The first week of residency is nearly done, and it rolls right into the next week. I was on floor duty the entire week, and managed to learn just how much procedural knowledge is required to become a functioning resident on a medical inpatient unit.
I have this tendency to not observe the order behind things; when a 1st year resident is allowed to speak, when they should, to whom they should speak, what they should mention, etc. I've managed to keep that in check for the most part today simply by stopping myself before I say anything and by placing a premium on whatever I say.
I don't know everything about my patients, and anyone who's following this who's in the medical field will tell you that, in medicine, it's imperative that you know everything that's going on with all of your patients. If you have been assigned a patient, the senior should not know more than you do about a certain test that was ordered for the patient, or about a consult that was put into the chart, or anything for that matter. You should have all the raw data available, so that you can hand it to your senior and your attending who will, in turn, teach you valuable medical knowledge that you add to your knowledge base. Hopefully.
The toughest thing for myself and my colleague to do has been to balance basic intern duties (writing notes and reading about diseases) with other incidentals that fly in our faces (admissions, floor calls, fall codes, code blue scenarios). This juggling act is at the very heart of residency, and it's something I plan to polish tomorrow with an early start in order to get my readings done in the morning before I head to the hospital, and a fresh to-do list with plenty of space on it for additions and cross-outs. That and the detective work I have to do every time there's a new admission, those are two things that I could really improve on the most.
I ran to a code today and ended up doing chest compressions. She didn't make it.
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