My First Day!

[CrazyPeds527]

---

Members do not see this ad.

The craziness of today:

#1 - New interns (i.e Me) start

#2 - We are told when we arrive that the hospital is being visited by JCAHO today, and that we must be on alert (as though we weren't stressed enough!)

#3 - 30 minutes into rounds, our senior receives a page that a nearby pediatric facility has a gas leak, and will soon be transferring many patients to us (true, but gas leak was resolved before we got patients from them)

If something could go wrong this morning, it did 🙂
Welcome to intern year, this is going to be fun!

Any other stories from those that started?

 

[TexasRose]

All I can say at this point is that it was a 12 hour day and there's a world of stuff I don't know about heme/onc. I'm thinking I might go back tomorrow, though. 😉

 

[Marigold]

OK CrazyPeds, you win!! LOL!!

Yes, today was kinda insane. I was there for 13 hrs, didn't manage to preround on all my pts before rounds, and I'm STILL trying to wind down from the loads of adrenaline that have been running through my system all day!!

BUT I must admit I'm in quite a chipper mood because I SURVIVED THE FIRST DAY!!! 😀😀😀

 

[oldbearprofessor]

#2 - We are told when we arrive that the hospital is being visited by JCAHO today, and that we must be on alert (as though we weren't stressed enough!)

Uh oh, I hope they told you what the "mission" and "vision" of the hospital are!

Good job to all the interns! Only another 364 days to go of internship!

 

[devildoc2]

Why are you guys starting early? I thought all programs started July 1?

I'm still doing orientation. We have 10 days of it!

Question: Did you just show up on sign out in the morning? I'm thinking its hard to show up at sign out at 6 AM and pick up 10 new patients and be able to present them on rounds at 8 AM.

Did you go the day before and informally find out which patients you were going to get and read up on them so you could effectively transfer 100% of the care at sign out the next day?

 

[165808]

My day was pretty chill!! Peds GI is a crazy service where I am, but they only assigned me two patients to start off with 🙂

Devildoc....most programs I know of start in mid-June. You're lucky!!!! We had 7 days of orientation starting last Monday, and our first official day on the wards was today. If I found a program that started 7/1, I think it would have been bumped up to my #1 on the ROL just on principle 😀

 

[riverie]

Congrats to all the new 'terns for surviving their first day! 😉

 

[CrazyPeds527]

Devildoc: we start early, and then receive one week of "free" vacation at the end of intern year (free meaning it doesnt count against our scheduled vacation because ALL interns are off!)

OBP: i have heard all about it; just dont ask me to remember it!

The real fun is tomorrow night - my first call! 😱😱😱

I think i could start making the titles of all of my posts "my first" like scrubs.
Thank god my team is awesome, i might not survive without them.

OK, so this was a lot of stream-of-consciousness

That's all

 

[kate0834tkjn]

OK CrazyPeds, you win!! LOL!!

Yes, today was kinda insane. I was there for 13 hrs, didn't manage to preround on all my pts before rounds, and I'm STILL trying to wind down from the loads of adrenaline that have been running through my system all day!!

BUT I must admit I'm in quite a chipper mood because I SURVIVED THE FIRST DAY!!! 😀😀😀

Was this a huge problem?! (I don't mean that to sound mean or anything.....just wondering if your attending/senior flipped out on you. 🙂)

I'm also curious about devildoc's question above...how does it work on the first day? Do you get sign out from the outgoing intern at some point before the first day (that's how it worked when the medicine interns switch teams at my school)? Or maybe the seniors pre-round on/present all the patients on the first day (that's how it worked on my peds rotation when the interns switched teams)?

 

[Marigold]

Question: Did you just show up on sign out in the morning? I'm thinking its hard to show up at sign out at 6 AM and pick up 10 new patients and be able to present them on rounds at 8 AM.

Did you go the day before and informally find out which patients you were going to get and read up on them so you could effectively transfer 100% of the care at sign out the next day?

This is exactly why I didn't get all my prerounding done before rounds the first day.

And no, I didn't go the day before because I had already gotten a page from my Acting Chief to show up the next day at 0630 for floor orientation...and then I just jumped in. That's what all the 'terns on my floor did. It was a crazy day (ended up being there till 7pm getting to know my pts and the system), but it worked out ok.

 

[Marigold]

Was this a huge problem?! (I don't mean that to sound mean or anything.....just wondering if your attending/senior flipped out on you. 🙂)

I'm also curious about devildoc's question above...how does it work on the first day? Do you get sign out from the outgoing intern at some point before the first day (that's how it worked when the medicine interns switch teams at my school)? Or maybe the seniors pre-round on/present all the patients on the first day (that's how it worked on my peds rotation when the interns switched teams)?

Nooo, my senior resident was really nice to us...she understood that things were going to be hectic on the first day. Attendings too. They were happy as long as I got my work done by the end of the day.

The way it worked for us is that we showed up at 6:30, got oriented for 30 mins by our senior, then got assigned our pts and started prerounding at 7ish....rounds started at 8:45, so that 1 hr and 45 minutes just wasn't quite enough time to get my 8 pts seen and start on their notes. However, today was my 4th day and I'm much more efficient in the morning already. You'll settle in and figure some things out pretty quickly!

 

[oldbearprofessor]

In the NICU, I like to tell new residents on Day 1 to just see as many patients as they can before our usual starting time for rounds and then we start at that time. The fellow and I (we switch on a different day than residents), know the babies and can help with the ones they don't get to see before rounds. I'd rather we go slow on rounds that first day and have to "see" (i.e. preround) on some babies "during" rounds, than have rounds start an hour late so the resident can see them all beforehand. I think that time is better spent after rounds by the resident reviewing things in detail.

Of course, a lot depends on the resident, the complexity of the baby and the quality of the notes. First day of new residents is slower than first day of the new attendings/fellows.

At an attending (and neo fellow) level, it is common in academic services to sign-out the afternoon before a change of service, but it doesn't always happen. If it doesn't, then usually the "old" attending will come by the first morning to discuss the most complex patients with the "new" attending. Sometimes this happens by phone, but usually it is in person.

It is also very, very important in an NICU to warn the parents of impending changes of service. Veteran families know about it, but the new ones don't and can be upset by it. Resident, fellow and attending each need to tell the family what their last day will be and who will be replacing them.

 

[kate0834tkjn]

Nooo, my senior resident was really nice to us...she understood that things were going to be hectic on the first day. Attendings too. They were happy as long as I got my work done by the end of the day.

The way it worked for us is that we showed up at 6:30, got oriented for 30 mins by our senior, then got assigned our pts and started prerounding at 7ish....rounds started at 8:45, so that 1 hr and 45 minutes just wasn't quite enough time to get my 8 pts seen and start on their notes. However, today was my 4th day and I'm much more efficient in the morning already. You'll settle in and figure some things out pretty quickly!

Very nice! A world where people are nice and understanding= 👍👍.

 

[drbon]

On my first day, I took blood on a 16 year old who had gotten himself so worked up about it, he wound up puking all over the room. Missed my shoes by an inch. Yay internship!!