Monday, August 02, 2004
A New Hospital, another Medicine Month
This post is about my first day on a new Internal Medicine rotation at a new hospital with a new attending.
The new month is August 2004.
The new hospital is lovingly referred to as the "O."
The new attending is Dr. P.C. (Names abbreviated for my protection...)
First, a little background. About 10 days ago, I received an email from the department of Internal Medicine about my second month IM rotation, reminding me that I would be rotating at the O and my attending would be Dr. C. and various and sundry other small niceties - like I would be required to attend rounds every morning at 0730, etc, etc.
As I was winding down from my last month of IM at JPS, I just tucked this information to the side and said I'd look at it later... much later if I had anything to do with it. But finally the day arrived, TODAY!!
So, this morning at 0600, I drag myself out of bed and put on my monkey suit (my words for dress slacks, shirt and tie) and bemoan the happy times at JPS when all would wear scrubs all day, every day. If you can't tell, I don't like monkey suits.
At 0700, I walk up to the hospital and ask a very nice lady how to get to the Jennings Pavilion. She gives me directions with a very nice smile. She was very nice.
I walk to the conference room in the Jennings pavilion and there wait for everyone else to arrive. Apparently, there was a bit of confusion about where morning rounds were supposed to be, since I received notification almost 2 weeks ago, apparently not everyone else did. Who am I to assume anything?
Finally, morning rounds begin. Not too exciting. I'm really not too sure what actually happened. An intern gave a presentation on a patient and then a bunch of people mumbled some stuff out and we moved on. I'm still kind of iffy on that one.
After morning rounds were over (consisted of 1 presentation - is that all that was admitted?), my group of students paged Dr. C. We met him in the cafeteria.
When he first walked in, I didn't know what to expect, but this was not it. He is very short, walks hunched over, but very jovial. He is skinny - he is always having to pull up his pants because they are too big for him. I've heard he spends all his time up at the hospital - this wouldn't surprise me. I think he is 55 or 56 years old.
He likes to talk. About everything. Not that this is necessarily bad, it just slows things down - alot. He spent 10 minutes talking about whether a patient thought Maury Povich or Jerry Springer is better today. Then he proceeded to ask each student's opinion. I wanted to say whichever one lets us drop this subject faster. Of course, he does a lot of bedside teaching as well - which will be nice for our shelf exams at the end of the month. Moderation is the key - and don't talk about the patient as if they are not lying 18 inches from you... not cool at all.
Overall, I get a good impression of him, though. He seems to care a lot for his patients, which is important, and I think he really knows his stuff - which is also very important. I just hope I don't go insane with him talking about daytime television shows for time on end each day.
I think I can learn alot, it'll just be self-motivated like everything else. ¶ 9:59 PM
The new month is August 2004.
The new hospital is lovingly referred to as the "O."
The new attending is Dr. P.C. (Names abbreviated for my protection...)
First, a little background. About 10 days ago, I received an email from the department of Internal Medicine about my second month IM rotation, reminding me that I would be rotating at the O and my attending would be Dr. C. and various and sundry other small niceties - like I would be required to attend rounds every morning at 0730, etc, etc.
As I was winding down from my last month of IM at JPS, I just tucked this information to the side and said I'd look at it later... much later if I had anything to do with it. But finally the day arrived, TODAY!!
So, this morning at 0600, I drag myself out of bed and put on my monkey suit (my words for dress slacks, shirt and tie) and bemoan the happy times at JPS when all would wear scrubs all day, every day. If you can't tell, I don't like monkey suits.
At 0700, I walk up to the hospital and ask a very nice lady how to get to the Jennings Pavilion. She gives me directions with a very nice smile. She was very nice.
I walk to the conference room in the Jennings pavilion and there wait for everyone else to arrive. Apparently, there was a bit of confusion about where morning rounds were supposed to be, since I received notification almost 2 weeks ago, apparently not everyone else did. Who am I to assume anything?
Finally, morning rounds begin. Not too exciting. I'm really not too sure what actually happened. An intern gave a presentation on a patient and then a bunch of people mumbled some stuff out and we moved on. I'm still kind of iffy on that one.
After morning rounds were over (consisted of 1 presentation - is that all that was admitted?), my group of students paged Dr. C. We met him in the cafeteria.
When he first walked in, I didn't know what to expect, but this was not it. He is very short, walks hunched over, but very jovial. He is skinny - he is always having to pull up his pants because they are too big for him. I've heard he spends all his time up at the hospital - this wouldn't surprise me. I think he is 55 or 56 years old.
He likes to talk. About everything. Not that this is necessarily bad, it just slows things down - alot. He spent 10 minutes talking about whether a patient thought Maury Povich or Jerry Springer is better today. Then he proceeded to ask each student's opinion. I wanted to say whichever one lets us drop this subject faster. Of course, he does a lot of bedside teaching as well - which will be nice for our shelf exams at the end of the month. Moderation is the key - and don't talk about the patient as if they are not lying 18 inches from you... not cool at all.
Overall, I get a good impression of him, though. He seems to care a lot for his patients, which is important, and I think he really knows his stuff - which is also very important. I just hope I don't go insane with him talking about daytime television shows for time on end each day.
I think I can learn alot, it'll just be self-motivated like everything else. ¶ 9:59 PM
