Intern impressions 1st two weeks

Being an intern sucks. Being a prelim--an intern who's only there for one year just might suck even more if that's even possible.

An intern: You're at the bottom of the feeding chain--you get shit from attendings, chiefs, seniors, nurses and anybody else who happens to be in the way.

• Your patients keep thinking you're a nurse.
• Your attendings think you're a medical student.
• Your nurses think you're a torture device specifically designed to personally harass each and every one of them.
• Your seniors think you're their secretary. In fact, you pretty much are a secretary but with much worse hours and probably less pay.
• Your chiefs think you're someone on whom they can practice being a boss. As indeed you are. If you take much seriously this can seriously mess you up.

You freak out when anybody refers to you as Dr.

You crack up when other interns answer the page as "this is Dr.So-and-so"

You work long hours pushing papers designed to make the work as inefficient as possible. In fact, you don't even know how the hospital is still standing from the way most things are managed. The whole bureaucracy is designed with the efficiency of a treadmill: you have all the appearance of activity without moving an inch towards the end point. Then you find out that the hospital IS in fact out of money (duh!) and is selling housestaff housing as a short-term solution.

You keep trying to remember why you signed up for this, and keep trying to get to do the stuff you're interested in (say, getting into the OR and doing stuff) only to get foiled in your attempts: anybody who's more senior, or who's staying next year, gets first dibs. If there's anything left over you might or might not be able to get the case.

You keep reminding yourself that jail is not worth strangling anybody, no matter how incredibly annoyed at them you are.

You learn the extentions that page you most frequently and you know when in the day they will start paging you. You return their calls at your convenience, since several will definitely pile up over half an hour to an hour from one extension.

You can write "A+Ox3,NAD,CTAB,RRR,soft NT/ND,dressings c/d/i,nonedematous" in your sleep.

Everyone who's admitted deserves to have a stick for labs at 3am STAT (the labs won't come back till 12pm, but at least you'll see them during day shift. AM labs means results coming out around 9pm or labs not being drawn).

Your service's patients blend in into one morbidly obese patient who has a little bit of everything or at least of the top 2-3 things people are coming in with (John Doe with diverticulitis, acute cholecystitis and Crohns, all at the same time. Oh, and maybe throw in some SBO on top like a cherry)

You run the list 20 times a day.

After evening rounds you try to run away as past as possible to savor the last hour or two before you crash, and start having murderous tendencies toward your fellow-intern on call, who is holding you up.

You start thinking warm food at night is over-rated.

You can't get through a whole movie in one night.

You fall asleep before the seniors in the nursing home do.

You wake up as if you've only had 3 hours of sleep, even if you did crash earlier than your childhood bedtime.

IV coffee stops working.

You realize it's only been 2 weeks.