Being a Resident

I've been a PGY-2 for about 5 days now, and I must say it's been quite a transition from being an intern. Sure, I have fewer notes to write, but there's a greater sense of responsibility that comes with being a resident. My intern is very helpful and hardworking (which is good; I don't know if I can deal well with lazy interns), but I still have to look over his shoulder to make sure things get done right. Yesterday he was on call overnight (and covering night float), so I expected him to be a zombie. When I ran into one of the Drexel attendings, however, she confided that she didn't know what to think of this year's batch of interns. One intern ordered methadone for a patient's pain (when she was already on dilaudid and not a recovering addict). Another called the attending at 3 am asking what dose of kayexalate to give a patient for a K of 6.2. My own intern, to my dismay, told her over the phone that he was "too busy" to take care of something she wanted done as soon as possible. And while I believe that he was busy since he was getting signout from other teams at the time, that's just the wrong thing to say to an attending. I still remember my fellow MSIII's response at Methodist when the attending asked her why she didn't go to the pathology lab to look at a patient's biopsy results as instructed: "I guess I didn't feel motivated to do it." *facepalm* When I told another classmate about my intern's faux pas response, he asked me, "Were we that bad when we were interns?" I'd like to think no, but who knows. -__-

The current batch of interns here at the "Bing" (the private hospital where we rotate through 1-3 months of the year) really do seem overwhelmed. I feel pretty fortunate that I'm now a resident on a service that I did just 3 months ago as an intern; the attendings still remember me and I know how things run. That's not to say I haven't made mistakes; my intern mistakenly told me that a patient's bone marrow biopsy wasn't back and instead of checking the results myself, I took his word for it. Later I found myself in trouble when the attending clearly pointed out that the biopsy results had been noted in the chart. "How long have you been on service?" she'd asked. That was a real FML moment, but makes me more determined to be careful when chartchecking. Clearly it's too soon to believe everything that comes out of the intern's mouth for now; I just hope it gets better by the time med students start. Then I'll have my hands full.