today was my first day
the long awaited first day of residency.
i had to be in at 7am. so i woke up in brooklyn at 4:30am and left the apt by 5:20am. it was pouring. my pants were soaked up to mid-thigh (even though i had an umbrella, apparently those don't stop SIDEWAYS RAIN). i got to my station and it was closed. so i doubled back and took a different entrance. then i waited 15 minutes (it seemed like eternity) with wet legs for the 4 train. i rode with the sleepy people until nearly the end of the line, and made it into the medicine conference room about 10 minutes before our scheduled 7am start time. i drank two dixie cup things of black coffee and ate a blueberry minimuffin. i was too anxious to eat too much.
i met the intern who was on his way out. it was his last day, off to another hospital for his ER residency. ("so how was the year?" "are you kidding me? don't fool yourself into thinking it's anything but tough.") he was on call last night, so i got slammed with his 5 brand new admits on top of his established patient list (my co-intern had 4 patients total). they gave us until 8am to walk around, meet the patients, say hi, maybe get the "S" (subjective) part of the SOAP note done (that's the progress note we write daily). needless to say i spent most of that time relearned where everything was and how to log on to the computer based orders system.
by 8am we were to recongregate in the conference room for a 1 hour intern crash course orientation. my pager blew up about 4 times during that orientation. i couldn't listen to how to survive because i was answering pages. incredible. the novelty wore off in like a second. although it was fun hearing nurses refer to me as "doctor".
at 9am we had attending rounds, which is where we meet with the senior-most physician on the service, and discuss our plans with him. since i had no clue what was going on, the former intern did most of the talking. these rounds tend to last a while, but today's rounds last a painful 4 hours. this is the nightmare of internal medicine. ROUNDING ALL FUCKING DAY. (there is no rounding in anesthesia)
so i didn't get much done by 1pm. now, after answering all these pages and calling for consults and just trying to figure things out, i had to go see patients and drop in notes on everyone. but not all the patients are in their rooms (some are off to radiology, some are off to physical therapy, etc), not all consults have been called, not all the blood has been drawn (i drew 2 bloods today and 1 blood culture), not all the labs have been sent, not all the radiology has been read, etc...
by the time i figured out what i was doing (to a point) and how to do it (for now), it was 7:30pm and time to sign out.
by 8pm i was out the door. 9:15pm i was back in brooklyn. 9:30pm i had dinner (my first meal of the day - had no time for lunch). 10:30pm i am writing this thing for your enjoyment.
tomorrow i need to be in at 6am for my short call admission. this means waking up at 3:45am to be on a train by 4:30am. so if i passed out instantly, that would be about 5 hours sleep.
also i feel very stupid like i remember ZERO medicine.
and that was my first day.
i had to be in at 7am. so i woke up in brooklyn at 4:30am and left the apt by 5:20am. it was pouring. my pants were soaked up to mid-thigh (even though i had an umbrella, apparently those don't stop SIDEWAYS RAIN). i got to my station and it was closed. so i doubled back and took a different entrance. then i waited 15 minutes (it seemed like eternity) with wet legs for the 4 train. i rode with the sleepy people until nearly the end of the line, and made it into the medicine conference room about 10 minutes before our scheduled 7am start time. i drank two dixie cup things of black coffee and ate a blueberry minimuffin. i was too anxious to eat too much.
i met the intern who was on his way out. it was his last day, off to another hospital for his ER residency. ("so how was the year?" "are you kidding me? don't fool yourself into thinking it's anything but tough.") he was on call last night, so i got slammed with his 5 brand new admits on top of his established patient list (my co-intern had 4 patients total). they gave us until 8am to walk around, meet the patients, say hi, maybe get the "S" (subjective) part of the SOAP note done (that's the progress note we write daily). needless to say i spent most of that time relearned where everything was and how to log on to the computer based orders system.
by 8am we were to recongregate in the conference room for a 1 hour intern crash course orientation. my pager blew up about 4 times during that orientation. i couldn't listen to how to survive because i was answering pages. incredible. the novelty wore off in like a second. although it was fun hearing nurses refer to me as "doctor".
at 9am we had attending rounds, which is where we meet with the senior-most physician on the service, and discuss our plans with him. since i had no clue what was going on, the former intern did most of the talking. these rounds tend to last a while, but today's rounds last a painful 4 hours. this is the nightmare of internal medicine. ROUNDING ALL FUCKING DAY. (there is no rounding in anesthesia)
so i didn't get much done by 1pm. now, after answering all these pages and calling for consults and just trying to figure things out, i had to go see patients and drop in notes on everyone. but not all the patients are in their rooms (some are off to radiology, some are off to physical therapy, etc), not all consults have been called, not all the blood has been drawn (i drew 2 bloods today and 1 blood culture), not all the labs have been sent, not all the radiology has been read, etc...
by the time i figured out what i was doing (to a point) and how to do it (for now), it was 7:30pm and time to sign out.
by 8pm i was out the door. 9:15pm i was back in brooklyn. 9:30pm i had dinner (my first meal of the day - had no time for lunch). 10:30pm i am writing this thing for your enjoyment.
tomorrow i need to be in at 6am for my short call admission. this means waking up at 3:45am to be on a train by 4:30am. so if i passed out instantly, that would be about 5 hours sleep.
also i feel very stupid like i remember ZERO medicine.
and that was my first day.
posted by dr. j at 6/28/2006 08:24:00 PM
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