Day In The Life: Internal Medicine

I haven’t done a “Day in the Life” in what feels like forever, so why don’t we talk about my first month-long rotation since…September(?)! (It’s so nice to not live out of a carry-on + backpack and move to a different state every 2 weeks!)

I’m back in my home state! I needed another month of IM to graduate and also need to improve at inpatient medicine, so this was my audition rotation in Internal Medicine for their Family Medicine program!

Day in the Life: Internal Medicine

A Typical Day

Although my day technically starts at 7 a.m., if I was feeling particularly ambitious, I’d get there earlier to look up labs and imaging on my patients before rounds started.

One of the residents here is actually someone I knew from undergrad! (We both volunteered Paul Hom Asian Clinic!) I contacted him back in July to ask how I could be extra awesome, haha. He’s going to be a co-chief next year! :]

This rotation was similar to my inpatient family med rotation + my acting internship. Morning rounds consisted of the night team telling us about any overnight admits, followed by a brief summary of each of the patients that we had. I was on Team A with my friend, an intern, and a senior resident–also known as “Team Testosterone-other-than-Farrah,” because I was the only girl. Then we’d go off to see our respective patients to check up on how they were doing!

ICU rounds were typically at 11 a,n,, where we’d get grilled (in a friendly manner) by one of the internists, followed by rounds with our attending, to let him/her know what was going on with each patient, and to discuss our assessments/plans for each of them.

Afternoons consisted of following up on labs, imaging, checking up on our patients, writing up notes, doing dictations, discharge summaries, taking in new admits…etc. Somewhere in there, we’d eat lunch!

At 7 p.m., we’d do sign out to update the night team about our patients and to let them know about any new admits during the day. Sometimes, people would wait until 6:45 p.m. or later to call about a new admit, so we’d end up staying way past 7, but supposedly, that’s when our shift “ended!”

My friend often stayed way past 7 p.m., but he and all the residents were really nice to me and would generally tell me to go home (or at least offer me the option) by 7-7:45-ish.

The current chief resident handed me a huge pile of stuff and kept adding to it, telling me that I needed to keep it all with me, or I’d fail my rotation. :O

Meals

I was all set to bulk-cook so that I’d have meals prepared for every day of the week, but as it turns out, breakfast and lunch were free in the physicians’ lounge! *-* Twas delicious, and hooray for not having to spend any money!

Truth be told, I live super unhealthily when I’m on inpatient medicine, since it tends to be super super busy. We generally ran on one meal, lots of tea, and maybe 1 or 2 bathroom breaks during our 12+ hour shift, and passed out when we’d get home. My schedule was lighter (aka 12 hours + 1 weekend day), and I know I probably could’ve left earlier and/or taken more breaks, but I feel like I’ve been somewhat senioritis-y since I found out I passed boards, so I’ve been trying to compensate by staying later and offering to help wherever I can. ._.

Parking

Free! :D There was a gigantic parking structure next to the hospital that always had lots of space!

Housing

Earlier last year, my brother posted on facebook asking his friends in the area if they had a room for rent. One of our mutual friends told me his sister lived there and had an extra room in her house that I could live in for free! :O :O :O

Save for maybe one chance random sighting at a milk tea shop, I haven’t actually seen said friend since 2007, when he came to Davis to visit friends and decided to hang out with me too (I swiped him into the dining commons), so this was super super nice of him and his sister! I’m also super surprised that his mom remembers me, because I legit have not seen her in about 14 years. (He was my brother’s science engineering project buddy back in the day.)

His sister has super adorable dogs. <3 Her Dobermans run on the treadmill! :O

A video posted by Farrah @ fairyburger (@fairyburger) on Jan 21, 2016 at 6:19am PST

By the way, I get to stay in California for February after all, and yay for not having to spend several hundred dollars on another round-trip flight, because my rotation at Stanford was finallyyyyy approved on both ends!!!Hooray for avoiding the snowpocalypse! (For my friends off on the east coast, please stay safe + warm! <3!)

Check out my other Day In The Life posts!