On my first day in the OR during an internship in NY a physician’s assistant briefed me: “You know, the surgeon we are going to spend the next 6-7 hours with yells. A lot.
Keep in mind he is not yelling at you. He is just yelling…“ As it turned out he was right and the advice he gave me was valuable.
Basically, there are two strategies of spending your day on the ward:
I am a big fan of strategy number 2. Over the years I have learned that structuring your day gives enormous value to the patient, the nurses and myself. With the right plan, you can get more things done and don’t have to put out fires all day long. Here is my plan:
In this post I would like to share with you how you can plan your day proactively and an ideal schedule of your own. I have created an excel template, that you can download for free here.
So here is how to create a schedule for yourself and the day on the ward.
Having a good connection to your patient has a positive impact on your work in several different ways:
Connecting to a patient on a personal level helps you..
A couple of weeks ago I was on call in the ICU and I was called by a 2nd year resident. “Mr. Miller isn’t well and has desaturated repeatedly.”
How was I supposed to reply?
“Thank you for the information, good night.”
Obviously, the way this piece information was presented neither helped me, the patient or the poor guy on the other side of the phone.
When you wake up your boss during the middle of the night, you should be a little more prepared than someone, who calls 911.
So what can you do to make your boss happy at 3 AM in the morning. Let’s try these six steps:
Every other year, depending on my scientific efforts, I get to go to a conference abroad. Going to a conference is kinda like going to Disneyland: Countless things to do, but only very little time.
The opportunities there are overwhelming. There are
Whether you feel good about yourself as a doctor will not be related to the amount of money you make or to whether you are good at heart valve operation, colonoscopies or even kidney biopsies.
Starting a rotation at your dream institution and you really want a job there? A residency position? A fellowship spot? There is one way to that: Hustle. Work like you have never worked before. Work your butt off. Here is how:
If we can believe the movies and the TV shows the great doctors are always right.
Here is what I do most of the day:
1. Aquire data. (history, examination, discuss patient with nurses, ultrasound, laboratory values and so on).
2. Discuss the data with the boss.
3. Do what the boss and I agreed on in step 2. (Do more examination, initiate treatment, stop treatment, get other consults and so on.)
So far so good. I have written many posts about my part of this. How I screwed up and what I learned from it.
Now this post is about the attending. Here is how you know whether you have good attending working with you here. Possibly surprisingly to many, whether you have a good or bad attending becomes evident in step 2, not in step 3 when he gives you his magical treatment regimen.
A good attending will do the following during step 2:
