July 1st. New Resident Doc's !!!

LOL, how I remember!. Kindergarten is the right way to classify the newbies. Funny how fast they learned who really runs the floor in the hospital.

True story regarding a very new MD Intern. . . as told from an "old-timer" nurse (with a great sense of humor) who I had the pleasure to work with on an oncology floor at a big teaching hospital. (I was a new nurse when she told me this story . . . a nice "ice-breaker" for a then nervous new-grad nurse).

A very ill patient had just peacefully passed away. The charge nurse (the one who told me this story) called the covering night Intern and asked this Intern to do the "final assessment" and pronouce the patient's death (write the necessary progress note, call the Attending physician and family, fill out the necessary paperwork, etc). Apparently, this very new Intern had never done this before. He assessed the patient as asked, looked a little bewildered . . . then made the sign of the Cross with this right hand and said, "I now pronounce you dead".

It still makes me chuckle! :)

Ted

Only ONCE a year???!!! We get new residents at LEAST every three months, usually every two months. I savor the thought of only having to "break them in" once a year. As night shift, we have the pleasure of breaking them first. For the ones that enter with the "better than thou" attitude, we waste no time. The first thing a new resident wants upon entering the unit, is OF COURSE, the nurses notes. Welllllllll, depending on his/her attitude upon arrival and the tone in which he asks for them, he/she may find that "the nurse that has that patient is in report, or in another patient's room...and just happens to have the note you need with her". They are also notorious for leaving charts scattered all over the nurses' station. Our solution to that is, find the charts with orders on them and begin a five minute interval paging frenzie asking for orders for things that were just written. When the doc says, "I just wrote an order for that!"..our reply, "OH, Sorry! We're having problems locating that chart, so we didn't know...Did YOU put it back in the appropriate place when you finished with it?????" As soon as these two issues are settled, we normally have a wonderful set of residents. For the occassional, Dr Butthead, we just remind him he WILL be taking night call and WE WILL have his beeper #.

0530 on July 1 they started walking through the nurses' station. An outgoing experienced nurse stands up points at the three of them who had gathered-'Excuse me but when you enter our nurse's station in the morning you WILL say good morning and you WILL smile' They look at us and looked back at her and said 'Oh sorry'

A couple of nights later I was assisting with a TLC placement with a new resident and the attending MD. The attending left and the resident was placing the stitches the same nurse enters and says 'All GOOD doctors put their sharps away'. He say 'o yeah, good idea"

These residents are so easy to mess with;)

After many years I have learned to take a vacation in the early summer. However, I often have to check myself when the younguns walk in. They are so humble that I need only remind myself of June--then they don't even give a hoot. Well, the most recent youngsters have planted themselves in our ICU. They have to assist the nurse on transport to CT scan with a patient with a faulty temporary pacemaker. When I advised the young lass not to touch it--just transcutaneously pace, (preferred over rupture cardiac tissue!) she just nodded and vehemously agreed. Thank goodness for interns--they have so much to learn and in a very short time they become know it alls!!!