Tips for an intern

[psychmatch]

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Looking for tips on how to be a good intern or how to atleast survive intern year! I'm a little anxious about the first few weeks/months. Can all the experienced psychiatrists/residents/fellows please post any suggestions that come to mind? What to know,what to look for,what to read up and what to do! What is being expected of us-in psychiatry and in rotations like internal medicine? Thanks.

 

[luft]

Don't eat the yellow snow and don't spit into the wind. Actually those are tips that are generally applicable to life in general I guess. Oh here's one. Don't discharge the suicidal patient without getting it okay'ed by your attending first. Its also helps if you call the family and make sure they are okay with the patient coming home and are willing to monitor them for safety before you talk to the attending. Makes it look like you are on the ball. Oh, and in general it looks really good if you know all our patients labs and meds off the top fo your head or at least have them all written down on your person somewhere. More applicable for off-service rotations, but also helps with psych rotations too.

 

[billypilgrim37]

Keep your mouth shut unless you know what you're talking about. Seriously. I have a fellow intern who has STILL not mastered this skill, and there's a going pool to see which attending will slit her throat in the middle of the night.

 

[psychmatch]

Wow-I thought only in my country,I needed to know the names of stuff off the top of my head! That's a good point. Good advice-anyone else? Whopper,OPD-do you have something to share?

 

[nancysinatra]

Oh, and in general it looks really good if you know all our patients labs and meds off the top fo your head or at least have them all written down on your person somewhere. More applicable for off-service rotations, but also helps with psych rotations too.

How do you recommend keeping track of this information? I noticed on my different sub-I's that different services lend themselves to different information keeping systems. On peds it was the 1 page folded down into 8 little half quarters... On another service I noticed people using note cards. What systems do people find best for each psych rotation and off service rotation? Or is this just person or hospital dependent, maybe?

 

[luft]

On my medicine rotation I would take sheets of paper and fold them in half length-wise and would use each side for one patient, not using the sides inside the fold, so two patients for each sheet. I would write all the labs and meds on the respective side and then write anything I needed to do for the patient below that. At the end of the day I would throw them all away and make a new one the next day for each patient (I would write all over them and cross stuff off and they would be pretty much unusable by the end of the day). After writing everything down I would tend to remember it and usually wouldn't need to refer to my notes during rounds. The sheets would also fit in my white coat well when folded length-wise.

 

[kugel]

Take a look at the attachments and see if they're helpful.
Psych Wksheet is for one pt per paper, and is designed to allow you to take down initial interview info right onto side 1 (and always have it in pocket) and then add daily info and also to keep all the meds listed in one place. It folds into quarters, so you use side 1 on day 1 and then re-fold it on day 2 and begin adding info to that side (but can always unfold it to look back at the orig info).

The others are "Golly Gee Whiz" stuff that I found handy.

I'd appreciate knowing what folks think about all of these. Feedback will help make them better.

 

[strangeglove]

Take a look at the attachments and see if they're helpful.
Psych Wksheet is for one pt per paper, and is designed to allow you to take down initial interview info right onto side 1 (and always have it in pocket) and then add daily info and also to keep all the meds listed in one place. It folds into quarters, so you use side 1 on day 1 and then re-fold it on day 2 and begin adding info to that side (but can always unfold it to look back at the orig info).

The others are "Golly Gee Whiz" stuff that I found handy.

I'd appreciate knowing what folks think about all of these. Feedback will help make them better.

Not to be nit-picky, but your Psych H+P appears to be missing the psychosocial history. Not sure if that's by design, but most would agree that it's a useful thing.

 

[kugel]

Not to be nit-picky, but your Psych H+P appears to be missing the psychosocial history. Not sure if that's by design, but most would agree that it's a useful thing.

Not nit-picking at all. That H&P template wasn't the file I meant to attach. sorry.

 

[tennreb]

Looking for tips on how to be a good intern or how to atleast survive intern year! I'm a little anxious about the first few weeks/months. Can all the experienced psychiatrists/residents/fellows please post any suggestions that come to mind? What to know,what to look for,what to read up and what to do! What is being expected of us-in psychiatry and in rotations like internal medicine? Thanks.

Here's a tip: Quit worrying. You'll do fine. Enjoy your few months off. When intern year starts, you'll figure it out.