I'm a new [intern, senior res, fellow, attending] and my first [day,night, week]

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oldbearprofessor

oldbearprofessor

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went how??

Tell us

We KNOW you're nervous about it. Or at least we hope you are.;)
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I'll tell you tomorrow. We take over at noon!
 
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I'll let you know on the evening of July 1st :)
 
County ER:

Good mix of patients, busy but not overwhelming. I got pulled out for 45 minutes to see 2 patients in clinic when that got busy. I got to eat lunch, which was quite helpful.

It was very nice not chasing down some doctor to co-sign all my orders, but scary to think that mistakes I made would be possibly executed and with my physician ID# logged in the computer...

Residents were VERY nice and supportive, so that helped immensely.

Overall, it was a very good day and not too too stressful. But after my 12 hours were up, it was good to lie down and get some rest, unlike my colleagues who had their first day be an on-call 30 hours on the wards...:scared:
 
Have survived my first week. Am in a step-up unit, so patients are sicker and more complex. The learning curve has been steep, but at least I don't take forever to read the flowsheet anymore! :p Also survived two calls -- the first was incredibly busy with the first four admissions back to back within an hour and ENDLESS calls from nurses. Think I lay down for max 30 min. Yesterday's call was surprisingly nice, with only 4 admissions even though we had 8 empty beds after a discharge spree. I even got to sleep for 2 hours undisturbed, yay -- oh, how our sleep standards plummet in residency. :rolleyes: Today post call, we had an RT teach us about different breathing machines and he made us try them out. My sleep-deprived brain tends to be extremely giggly, so I was uncontrollably laughing every time the machines gusted puffs of air in my face. He even had us get in an iron lung to see how it felt -- I declined and he said, "Really? This is the most popular attraction," as though it were a theme park! :laugh:
 
Well, my first day as a PL-2 went nicely. :) As part of my EC month, I spent the day with an anesthesiologist in the OR. Got to do several intubations and lines. Also got to help with a laryngoscopy since the ENT attending didn't have a surgery resident.

It's nice not to be the intern! :laugh:
 
Survived my first week which was on nights. Actually am having a good time for the five minutes per night night when I'm not terrified I'm going to kill someone, but so far so good.
 
Will let you know next month when im in the PICU. For now - cardiology elective!
 
It's interesting to be the first person the nurse calls about things like test results (compared to being a medical student and not getting a call).

Survived my first day. :) Looks like I'll get a chance at some procedures this month (LP, bone marrow). Still trying to get more proficient at using the EMR, and I imagine that tomorrow night on call :)eek::scared:) I'll have the pleasure of learning all about how to navigate the sections on admission H&Ps and orders.
 
I survived my first day in the nicu. Learning curve is very, very steep but their expectations are reasonable for us. We had a lot of support from our upper level resident... her job was to do all the order entry on rounds so we didn't have to deal with the EMR on top of having our first exposure to the nicu environment. I was so glad that our census was low because it was quite overwhelming. I think our second day we're responsible for our own order entry... I'm on call tonight:scared: hope it goes well.
 
riverie said:
He even had us get in an iron lung to see how it felt -- I declined and he said, "Really? This is the most popular attraction," as though it were a theme park! :laugh:
Click to expand...

I can't believe you didn't try it! My month, the iron lung wasn't working so we didn't get to try it. I'm still kinda wondering if I can work my way into trying it. I want to see what it feels like!
 
First two days as the admitting intern on night float went well. My senior is taking care of the orders while I do the H&P, and it's been busy but not too bad. I'm getting more efficient...I think, or at least am during the 8pm to midnight portion where I'm still pretty awake. Had three admits come in between 5:15 and 6:30am a couple days ago, I took two while my senior handled the third, and that was a little difficult...though, in retrospect, I generally wasn't doing full H&P's in 35 minutes while a student, so maybe I am getting better!

2 more weeks of doing admissions, then 2 weeks of cross cover to finish out my night float month.
 
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first day of internship, on the floors, was a little overwhelmed, but got much better at the EMR and figuring out the flow of the day. second day, much faster and more efficient (even figured out how to find vitals in graph form), on call that night covering the floors. within one hour of sign out, got a call for a "kid turning blue". I went down (30 feet from where I was eating a quick dinner), walked in, looked at the kid and immediately said, "I need my senior." She walked in 30 seconds later (the nurses had called her too, they understand what july in a teaching hospital means), we called for some major help, and the kid ended up in PICU... (he's gonna be fine). Rest of the night was trying to answer a lot of questions I didn't know the answer to (especially heme/onc), we've got some GREAT nurses, and my senior that night was awesome! I hope the rest of the year goes well...
 
