An intern in July…An intern in July…Why, oh why, oh why am I an intern in July?

Well…wow. It was an incredibly long 4 weeks but I finished my first rotation of residency! I started on surgery–which, in case you didn’t know, is a requirement for most family med programs and also one of my very least favorite things. Surgery was also my first rotation third year of med school, so this felt oddly appropriate, but just like back then it was a really rude awakening…I think what I found the most difficult was the general approach to patient care was so different from mine. I went into family medicine because I love getting to know my patients and look forward to following up with them potentially forever. Surgeons have a much more case-focused mentality and live to get in, get out, and move on to the next case. The whole month I feel like my sole purpose was being able to get people out of the hospital as quickly as possible and sending them to follow up with literally anyone that wasn’t us.

And…obviously the hours and lifestyle are not the best. Pretty much every inpatient rotation in residency is a 12-hour day if not more, and while I knew that going in, actually doing it 6 days (or more) a week takes its toll for sure. In med school, we absolutely worked those kinds of hours for certain rotations, but the life of a student also comes with leniency–I absolutely got sent home early sometimes, even on my hardest rotations. Med school rotations also vary a great deal in terms of work hours, and I felt like for every hard month I usually had an easy elective or something to roll into. Right now, I’m fresh off surgery and starting 2 months of internal medicine, a month of peds, and 2 months of OB without a golden weekend in sight. Ugh.

However…there are parts of all of this that are somehow…not as bad as I expected? On the subject of hours, they do suck, but I’ve still managed to get home before my son goes to bed the vast majority of days and my husband and I have had time to have a glass of wine and dinner together. Granted it’s not as much time as we used to have, but we still see each other, and my med student vision of residency definitely involved me never seeing my family again.What I love the most, though, is the fact that I’m actually, like…PRACTICING MEDICINE! I mean yes, as a resident there are a lot of layers above you to keep you from completely shitting the bed, but at the same time, you’re going through the day making decisions with the ability to execute them, too. Intern life is a lot of stupid little tasks, and I’m sure I’ll be sick of it by the end of the year, but it’s really freeing to be able to have the ~authority~ to write for meds or procedures and take care of whatever I have to without having to chase down someone else.

All that said, the hardest thing about being an Intern in July is how stupid and inadequate I feel every single day. There are moments I feel like I learned absolutely nothing in medical school, and then there are moments I feel like I’m letting patients down because I just can’t get a handle on what’s happening. Yes, we have a lot of resources and people to ask for help, but the sheer amount of responsibility is so, so daunting. Like, medical school was really hard, but at the end of the day, it wasn’t my name on the patient’s note and it wasn’t my name on every order and prescription. It wasn’t my assessment that was slapped across an admission and it was much easier to be forgiven for making mistakes because there was very little actual harm to be done. Now, this is just…bewildering.

Anyway, by the time this posts I’ll be halfway through my first month of Medicine (internal medicine inpatient service). Days are at least as long and I’m carrying 6-8 patients a day, mostly cardio-pulmonary stuff since my team is based in our hospital’s heart and vascular institute. I like this rotation a lot because it’s a lot more relevant to Family Med and I’m getting used to treating and managing a lot of issues I’ll be seeing in my future practice. But…still incredibly overwhelming and terrifying. Oh, and I am also so, so, so, sososososo tired.

Thank you for putting up with this sleep-deprived stream of consciousness.

Until next time! I have another month of Medicine next month and then it’ll be on to Peds, so hopefully I can make time for another update by then!