How is your prelim/transitional year so far?

[Voxel]

I just came off a interested yet light elective and the cold hard reality of the floors (one of the sickest in the hospital) hit me the other day. Anyway just wanted to know how everyone else is doing so far. Let us know what field you are going into (and how you can't wait to start).

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[Ligament]

Voxel,

I am actually enjoying my Internship so far. I have done a month of ER, OB/GYN, and Cardiology this month. The hours are rather long but I have not felt overtly abused by any means so far. I will do pediatrics next month. After that, ICU with q3 call. We'll see how I feel after that!

I am going into PM&R and definitely look forward to it, especially the outpatient MSK stuff and EMGs.

By the way, if you are looking for a real good TY/Prelim-medicine/Osteopathic Internship year look at St. Francis Hospital in Evanston(Chicago) Illinois. Great way to serve as an Intern.

regards!

 

[neutropeniaboy]

Mine is going well so far. I was on the vascular service for a long while. Several stressful codes, many of them dying. Telling families of deaths was harder than expected...especially when it occurred three days in a row (had two floor codes and one person die in the OR).

I'm on a general surgery service right now. It's a lot quieter. The patients are healthier overall, and it's a lot less stressful.

I'm adapting to the 110 hour work weeks. Every 4th night call isn't so bad, but we cover a lot of services when on call, so call itself isn't great.

I've found, however, that sleep debt really does accumulate. I function without any problems related to that when I'm busy in the hospital, but as soon as I'm home, it's sleepy-sleep time.

 

[drusso]

I'm doing a transitional year in a county hospital in preparation for PM&R. So far, so good. I've done pediatrics which was a relatively light service with q5 call, medicine with q5 call, and now surgery with q4 call. Medicine was very busy with typically between 15-20 hits per call. The team consisted of an upper level and two interns so at times I was handling >10 medicine patients plus floor call. Pediatrics was light, mostly outpatient, but interns were responsible for NICU admissions and high-risk OB on calls nights plus covering the newborn nursery. I got NALS certified which was pretty cool! Surgery so far is busy, but our job as interns is mostly to keep the chiefs in the OR and run around the hospital putting out fires. Next month I do ER.

I guess the biggest adjustment is the shift in responsibility. Your orders matter now and people in general pay more attention to what you say. I'm happy I chose a transitional year as I feel I'm getting good, broad-based exposure to multiple areas of medicine.

 

[Whisker Barrel Cortex]

My first three months were great. Then I started on of my six upcoming ward medicine months on Monday. On my first call day, I got paged every 5 minutes for cross cover on 50 patients (one of which took 2 hours of time) while trying desperately to admit 5 patients. It was perhaps the most hellish nights, but in a way exhilarating. I could handle nights like that if only they didn't happen every 4 fricken' days! Just thinking of the sixth months of that I have this year (3 in a row at the end) makes me depressed. Although I plan on working hard during my radiology residency as well, the humane and conducive learning enviroment of my radiology residency will be a welcome relief.