Children's Rehabilitation Center (KCRC)
As a Senior, we spend one month at the Kluge Children's Rehabilitation Center during our third year. Here, we work with a nurse practitioner, medical students and occasionally PM & R residents. We are responsible for taking home call five days a week and come in two or three Saturdays a month for teaching rounds.
Here's a typical day as KCRC Senior:
At 6:30 a.m. I show up to pre-round on the four or five acute patients I cover. At 7 a.m. there are nursing rounds where the charge nurse discusses overnight events and nursing requests. At 8 a.m. the KCRC team goes to morning report at the main hospital or has a teaching session at the KCRC. At 9 a.m., rounds with the attending and fellow begin. Here we discuss the daily plan and discharge disposition. During rounds, there is teaching about topics in developmental or rehabilitation pediatrics. From 10:30 a.m. until noon, I write notes, re-visit patients and families, peek in at therapy sessions, and meet with the medical students. At 12:00 p.m., I go to noon conference at the main hospital. If I don't have continuity clinic, I spend the rest of the afternoon at the KCRC finishing work or admitting new patients. I sometimes do intakes for new "feeding program" patients or see outpatients in the Pediatric Development clinic. Most every day there are multidisciplinary family meetings to discuss patient progress and the treatment plan. By 4 p.m. there is afternoon sign-out with the attending. If there is no pressing work that needs to be done, I will usually leave by 5 p.m. after checking with the nursing staff. At night during home call, I usually only receive one phone call a night and rarely have to go back into the KCRC.