First Day of Work!

Wow! That 3 letter word just about sums it up. What an experience! Being an intern is extremely different from being a medical student. People actually EXPECT you to DO stuff for them, like give pain meds, talk to families, etc. Things that medical students weren't paged for before.

That being said, my first day went by great! I have a phenomenal resident who took the time to sit down and go through EVERYTHING with me. Everything from how to use the computer, manage my time efficiently, and even what to say/do for the pages I got as the cross-coverage intern (covering other teams patient's after they left since I was on call). Surprisingly, we made it home by 11 PM, MUCH earlier than expected. I even ended up doing 2 admits, AND two discharges along with all the other work for the day!

Some things of note.
1) The computer system is AMAZING!! Everything is efficiently at your fingertips. All the systems seem to complement each other, data is constantly saved, and putting in orders for your patient are easy as a few clicks. Even printing out prescriptions is automatic, I just click the print button, and sign away!
2) Ancillary and nursing staff are second to NONE! They truly are the backbone of this hospital. If the physician wants ANYTHING done, he/she can put the order in, or tell the appropriate person, and it's DONE! This is definitely something that wasn't as easily done back down south. Although, of course, this has something to do with personnel staff, and sheer numbers of them.

Well- apparently internship also causes a person to not be able to complete posts!! So now, I've basically gone through a whole cycle on the wards, gotten a better grasp of the computer system, and trying to improve my clinical knowledge!

Some interesting differences between my new hospital vs my old is the way the teams are made. At my medical school, once a patient is admitted to a hospital inpatient service, that patient is now the patient of the ward attending. All the residents, interns, medical students, etc all work with only that ONE attending on the service. This makes things much easier. My understanding was this hospital that I am currently at was more or less like that system as compared to an older system where many different attendings could admit to a ward service. I guess my assumption was incorrect. Although MOST of the patients on our service does get covered by our firm attending, despite them having an outside physician, there are still some patients who are followed by an outside attending which means I've got to call them and inform them of the status of their patient. THAT'S annoying. I don't feel like I'm learning much on those patients from the attending. I'm teaching myself about those patients and their conditions, and of course my superb resident who is also a great teacher teaches me as well.

Oh, one last thing, the upper level residents I've worked with so far are AMAZING! Their clinical knowledge is phenomenal for their level of training... I am very impressed. And, this also makes me hopeful that one day, I can be like them!