Is Telemedicine Lonely? What Remote NPs Don’t Expect and How to Stay Connected
What ten years of remote practice taught me about community, and why a Slack channel isn’t the same thing.
Working in telemedicine as a nurse practitioner can be lonely, and almost nobody warns you about it. No commute, no clinic hallway, no coworker to grab between patients. Just you, your laptop, and a queue that never quite empties.
Whether you’re considering your first remote NP role or you’ve been doing this for years, connection is worth thinking about on purpose. You can love the quiet and the flexibility and still miss having people around who understand your day.
I’ve been in telemedicine for about ten years. Here’s what I’ve learned about staying connected, including the job I left partly because of it.
My first telemedicine job felt isolating
I started by prescribing birth control on a small, new platform that was completely asynchronous. I reviewed online medical questionnaires and made clinical decisions from that information.
I knew the clinical area. What I was learning was how to apply it without the patient in front of me. There were moments I’d look at a case and think, “I don’t think I’d prescribe this through telemedicine.” The practice was so new that protocols for that setting weren’t really in place yet, so I sat alone working through those questions.
Our small group of providers was spread across different states. But we’d met on a video call during onboarding, and the platform had a community Slack channel. We started messaging, and over time those connections grew. The owner talked about ohana, the idea of a work family, and meant it.
We became good friends. I still keep in touch with some of those providers today.
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