{"id":2998,"date":"2024-10-28T19:26:24","date_gmt":"2024-10-28T23:26:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atashajordan.com\/blog\/?p=2998"},"modified":"2024-10-28T19:26:26","modified_gmt":"2024-10-28T23:26:26","slug":"my-first-year-as-an-attending-psychiatrist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atashajordan.com\/blog\/my-first-year-as-an-attending-psychiatrist\/","title":{"rendered":"My First Year As An Attending Psychiatrist"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>I&#8217;m Bacckkkk!!!!<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Welcome or welcome back to my blog!!!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;re new here, I&#8217;m an attending psychiatrist who started blogging as a medical student in 2018 as a way to reflect on my journey in medicine. I grew professionally and personally all while documenting the journey on this blog and <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/yqNSMwC8ZJE?si=Vx8RVSCAGvIsFmrI\">social media<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;re interested in learning what it&#8217;s like for a Barbadian, Christian, business-minded woman to find her way in the field of medicine, I encourage you to go back to my <a href=\"https:\/\/atashajordan.com\/blog\/hello-world\/\">first-ever blog post<\/a> and follow the journey from there. I, personally, go back and read old blog posts from time to time, and it&#8217;s really cool to see how God has directed my steps over the years.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/atashajordan.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/1st-day-back.jpg?resize=1024%2C1024&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Atasha in a White Coat\" class=\"wp-image-41\" style=\"width:500px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/atashajordan.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/1st-day-back.jpg?resize=1024%2C1024&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/atashajordan.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/1st-day-back.jpg?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/atashajordan.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/1st-day-back.jpg?resize=300%2C300&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/atashajordan.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/1st-day-back.jpg?resize=768%2C768&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/atashajordan.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/1st-day-back.jpg?resize=1140%2C1140&amp;ssl=1 1140w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/atashajordan.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/1st-day-back.jpg?resize=75%2C75&amp;ssl=1 75w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/atashajordan.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/1st-day-back.jpg?w=2880&amp;ssl=1 2880w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The photo that started this whole blog: The first day of my psychiatry clerkship rotation in May 2018!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Quick Updates<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s been over two years since I last wrote and published a blog post. In that time, SO SO much has happened. I can&#8217;t even begin to provide a full recap here. But I do want to give an overview of my first year as an attending psychiatrist!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;d like to watch one of my updates from residency (I literally haven&#8217;t blogged since the beginning of residency!), you can check out the YouTube video below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"I&#039;m baccckkkk!!! Black Psychiatry Resident Discussing Residency, Marriage, &amp; Christian Mental Health\" width=\"1440\" height=\"810\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/QwYAVYKlTyM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>My First Year as an Attending Psychiatrist<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s sometimes hard to imagine that I&#8217;m a whole Board-Certified, Attending Psychiatrist. But God is so good, and my dream is now a reality. I work day in and day out to improve the mental health of my patients and church communities around the world. It&#8217;s a privelege that I never take for granted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The Summer Before Starting the New Job<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>I finished resdiency on June 30th, 2023, a date I had been counting down toward for a <em>long<\/em> time. My husband and I took the summer off to travel the world! In six weeks, we visited five countries in the Caribbean and Africa. The trip was everything I needed as a means of celebrating the huge milestone of completing my medical training. I did moonlighting shifts in my fourth year of residency and saved nearly 100% of those fund to go toward the cost of the trip and covering our fixed costs during the FUNemployment period. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I highly recommend that graduating residents take some time to REST before starting their first attending roles. Once I got back fron our travels, I quickly transitioned into study mode for the psychiatry boards. Thankfully, I spent sometime in my final &#8220;semester&#8221; of residency studying, so that I wouldn&#8217;t need to worry about studying on my trip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Starting My First Attending Psychiatrist Job<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>In the midst of boards studying, I started my first attending job in September 2024. I was VERY excited about this. So much so that I recorded a YouTube video to vlog my first week of being an attending!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"I Survived Psychiatry Residency!!! | A Day in the Life of a New Attending Psychiatrist\" width=\"1440\" height=\"810\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/2lKoziSRUko?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Every day, I find myself incredibly grateful for the job that God led me to. I honestly did not intend on seeking an academic medicine job, but somehow, someway, that&#8217;s exactly where I ended up. My job is really cool in that every day is very different. Some days, I spend in meetings, research, teaching medical students and residents, and working to engage faith communities in Camden on the topic of mental health. On my clinical days, I split my time between the emergency department and outpatient work. I LOVE that variety for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Life in the Midst of Professional Growth<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Something I like to remind people is that I&#8217;m a human before I&#8217;m a psychiatrist. So in the midst of professional growth, there has been even more personal growth! I became an aunt to a second incredibly cute nephew. My husband and I take every moment possible to hop on a plane to visit family, friends, or just spend time together exploring the world. We also bought a new house, and I&#8217;ve been getting back into my <a href=\"https:\/\/atashajordan.com\/blog\/express-yourself\/\">design mindset<\/a> to make the house a home. I&#8217;m trying my best to reprioritize fitness into my life, as I&#8217;ve severely fallen off of my &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/atashajordan.com\/blog\/50-day-fitness-journey\/\">50 days no excuses<\/a>&#8221; level of fitness. I&#8217;m leaning heavily into spiritual growth and connecting with church communities worldwide through my non-profit <a href=\"https:\/\/www.christianmentalhealthinitiative.org\">Christian Mental Health Initiative<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Overall, I am aiming to grow in all aspects of my life, not just the professional. My current theme word for my life is <em>PEACE<\/em>. I seek peace in all that I do, with God as the center of my source of peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I really look forward to getting back into blogging. Just even writing this blog post has given me a bost of energy and excitement that I haven&#8217;t felt in a while. Blogging was part of the joy that kept me sane in medical school and the beginning of residency, and now it&#8217;s time to keep growing while motivating you to do the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thank you for joining me on this part of my journey!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Peace and blessings,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. Atasha Jordan, MD, MBA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m Bacckkkk!!!! Welcome or welcome back to my blog!!!! If you&#8217;re new here, I&#8217;m an attending psychiatrist who started blogging as a medical student in 2018 as a way to reflect on my journey in medicine. I grew professionally and personally all while documenting the journey on this blog and social media. If you&#8217;re interested in learning what it&#8217;s like for a Barbadian, Christian, business-minded woman to find her way in the field of medicine, I encourage you to go back to my first-ever blog post and follow the journey from there. I, personally, go back and read old blog&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3001,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[285],"tags":[349,12,23],"class_list":["post-2998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-journey-with-dr-jordan","tag-attending-life","tag-medicine","tag-psychiatry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/atashajordan.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/3R1A9471-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9VPX9-Mm","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atashajordan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atashajordan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atashajordan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atashajordan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atashajordan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2998"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/atashajordan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3004,"href":"https:\/\/atashajordan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2998\/revisions\/3004"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atashajordan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atashajordan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atashajordan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atashajordan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}