It has begun!!

My life as an intern has officially begun. I started my first of two surgery rotations on Tuesday. Over the next year I will be rotating through 13 28-day rotations: 4 internal medicine, 2 surgery, 2 ICU, 1 emergency room, 1 outpatient medicine clinic, and 3 electives (I am thinking rheumatology, dermatopathology, and dermatology right now). I didn’t sleep that great Monday night – lots of nerves going into the first day. I had to be there at 5:45am – I was also not used to waking up that early, but I made it. There are two general surgery teams, and on my team we have a chief resident (Dave, who is in his 5th and final year of residency) and three interns (Sarah, who is going into neurosurgery; Nate, who is going into anesthesia; and me). We rounded on our patients as a whole team – meaning we went and saw each of them, looking over a summary sheet of how they did in the last 24 hours and any pertinent labs that have returned, and then deciding on a plan for them for the day. It is nice to do this as a team so we can start to see some of the decision making that goes into deciding when to advance a patient's diet, give them certain medications, and know when they are ready to leave the hospital.

Most mornings we have a conference from 7-8, and then it is time to divide the workload between any surgeries that need to be covered and work that needs to be done with patients on the floor. The other two interns were having computer problems that first day, so I got to go in for the first surgeries and help Dr. Anderson, who was really nice and helpful in letting me assist him. The common things we help out with include removing the appendix and the gallbladder; fixing hernias of different types; and taking out breast cancer. Once the main workload is done for the day, the information about our patients is given to the intern on call and we can go home.

Needless to say, that first day was a little overwhelming as we got introduced to so many things. Lucky for us, the rest of the week has not been quite as busy, I think because many of the surgeons have been taking summer vacation. This has allowed us time to start learning the ropes of being an intern. It is a steep learning curve, but so far we are seeming to manage. We have a very understanding chief resident who is very laid back and very helpful in teaching us what to do.

Yesterday was my first overnight call as an intern. I was there from 6:30am Saturday until about 8:30am this morning. I got to help in two surgeries – removing an appendix and draining a really smelly abscess that was starting to have some dead tissue in it – actually got to do quite a bit in those surgeries, which was really cool. I also had a lot of people to dictate discharge summaries on that were leaving the hospital, which is a whole new experience to learn. You basically have to give a summary of their hospital course by talking into a phone and then transcribers get your report processed and into the chart. It was so weird to return pages and have the person on the other end start by saying something like: “Dr. Bradshaw, I have a question about patient so-and-so….” Things actually went really well and nobody died as a result of my decision making, so that is good. :)

Steph has been adjusting this week to having me at work again during the day, so being in charge of taking care of the kids all day at home. She found the library and has the kids doing the summer reading program. They also went to a fountain downtown by one of the malls where the kids could run through the water. They really enjoyed that.

She was able to get the boys all ready for church this morning and get there on time. I was able to meet them over there so that was nice. We had a really good lesson on why we go to church – it is to worship our Savior Jesus Christ, and that the meeting where we partake of the sacrament is one of the most sacred things we can do each week, so we need to do everything we can to prepare ourselves mentally and then show reverence while in that meeting in order to have the best spiritual experience possible.

Monday we were able to get the boys down to temple square. They were able to see the inside of the conference center (briefly), the north visitor center with the statue of the Christus, some things in the church history museum, a quick peek inside the tabernacle, and then a walk around the temple and the reflection pool. They keep saying how much they liked it and asking when they can go back. We also had a really yummy dinner at The Red Iguana.

Even with my busy schedule, at night there is not as much to do right now, so we have been able to enjoy watching a few movies together this week. And I have been able to play on my Nintendo Wii a little bit. Steph also found a couch at a garage sale for $25. It is brown leather couch with an ottoman, and the people delivered it here for us, so not a bad deal. Now we have more than just chairs to sit on in the basement.