First night of NICU call...26 weeker crumped while the fellow was at a delivery at the adult hospital across the street. Crash course in ventilator management for me.

Terrifying.

Of course, once the attending came in from home, the baby baby was rocking out and not actively trying to die.
 
ms. a said:
I can't believe you didn't try it! My month, the iron lung wasn't working so we didn't get to try it. I'm still kinda wondering if I can work my way into trying it. I want to see what it feels like!
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lol, I was post-call and didn't feel coordinated enough to climb in there semi-gracefully! :)
 
bjackrian said:
Having worked for a total of tweleve days, I feel like I most certainly deserve this next week of vacation.
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When I woke up to go into work, I felt like today was Monday because I had yesterday off (as though it were an entire weekend!!!), then had to go in today, and then will have to work through Wednesday. Then Thursday off followed by 8 more days of work. The routine of working six days per week (on average) will take me another week or so to get used to. :p
 
riverie said:
lol, I was post-call and didn't feel coordinated enough to climb in there semi-gracefully! :)
Click to expand...

Had I been post call, I would have been scared the iron lung would have squeezed air out of the wrong orifice :laugh:
 
I learned an important lesson about iron lungs my first week: Do NOT open them unless RT is there to put the system back together or else the alarm will go off endlessly until dad comes back into the room and resets it while you, your senior, and a med student stand there looking like idiots. Lesson learned.
 
wow, good advice. I will admit, I've been tempted to try hopping inside the ole iron lungs that I walk past in the basement.

But then I'd probably get stuck and not be able to answer my pages. I can't even figure out how to get the IV infusion machines to stop beeping and alarming when I'm trying to take a history...
 
generic said:
wow, good advice. I will admit, I've been tempted to try hopping inside the ole iron lungs that I walk past in the basement.

But then I'd probably get stuck and not be able to answer my pages. I can't even figure out how to get the IV infusion machines to stop beeping and alarming when I'm trying to take a history...
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Look for a button with a picture of a bell with a slash through it
 
bjackrian said:
I learned an important lesson about iron lungs my first week: Do NOT open them unless RT is there to put the system back together or else the alarm will go off endlessly until dad comes back into the room and resets it while you, your senior, and a med student stand there looking like idiots. Lesson learned.
Click to expand...

wow, I didn't know that iron lungs are still actually used.....what did the kid have?
 
My first day as staff, well actually, the past 2 weeks have been spent getting my credentials approved. Not too exciting!
 
Well, I dragged my intern year out to the last possible minute with being on floor call last night. Sent a pt to the PICU during it, but otherwise, all was well.

I graciously greeted our new floor interns this morning and handed them the torch to carry on ;)

I am starting my life as an R2 doing a community rotation which will be pretty low-key and sweet :D
 
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Well, survived my first 2 days in the NICU! Grateful that my seniors and attendings didn't expect much out of me other than gathering numbers and presenting patients like I was a fresh 3rd year med student again (i.e. reading straight from my notes!) The learning curve is a vertical line, but I like hitting up the deliveries and making babies turn blue to pink :D Have my first night of call tomorrow, a little :scared: but I know it'll be :cool:
 
I'm a new intern and my first night... was punishing. The admits just kept on coming. The ER doc enjoyed himself thoroughly. Sigh.

Also, I felt like I knew absolutely nothing about anything.
 
ForbiddenComma said:
I'm a new intern and my first night... was punishing. The admits just kept on coming. The ER doc enjoyed himself thoroughly. Sigh.

Also, I felt like I knew absolutely nothing about anything.
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I promise it gets better. The learning curve is steep. Of course first day of fellowship feels the same way I hear. :laugh:
 
Stitch said:
I promise it gets better. The learning curve is steep. Of course first day of fellowship feels the same way I hear. :laugh:
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First day as an attending is only marginally better. Except you're making a lot more money to be clueless and you have fewer folks bossing you around.;)
 
First PICU call last night: eleven admissions, post-cardiac x-plant respiratory failures, two DKAs, two status asthmaticus and a CHD repair crashing onto ECMO. My question is why are all these people expecting me to tell them what to do?

Welcome to fellowship, Ed!
 
Tomorrow will be my last night of a two week stent as the night team PL-3. Yippee! Its crazy how fast time flies and how far we have all come....
 
I started out in the ED. It's a pretty good experience and we see a little of everything--glad I started there. We do 17 10 hour shifts, so the schedule is pretty nice too.
 
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