Friday, July 8, 2011

Survived my First Week

. . . of my medicine rotation.

It's actually not too bad. I'm on the hospitalist team, so it's just me, a physician's assistant (PA), and an attending physician. There are no other med students, interns, or residents on my team. And the hours are surprisingly nice - 8am until whenever I finish (usually between 3pm and 4:30pm) and no call. But man, talk about throwing you out to the wolves! On day 1 I had to do an independent history & physical (H&P) on a newly admitted patient. On day 2 I had to follow-up with the patient (now "my" patient), write a medical note complete with non-retarded assessment and plan for his treatment while he was in the hospital.

And on day 4 I had two newly admitted patients for which I had to do H&P's, write their medical notes, call consulting services, write orders for labs and meds, get consent, and learned how to write an admission note. I've learned and done a lot in this short week - possibly more than I had all of M1 and M2 years combined (or so it feels, lol).

It's been a great experience so far. I've really had to take responsibility and ownership over "my" 3 patients, and I'm slowly figuring out the system. I know I have friends with me on our medicine rotation at different locations who've done less for each of their patients. I've been so busy that I don't even notice how hungry and tired I am until I leave each day - I've just been in this kind of hyper-focused state to do what I can for my patients (if that makes any sense at all, lol). I hope at the end of each day I truly did something to help them and contribute to their care while in the hospital.

Time for bed. I've been granted the weekend off so I can make it to my friend's wedding.