Hey y'all interview season is in full force and I'm sure many of you are critically appraising your rank list. I am ready and willing to answer any questions you may have!
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Duke IM intern AMA
- Thread starter DBV
- Start date
How have you been handling the workload and amount of responsibility so far? The culture of the program on interview day seemed really great (i.e. residents were very close and had good relationships with the PD), but I got a sense that perhaps the workload and level of responsibility is intense. I'm more of a "graduated responsibility" than "thrown into the deep end" kind of person, so I wasn't sure whether Duke was a good fit from that perspective. How would you compare your experience to friends you know at other programs?
Also a more nuts and bolts question, but what is the schedule like on genmed and the subspecialty services? I only got that partially answered on interview day.
Appreciate any insight you could give! Thanks a bunch.
Also a more nuts and bolts question, but what is the schedule like on genmed and the subspecialty services? I only got that partially answered on interview day.
Appreciate any insight you could give! Thanks a bunch.
How have you been handling the workload and amount of responsibility so far? The culture of the program on interview day seemed really great (i.e. residents were very close and had good relationships with the PD), but I got a sense that perhaps the workload and level of responsibility is intense. I'm more of a "graduated responsibility" than "thrown into the deep end" kind of person, so I wasn't sure whether Duke was a good fit from that perspective. How would you compare your experience to friends you know at other programs?
Also a more nuts and bolts question, but what is the schedule like on genmed and the subspecialty services? I only got that partially answered on interview day.
Appreciate any insight you could give! Thanks a bunch.
I wont lie to you, the work load can be intense and some rotations are tougher than others. We certainly do not throw you into the deep end here. In the beginning of the year extra senior residents are put on rotations to help out and answer questions and even take admissions and write notes while you get accustomed and figure out the system. As the year goes on you will want more of the pie and you will appropriately get more responsibility. Caps are 8 patients per intern which I think is enough to push you but not too much to get your work done and go home on time. I struggled a little bit in the beginning as I started out in the CCU pretty early but now I have become accustomed to the workflow and as an example today i had 7 patients on gen med and finished notes, orders and consults by 10:30 AM. Got an admission around 11 and sat around twiddling my thumbs until sign out. It gets much easier as you figure out what youre doing.
As for gen med here at duke, it comes in two flavors. VA hospital and Duke hospital and they are different. Both will give you one weekend day off per week. So no golden weekends but also no Blacks.
VA Hospital: You will show up for signout at 7AM and the call schedule is q4 28 hour call. This sounds much worse than it is and most residents actually prefer this because on all the other days you have the opportunity to get off really early (2 pm for example). You will only admit on your call day and get AM admits on one other day in the week. On that day and your pre call day you get to leave when you finish your work which is amazing. Cap is still 8 patients. You get to learn how to operate in another health system.
Duke: you show up at 7AM for signout. Here you take admits every day except for one until 4 pm. Signout is at 7PM. You are usually much busier and the patients are more complex. So 7 to 7 for 6 days a week. On the weekend day that you work you can leave at 5. Subspecialty services work very similarly to this schedule. They include Pulmonology, Several cardiology services, solid tumor oncology, malignant hematology, CCU, Neurology as an intern.
In summary, I don't think the workload has been very difficult but the transition from med student to physician is a big one and can be tough. By 2 months into intern year you get up to speed and the workload becomes very manageable. We are certainly not an easy program but we value efficiency as evidenced by our lack of pre-rounding (you see the patient with the attending or senior resident and not before so you dont repeat your work and exam as a show). I also really like that people don't take themselves too seriously here and are passionate about teaching.
Hope this helped!
