How's everything doing so far? I trust your hospital orientations were informative and entertaining. Anyone on call tonight, or have already taken call? Any obnoxious personalities in your department that you've been able to identify?

I have my first call on Friday and I am scared to death to be the only intern in the ICU. I am glad I have senior residents that are actually pretty nice and work with helping me through notes/orders/everything. It is a big jump from medical student to intern. As far as the nurses, some are really cool and some are just the opposite. I had to bite my tongue, for example one told me today to guard a form that goes into the chart as if it was my first born child and I had to fight not to respond, "good thing I had my first child aborted" (I did not actually do that, but just wanted to say it to be obnoxious). Then another nurse yells at me doctor, doctor, doctor what are you going to do? That is like me yelling out obnoxiously "nurse, nurse, nurse (not bothering to call the nurse by name) what are you going to do? The patient had a bowel movement!" Although, after making the jokes to myself in my head, I usually chuckle to myself and it helps me to maintain my cool. I would say my first day of residency was predominately painless, although I am sure there will be other days I will think much differently.

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PGY-1 Preliminary Medicine Resident

So much to look forward to ...

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AUC 5th "Semester"

That's funny. My place has an entirely electronic medical record, which is nice, I guess, since pages can't get lost from the "chart". Actually, we use many EMRs, viz:

The hospital itself uses one EMR software; the medical system which encompasses the hospital uses another (different) EMR software; the medical school which runs all the outpatient clinics entirely separately from the hospital (although they are physically in the same facility), uses another different EMR. The hospital has about 10 years of old charts (which predate the current EMR) in another different EMR. All these have different logins. I would imagine there is a separate PACS as well (I haven't yet encountered).

This totally ignores the path department, which has one system for slides/microscopic diagnoses, one system for blood tests/lab results/etc., and one legacy system for old records. Again, different logins.

Not to mention I need a Windows login for the hospital computers and an email login for the med school and that is a buttload of logins.

But, yeah, ICU call on your first week? Cross your fingers/say a prayer. They can't actually expect that you know anything about intensive care, right? Yikes.

Just remember one word FLUIDS, well dobutamine too I suppose

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IM [X] Radiology [X] Hospitalist [X]
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Life is like a box of chocolates, keep your nose away from my box

i would be very careful with fluids in the unit. your face may blush when the attending wants to know how many liters has the patient been over during the past few days..... and you report 15 .

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Dr. Scott
Internal Medicine
PGY-2

VMD Moderator

Very painless day. Found everybody to be super helpful and nice. One more, then three day weekend.

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"Always carry a flagon of whiskey in case of snakebite, and furthermore always carry a small snake."

mmmm pulmonary edema

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AUC 4th year
Undergrad: UC Riverside

Moral of the story: Do you best to avoid hospitalization in July.

july-december

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IM [X] Radiology [X] Hospitalist [X]
Surgery [X]Family Medicine [X] Pediatrics []
Cardiology [X]Neurology [X] ER[]
Ob/Gyn [X] Nephrology[X]
Psychiatry [X] Anesthesiology [X]
Life is like a box of chocolates, keep your nose away from my box