OC/POA role: Luck of the draw & inconsistent so it's what you make of it.
Pros
Decent benefits, camaraderie amongst fellow OCs (misery loves company), challenging role with transferable skills (e.g. multitasking, customer service, conflict resolution, problem solving, general admin, medical terminology, etc.), delayed gratification for working in a difficult speciality.
Cons
The office coordinator role is extremely inconsistent - the job description does not cover the scope of the actual position and responsibilities are vastly different dependent on where you're placed. This position is truly luck of the draw when it comes to the service you're placed in and the clinical team you work with. One person can be placed in an office with a low patient/call volume requiring little follow-up and minimal administrative responsibilities, while another has a much higher volume with continuous communication and active admin duties. There is a lengthy training process in place to learn the systems; however, most of your learning will come within the first few weeks between mentorship and starting in your office. Job duties vary immensely between services so the training environment is the rose-colored glasses to the reality of what the day-to-day looks like as an OC. Most offices/clinical teams will consist of the physician, nurse, care coordinator (formerly SA), and office coordinator (formerly POA), but some will also include nurse practitioners, clinical research coordinators (formerly RSAs) and fellows. Depending on your service you may also be expected to actively interact with other services to follow-up on results or referrals. In summary, there are a lot of moving parts and often the OC is the one keeping track of it all. As the overseer, if anything goes wrong, then the OC is the one who has to find the source of the problem, figure out a solution and implement it, all while keeping respective parties updated, whether that be an angry patient and his or her family, or a stressed out clinical team. The OC job can be thankless and repetitive; however, you are expected to get through each day with the underlying desire to provide service to your patients and team. While in theory this is admirable, burn out happens quickly and there are little-to-no resources to provide assistance other than staying paid overtime to catch up and taking a vacation if you can find coverage. The caveat is that the coverage system is broken and leaves OCs feeling guilty for taking time off as it inevitably burdens a fellow OC to take on the extra workload. There is very little upward mobility for OCs. You can go laterally and switch to CC to be in clinic or CRC to be involved in research, upward to a Team Lead (formerly POS) if you can manage to beat out the hundreds of other OCs and external applicants, internally to a different role which you will once again be in competition with other applicants, leave to go back to school, or put in your 2 weeks notice like many do (whether or not you have a new job lined up).
