Here’s how a week in an intern doctor’s life looks like.
Healing and husting, a week as a doctor in training.
Just started my internship on 1st May 2024 after passing my final exams. It’s over a month into the internship so, let me share how my week actually is.
Currently posted in the Internal Medicine department and am accompanied by two co-interns(friends) Alo and Alex. ( Names changed for privacy purposes).
Let’s begin on Wednesday because that’s my ad day( admission day).
Wednesday.
Day starts when Alo comes at 7 AM takes the handover from the previous team. Alex and I join at 7:30 and 8 AM respectively.
Our Job as interns usually, managing the patients according to the plan send by our seniors from the ER department. Doing cannula, drawing bloods, write requisition for investigation and doing rounds.
We receive patients with a variety of medicines. Ranging from haemophilia, thalassemia, anaemia Chronic disease, ascites, DLCD, heart failure, MI, CVA, poisoning, hanging, CKD and many many more.
We usually have our lunch at 2/3 PM. Again the load of patients of patient enters in bulk .Then we take a power nap of 1 hour in turns.
From 6 PM grand rounds start and before that check the vitals and do the pre-round workups. The round lasts for 3 hours.
The night is challenging because we are the on-call doctors. Have to attend to all patients if any emergency occurs on the two floors. It’s very overwhelming going and examining on-call patients. Sometimes the patients are stable and we manage accordingly, if any problem occurs we call our seniors. They guide us over the phone and we treat!
The patient admission is still on. We have attended more calls. Still manage to get 2 hours of sleep. Ad day ends at 7 AM on Wednesday.
Thursday.
After 7 AM we take 2 hours to freshen up and then again head back to the wards. Grand rounds start again. The round ends at around noon. However, it takes us two more hours to complete the ward work and then come home.
Again same story from 6 PM to 11 PM.
Friday
A good number of patients get discharged and we call them for follow-ups in the outdoor department. It’s a bit of an easy day compared to Wednesday and Thursday. Rounds from 7 AM –1 PM and 7 PM–10 PM in the night.
Saturday
It’s outdoor day. From 9 AM we sit outdoors and see patients till 4 PM. OPD has its charm. Sitting and listening to patients and their ailments. Having completed all OPD work, we take some rest.
Rounds start again at 7 PM and then till 10 PM.
Sunday, Monday, Tuesday.
These three weeks are the days we look forward to. The carefree and less tiring days. Patient loads are minimal and rounds last for around 8 hours each day so it’s less hectic. I mostly utilize the time to focus on academics. And again on Tuesday, we wait for Wednesday just to follow the same routine over again but with different patients.
End note.
So, that’s a typical week in my life as an intern doctor in the medicine department. Things are quite fun here. The hospital is teaching me new lessons every day and I am enjoying my internship days.
“I have been inactive for a long time. Writing for me is therapy and I wish to continue my hobby and share my experience through my articles. The last few months have been exhausting. I will try my best to write every week. Follow the “INTERNSHIP DIARIES” list for more internship stories.
