A day in the life of a pediatric senior
As a third-year resident, we spend two months on the general pediatrics ward. The wards months are the two busiest months of our third year. We run the inpatient service and our responsibilities include supervising the interns, dictating, and communicating with our referring physicians. Here is a typical day as Ward Senior:
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The rest of the afternoon is spent admitting patients, accepting PICU transfers, preparing patients for discharge for the following morning, and teaching interns/students. At 4:00 p.m., we sign out to the on-call team and are usually out the door by 5:00 p.m. |
My day generally starts at 7:00 a.m. when I get overnight updates on all old patients and a brief summary of new admissions from the on-call team. At this time, I sit down with the attending to see if there are any early morning discharges.
If there are no urgent matters, the Ward Seniors split up to either touch base with the interns while they pre-round and work on early discharges, or will sit down with the medical students to teach and discuss their patients.
At 8:00 a.m. we have morning report, where we briefly review the overnight admissions and a senior resident gives a presentation.
Rounds begin at 8:30 a.m. During rounds, we go over General Pediatric patients with the Chief Resident and Ward attending. The medical students and interns present the patients, and the senior residents place orders, look up labs or radiology studies, and help make management plans.
Rounds end by 10:30 a.m., and it is time to get work done. The Ward Seniors will work with the post-call intern to get his/her work completed before noon conference, admit new patients, see consults, and dictate discharged patients.
At 11:30 a.m., the post-call residents sign out.
Noon conference begins at 12:15 p.m.
Our afternoons are filled with various conferences, meetings, and work. On Mondays and Thursdays, the Ward Senior will meet with social work, nursing, OT, PT, and speech for multi-disciplinary rounds at 1:00 p.m. On Tuesdays, we have ID conference at 1:00 p.m. where we discuss current ID cases with our ID attendings.