Internitis

[Deferoxamine]

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Honestly.

A month into this gig and I feel so incredibly stupid lately. How come everything I've learned the past few years has just escaped me? No one is yelling at me, no one is being malignant or anything, I just can't complete coherent thoughts half the time. Hell, it's like even my common sense has left me. It's kind of embarrassing getting owned so badly.

 

[Quink]

Honestly.

A month into this gig and I feel so incredibly stupid lately. How come everything I've learned the past few years has just escaped me? No one is yelling at me, no one is being malignant or anything, I just can't complete coherent thoughts half the time. Hell, it's like even my common sense has left me. It's kind of embarrassing getting owned so badly.

Relax. You're probably tired and stressed. You will be fine and your brain will start to function again. Promise!

 

[Doctor4Life1769]

Relax. You're probably tired and stressed. You will be fine and your brain will start to function again. Promise!

I dunno, I feel the same way.

The other day, couldn't recall the names of CCBs except cardizem... dihydropyridines... whaaaa???

 

[shopsteward]

Shopsteward's Law of Institutions

1. All man-made processes are inefficient.

2. Any man-made process which appears to be efficient has merely succeeded in externalising its inefficiencies.

As a newcomer to your organisation, you are currently at the receiving end of all its inefficiencies. Soon you will cease to notice them (this process is known as "institutionalisation") and all will be well.

 

[Arcan57]

You're discovering that medical school has almost nothing to do with what you need to function as a physician. Assuming you are like most interns, sometime this year or early next year you'll have the system figured out and will have obtained a veneer of competency. Until then, try to keep your screw-ups small and carry a peripheral brain at all times.

 

[jdh71]

Honestly.

A month into this gig and I feel so incredibly stupid lately. How come everything I've learned the past few years has just escaped me? No one is yelling at me, no one is being malignant or anything, I just can't complete coherent thoughts half the time. Hell, it's like even my common sense has left me. It's kind of embarrassing getting owned so badly.

wait until you start fellowship . . .

ugh

 

[gutonc]

wait until you start fellowship . . .

ugh

Word. The thing about internship is that everyone basically expects you to not know your head from your butt until at least late November. That's not to say you won't get yelled at from time to time, but it's also why you have upper levels around and have relatively low patient loads (surgery excluded).

In fellowship, this period of head/butt incoherence is allowed to last for, at the most, 45 minutes on July 1. After that, you are expected to have immediate, comprehensive, evidence-based answers to all consult questions in less time than it takes Domino's to make and deliver a pizza to the nurses lounge.

It's awesome.

 

[The Angriest Bird]

For almost everything in medicine there's a textbook answer and there's a real-life answer. In the past four years you were learning the former. Now you are learning the latter.

 

[MJB]

I swear, if I could just figure out the damned EMR I think I'd be ok. Still scared to death, but at least ok.

It really sucks to not only not know what you're doing, but to literally not know how to do what you're doing.

And I'm fairly computer competent. Most user-unfriendly software I've come across. Other than DOS.

 

[CerealBox]

Halfway through and still feel like I have stupid intern brain. Having a bad day today 🙁

 

[nitemagi]

Inflammation of the intern?

 

[CerealBox]

Yes, causing serious functional defects 😀

 

[mmmcdowe]

Inflammation of the intern?

Studies have shown a possible correlation with the severity of inflammation of one's senior earlier in life.

 

[jdh71]

Halfway through and still feel like I have stupid intern brain. Having a bad day today 🙁

You'll probably have days like that until you retire. Most days when I get a consult for dyspnea, I'm like, "Here we go again . . . sure I'll go do the intellectual heavy lifting for [insert name of service that is not pulmonary here], because it's not that hard to give the patient their gattam Advair(!!) . . ." and I review the case and usually the CT findings and examine the patient and I'm like, crap, this guy is all ****ed up and I'm not sure what's going on *scratching head* . . . at all . . .

 

[TheLesPaul]

Studies have shown a possible correlation with the severity of inflammation of one's senior earlier in life.

 

[45408]

Halfway through and still feel like I have stupid intern brain. Having a bad day today 🙁

I'm a year further along, and every day I realize how every time I learn something, I realize that there are at least two more things I don't know. Especially with cancer.

 

[Buzz Me]

Every day I realize how little I know.

 

[ShyRem]

Agreed.

 

[dragonfly99]

Realizing how little we know is usually a good thing...it's the people who don't realize that they don't know stuff who we need to be afraid of. Which reminds me, I need to go study 🙂

 

[Mattchiavelli]

Especially with cancer.

Even if you could somehow absorb and integrate all the current knowledge about cancer there is still stuff that no one knows about... and that's medicine for ya.

 

[asap6]

So glad I'm not the only one feeling this way. As an IMG at a prominent university program its so intimidating to be around some of the smartest interns and world renowned attendings.

I feels so incompetent and useless. Although I'm only hearing good feedback, the anxiety of screwing up is killing me.

 

[Buzz Me]

I feels so incompetent and useless. Although I'm only hearing good feedback, the anxiety of screwing up is killing me.

You have to keep striving to learn as much as you can, and your confidence will grow. But it's healthy to always have a small amount of fear in the back of your head. I still do...and it keeps me prepared, expecting the worst, and out of trouble.

 

[rachmoninov3]

For the first 6 months I could have sworn that my job discription should have been changed to read "show up and make mystakes"---especially on OB.

Now I'm feeling slightly less awkward, and more like I have a handle on things. Of course now the problem of efficiency comes into play. I am still far too worried about killing people, and therefore hand write detailed notes in the morning so that I don't miss anything. Yet one of these days I'm going to have to take a leap of faith and start just reviewing labs, studies, vitals, seeing the patient, writing orders and doing my notes later.

Anyone else find it frightening that we're so far from where we started in July, but have no friggin clue how we got here?