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Caring for patients is the best part of my day. Even after a long and busy day, I enjoy listening to my patients and providing them the necessary care (to the extent of my abilities).

Second Year Student Blog: Sylvie Hill, Class of 2009

Five O’clock AM, the alarm goes off. It is time to rise (for sure) and shine (not so sure about that one). As I am struggling to get out of the bed, I am thinking to myself: “what day of the week is today? Is it Saturday?” It does not really matter, as I remembered that I am on my Internal Medicine rotation, and I do work 6 days in the week, and having weekends off is rare as diamonds. So I rose up, trying to rush out of the house, being careful not to wake up my 3 toddlers and my husband.

Six thirty AM, I am in the corridors of the 5th floor at Durham Regional Hospital where my patients are quietly resting. First, I look up my patients on e-browser to check for some overnight events, and then I walk into each of their rooms to talk to them. After gathering all my pertinent information, I draft my SOAP note before heading down to the conference room for morning report. During morning report, which goes from 7:30 AM to 8:30 AM, an unusual patient case is presented by one of the residents. This is a great opportunity for Attending Physicians, residents, as well as us students to expend on our knowledge by actively participating in the discussion. After morning report our team, which consists of a chief Resident, an Intern, a medical school student and myself a PA student, would gather and prepare for the morning rounding. We do so until about noon, then report to the conference room for the noon report where a patient case is broadcast from Duke Hospital. Noon conference is also considered lunch time for all of us. We get to eat and follow the conference at the same time.

Today happens to be “long call night” day, so right after lunch I need to check with the chief resident if we have any patients to admit yet. We usually admit a total of 7 patients from the ER, and are required to have a maximum of 14 patients per week including those already on the floor.  The students are allowed to admit 2 to 3 patients on long call night. Long call night also means it’s uncertain what time I will get home. I admitted my 1st patient this evening around 6:00 PM and my second one close to 9:00 PM. One of them had ethanol withdrawal, and the second one came in for a COPD flare.  When the patients that I am assigned to would finally arrive to the ER, I collect their whole histories and do their entire physical exam (yes, including Rectal exam…). Following their admission, I then begin doing my write up on each patient and start researching each case on “Up to Date” in an attempt to come up with all possible differential diagnoses.

Caring for patients is the best part of my day. Even after a long and busy day, I enjoy listening to my patients and providing them the necessary care (to the extent of my abilities). During my time at Durham Regional Hospital I encountered no rejection from my patients even after I introduced myself as a student.

Midnight, I am getting into my car to finally head home. Yes, I am exhausted, but I am happy I was able to make some difference in someone’s life, even if that just meant bringing reassurance and a smile into some of my patients’ faces.

Twelve thirty AM, I get home, the lights are out, I missed my husband and the kids again, but I know that the student life won’t last forever.

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