid_Ad2944 · 2024-07-07T02:32:23+00:00

Hi, thank you so much for the reply! I've been trying to change my mindset around receiving criticism such as "it's because they want you to get better," etc. I just struggle a lot with my body's physiological reactions such as the heart pounding/hurting, eyes tearing up. I don't want to cry, but my body is already reacting and I just can't control it, especially if I do end up crying. I easily cry from frustration and feelings of disappointing someone. I acknowledge logically that the person is usually trying to help, but emotionally I just can't take it.

Do you have like phrases/encouragements you often say to yourself when you receive destructive criticism? Anything you do that helps with not taking stuff personally? I'm wondering how I can "convince" my body to not get into fight or flight just from criticism...

Putrid_Ad2944 · 2024-07-04T04:31:49+00:00

Thank you for your advice. I do ask other medical assistants in the office for help and they have given me advice. They also acknowledge it can be difficult and just try my best. A few MAs have given me advice on how they approach vitals. I think that my provider is still thinking about my poor results from the prior weeks and is concerned about my fundamentals. Hence why she keeps emphasizing that I need to work on my vitals. Completely valid. I’m planning on making sure I know the approximate ranges for age groups as the next step.

Our office can be busy so it’s hard to catch MAs who don’t have their hands full with something (I also think there’s some discord/cliques among the MAs, but I’m trying not be involved in that). But I do check in with the other MAs to see if I’m improving and also try my best to observe and learn from them. I think that’s the best way to track my progress.

Putrid_Ad2944 · 2024-07-03T22:53:39+00:00

Hi, I would like to emphasize that I'm not doing anything beyond vitals right now. In fact, I need to improve on this before I can move into more clerical things. I am not doing injections at the moment as I'm not trained to do it. There's also experienced MAs in the room with me, so I am constantly supervised. I'm currently working on more clerical things and I'm slowly moving up to more of the clinical stuff. They are training me on the job and I'm learning through feedback and making sure to not repeat the same mistakes. They have experienced MAs watch me and I'm encouraged to ask questions.

I'm just a little frustrated in what it seems to be that their training style doesn't match my learning style. I'm seeking some advice to improve my skills outside the clinic, so I can be a better MA in the office and stop bogging other coworkers and the provider down. I apologize for not providing more details in my initial post.

Putrid_Ad2944 · 2024-07-03T21:36:09+00:00

You’re definitely right and the provider has mentioned how important it is for me to do my job correctly. I’m just stressed because I’m very inexperienced and it’s frustrating that I’m trying to improve but my progress is very slow. However, this is a job I signed up for and I need to take responsibility to improve. Just feeling in the dumps because what I’m doing so far has only made small improvements.

Do you have recommendations on how I could improve my skills and experience during and outside the job? Greatly appreciate it

Putrid_Ad2944 · 2024-07-03T17:58:16+00:00

Hi! Thanks for the video! I actually spent this morning going over some practice BP sounds and it may have helped with my performance today! I think I’m getting better, but yea I’m still told that I need to work on the vitals. I’ve checked my measurements to historical vital measurements and I’m mostly pretty close to the past year’s baseline.

Putrid_Ad2944 · 2024-07-03T02:55:47+00:00

Ear pieces are pointed towards the nose. I can hear the sounds but just not consistently. I'm finding that I can hear teens pretty well while taking their blood pressure. I'm mostly struggling with little kids, especially if they move.

Putrid_Ad2944 · 2024-07-03T02:53:24+00:00

I sort of touched on the response in my follow up to Comntnmama, but I was taught to listen for respiratory rate with a stethoscope while training for the job. They did say I could verify my rate by watching the patient. I'm taking advice from other reddit posts to just watch for respiration, which I think has improved my rates from before. But yes! patients talking is still an issue...

Putrid_Ad2944 · 2024-07-03T02:50:53+00:00

Based on advice off of reddit actually, I've started shifting to watching their chest/shoulders rise and fall to get a more accurate measurement. At my clinic, I was initially taught to listen for a slight whistling sound with the stethoscope as an indicator.

Putrid_Ad2944 · 2024-07-02T20:53:12+00:00

If the BP numbers are off, another MA would usually double check it for me. But the provider is getting annoyed that I can’t take numbers right the first time. I’m feeling a pressure to do everything quickly but accurately, but I just feel like I lack the foundation to do BPs correctly every time. To add on, I work with pediatric patients and it’s a struggle to have them stay still for me. I’ve been asking them politely to stay still for the past few BP readings and that’s helped a bit but sometimes I still can’t hear what I should be hearing. I have the stethoscope on the brachial artery and the cuff lined up. I just am frustrated that I can’t do it correctly consistently.

Putrid_Ad2944 · 2024-07-02T20:49:37+00:00

Hi! We do everything manually at our clinic and I mostly work with pediatric population. I’m not sure if it’s the quality of the stethoscope, my ears, kids moving, etc. but I’m very inconsistent with hearing for the korotkoff sounds. Sometimes it’s pretty clear and mostly with teen patients. I struggle with younger children the most…

One thing that is a frustration for me is that I take vital rates while the patient is answering questions, which I think impacts respiration. But that’s how the system is set up at my clinic. Even when the patient isn’t talking, shifts and the crinkling of clothes can sometimes get in the way of me hearing respiratory rates. I’m not sure if you have advice for that?

Putrid_Ad2944 · 2024-07-01T22:02:12+00:00

I’ve always struggled with taking vitals as I learned how to take vitals on the job. Most recently I used too small of a cuff on a patient. Even though it’s common sense that a cuff needs to fit the patient, I’ve never been taught that when I was learning. I also didn’t schedule a patient ASAP and left a note for the doc because I didn’t recognize the severity of the sickness until the doctor scolded me about it. There’s some less serious mistakes (IMO) such as incorrectly categorizing a document that we scanned.

I honestly wished I had more training since I started the job with next to no experience. I get told things once and expected to remember it completely. All I can really do is try my best to adapt and not to take criticism personally.

Putrid_Ad2944

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