Medical intern: One day in their life
Usually, an intern starts work at 7am. The first activity is to make a check on the patients under the intern's care - analyze and record the results of any diagnostic tests, and assess how the patients are responding to treatment. Rounds come next as it is a team activity. A team is generally composed of several interns, a supervising resident (someone undergoing specialized training, but beyond their own internship year) and an attending or teaching physician. The team are responsible for the treatment of an allocated group of patients. During rounds, the team visits each patient and discusses their care. These discussions are generally focused on diagnostic tests and treatments. On completion of rounds, an intern can re-visit some patients for a more in-depth discussion. Procedures may need to be done, or there may be a need for related activity (e.g. talking to the patient's private physician). There may be a lecture or conference. These are usually a daily feature of health internships.
Following lunch, it is often the case that new patients are admitted into the team's care. These patients will need a history check and physical examination. Following these activities, interns then write the patient's admitting orders - instructions to other hospital staff regarding the patient's tests and medication. At the end of the shift, the night ("on call") team arrive, and the day team 'sign out' to them, a brief meeting during which patient developments are advised of, and cases for close observation are highlighted.
Once home, an intern needs to read about medicine and health, or they will soon find themselves lacking knowledge regarding the patients under their care. A lack of knowledge like this will become highly visible in the hospital environment. However, fatigue may be factor to consider, especially after any nights spent on call. There are times when study should be laid aside for catch-up sleep. Being on call means staying in the hospital overnight. During these nights, care extends to the patients of all teams, and to new admissions. On call duties begin at the end of a regular day shift and can mean working up to thirty-six hours with little or no sleep. On call nights are a regular feature of the interns life, done every 2nd, 3rd or 4th night depending on the conventions of the hosting institution. On call work is a function of the interns need to treat as many different patients as possible. If an intern were to work days only, then in order to see the same number of cases, the period of their internship would have to be considerably longer than the standard one year. Indeed, one medical axiom puts it, "The only thing wrong with being on call every other night is that you only get to see half the patients."
Medical knowledge grows rapidly among interns because of their continuous practice and learning in how to treat the patients and their discussion and teaching techniques will make them better professionals.