With only one week remaining in my final month of Wards (adult inpatient medicine), I’m finding the moment bittersweet.  Undoubtedly, there’s a sense of nostalgia.  I remember my first day of Wards, not knowing the answer when an RN asked me, “Can the patient in room [632] eat breakfast?”  I remember hours spent answering the onslaught of pages from the floor pager when on-call.  I remember the metamorphosis when my title changed from “intern” to “senior,” and all of the new expectations that came with the new position.

Internal Medicine residency is rigorous, but it’s something I am so incredibly thankful for.  Wards is considered one of the more rigorous rotations, since it includes working six days/week and 24+ hour calls.  The remarkable amount of information I have learned throughout 12 months of Wards, over the past two and a half years of residency, has molded me into the young physician I am today.

Time Management:  According to Each Year of Residency

Since beginning residency, “efficiency” has signified different things.  Intern year, solid time management equaled seeing all of my patients and writing all of my notes before the unwritten deadline (e.g. when our attending liked signing them).  Slowly but surely, I ultimately learned to formulate my own medical treatment plan independent of my senior.

Second year marked another keystone moment in my training when suddenly I had to manage a list of 20 patients, two interns, and a medical student.  Time management at this stage meant staying on top of admission orders, completing admission med reconciliations, updating medication/treatment orders, and answering “upper level” management questions that were filtered via the interns.

Now in my third year, I am working on fine-tuning my practice of medicine and deeper learning.  It’s expected that I know how to treat common illnesses, but third year residents also need to expand on our relatively small knowledge base so as to better care for patients.  Increasing efficiency when admitting patients, prioritizing sick patients, and identifying who may soon become very sick is consequential.  Finally, learning how to coordinate with the RN and even radiology technicians can have a management-altering impact!

What I Hope to Take With Me

• Remember the lessons learned from both positive and negative patient outcomes – be mindful of improvements to patient care.
• Each attending has something amazing to contribute – take a few positive elements from each one and formulate my own ideal way to practice medicine.
• Always approach each new intern/resident with respect.  Also understand that I may teach them something valuable, even if it seems mundane to me.  Conversely, I need to keep an open mind and realize that a junior may know something I don’t!
• Prioritizing and time management is imperative!  It can help enhance medical care, and even save lives.

Photo by Paul Gilmore on Unsplash