for interns, how many patient's per shift is reasonable?

[Painter1]

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early on, how many patients per 12hr shift is reasonable for interns? including patients requiring suturing, abdomenal pain requiring w/u etc. etc.

 

[beyond all hope]

On support staff, procedures, acuity etc.

In a mixed ED (fast track, acute, all mixed together) with at least decent ancillary staff you should be seeing about 1 patient/hour in the beginning of your intern year, closer to 1-2 towards the end.

Don't work too hard seeing lots of patients as an intern. Work hard to do good medicine and learn. Residency is for your education, not to empty the waiting room or let your attendings sit on their cans.

As a PG-2 you'll have to start cranking them out.

 

[The White Coat Investor]

I agree...1/hour

 

[DrQuinn]

Yup. Agree. Your job as an intern is to NOT move the meat. That's for when you become an upperclassman. 1 an hour is good. Make sure you do good H&Ps and work on just "getting into the groove" of being in EM. That takes about a year to go. Once you become a PGY2 it'll kinda hit you, your efficiency will go up and you can see more and become a faster machine, but not as a PGY-1.

Q

 

[GeneralVeers]

In other programs do the attendings typically see patients?

In ours, the attendings do not see patients on their own, and are just there to sign charts, supervise procedures etc. Even when we're busy they still don't help with the load. Is this normal?

 

[basementbeastie]

In other programs do the attendings typically see patients?

In ours, the attendings do not see patients on their own, and are just there to sign charts, supervise procedures etc. Even when we're busy they still don't help with the load. Is this normal?

yeah....for the most part...

 

[southerndoc]

In other programs do the attendings typically see patients?

In ours, the attendings do not see patients on their own, and are just there to sign charts, supervise procedures etc. Even when we're busy they still don't help with the load. Is this normal?

Our attendings are required to see every patient and document on every patient. They do not usually see patients on their own. Supervision of procedures is the responsibility of the supervising residents (PGY-3 or 4's).

 

[mikecwru]

In other programs do the attendings typically see patients?

In ours, the attendings do not see patients on their own, and are just there to sign charts, supervise procedures etc. Even when we're busy they still don't help with the load. Is this normal?

I see patients on my own, but it depends on the shift. In fast track and our obs unit, we work alone. I'm on trauma alert today, so I staff the trauma patients and see patients on my own... I don't staff medical patients. There's certain shifts like coming on first thing in the AM and for the beginning of a night shift where it's not a good idea to see on your own because you end up having a line of people waiting to staff with you.

mike

 

[DrQuinn]

I went to a new program (USF), and definately teh patients were also seen by attendings. By the time we got a full complement of residents (third year), and visiting students, and rotating interns, probably 80-90% of patients are seen by non attendings initially. We only had six a class though and our census is over 70k.

Now I'm at a new place (Georgetown) and we only have interns (first class for the program). We see probably 80-90% of the patients on our own without students or residents.

We don't have peds or trauma alerts in our ED and our census is almost 80k.

Q