The Intern

A few random thoughts about being an intern:

1) It is amazing how much you second guess yourself when you are actually making a decision that will be carried out on another human being without someone else co-signing an order first. Trivial things, like giving an ER patient IV morphine suddenly seem like major decisions knowing that the nurse is not going to ask anyone else to make sure it’s okay.

2) When you work all night and then take a 5 hour nap, it can be pretty hard to go to sleep the next night.

3) Nurses can be your best friend and your worst enemy. It is interesting to work with nurses who have to ask me for an order, but who generally know way more than I do. It’s a strange dynamic. The nicer ones say things like, “Are you sure you wanted to order that lab test, or do you think you should get this one.” A nicely phrased hint that I am wrong. I did catch a heart attack that was missed by the nurse who chalked it up to dehydration, so I am not totally useless.

4) You would think that after graduating from medical school you would at least know something about selecting an insurance plan. But, the questions asked by other residents during our orientation about deductibles and co-pays proved my theory completely wrong. I was embarrassed for them.

5) Try your very hardest not to get sick and especially not to need a surgery during June or July. That’s when all the new interns start and I am sure you are more likely to die if admitted to the hospital. I thought I killed my first patient 2 days ago. It’s a long story and really I didn’t and wasn’t even close to killing anyone, but for about 5 minutes I thought that by sending this 76 year old man with a heart attack for a CT with contrast that I may have prevented him from going for a cardiac catheterization. Turns out cardiology said it was fine and they do it all the time. It wasn’t a fun 5 minutes though.

6) I still prefer having patients call me by my first name. It just makes me feel like they have less confidence in me, which is probably good.