July 2

People keep asking me what my new rotation is like. I thought I would keep a log of my first week to give an idea to those who care. “It’s like real life Grey’s Anatomy” I was told today. Only if Abe gets to be Dr. McDreamy.

July 2: My first day on-call. Remember that the duty hour rules changed so considered an “intern” I am not allowed to take 24 hours of call at a time. This is maybe the one nice part of the new rule changes, weekends are only 12 hours of call. However, it used to be call from home. Now I am “in-house” while on-call, meaning I have to physically be in the hospital. This didn’t make a big difference yesterday as I was so busy I wouldn’t have left very early anyway.

At 6:00 I met the other resident (my senior) on the floor. We gathered up our list (22 patients—luckily, we didn’t have to see about 4 of them) and looked over the data for the night. Then we rounded.

About 8 am we met our staff doctor and rounded with him again. Had some tricky parents to deal with, including one who felt we had hurt her child while moving her and another who would not give consent for an emergency, life-saving procedure that was needed for her child. In instances like this, the law can dictate a surgery be done to save a child’s life. This was the case here. I am learning it must be so overwhelming to have a sick child who stays in the hospital for days/weeks/months. Not only do they have to live there, but you have to stop your life to be there with them. How exhausting. And stressful on many levels. It makes me grateful for my health. I’m learning especially to be grateful I can have normal bowel movements in a toilet. Seems so simple (and something you don’t want to even think or talk about) but there are a lot of people that can’t!

After about 9:00 the senior and the staff go to the operating room and do two surgeries (including the emergency—all went well). My med student (I know, I “get” a med student on this rotation which is really cool!) and I worked on paperwork. I had notes to write on every patient we saw as well as orders to update. I also had 6 patients to discharge, meaning they have to have all of their orders modified and updated to go home as well as a summary of their medical condition and the course of their hospital stay.

10:30 I finally got a muffin for breakfast.

10:45 back to the notes. Luckily the med student could write notes and I could use them as a starting place to make my notes from. That helped. And my senior got back about 1:00 and helped with a few notes and took care of a few new patients. Abe dropped by somewhere in here on his way home from rounds to say hi. Answer questions intermittently from (nicer) nurses.

3:45 “Oh yeah, forgot about lunch.” Head down to the cafeteria with the senior. Run into Rafael from the ward and eat some sushi. Talk about our busy lives.

4:15 Continue on with notes. Answer nursing calls and issues.

5:30 Finally done with all of my notes for the day! Patient has a rash, could I please come look. Mark it with a marker. Fun, my mom never let me write on myself. Child fell out of crib while mom was watching her. Could I come check her over for injuries. She seems okay. Poor thing!

6:00 Done!

Duty Hours: 6 am to 6 pm

Hours between next shift: 24+. Yay, one of my days off.