My acting internship. Some medical schools call these sub-internships? I have no idea what the correct term is, but essentially, as a fourth year medical student you have the opportunity to be an intern (first year resident) for a month. You do as much of their job as you can - you manage patients directly, put in orders and you're their go to person on the team. It's a little overwhelming, but an awesome immersive learning experience. At University of Pittsburgh, the goal is to have you functioning as a intern - you're to get every third patient and function at the level of your interns. Of course, by the time I was on service, my interns were no longer fresh, they were in the last month of their intern year, so they were professionals. I was playing catch up and trying to learn as quickly as possible. It was one of the hardest, yet most rewarding months of my med school experience. Interesting, my attending was also a graduate from UW-Madison, and our Intern was a graduate from the program too! We enjoyed exchanging stories about how awesome Madison is and all yearned for some summer time on the terrace - however, we were instead serving our patients in the hospital. It was pretty neat! UW-Madison even ran a story on us!

By the end of my rotation, we got a new team of fresh doctors to lead us. Brand new interns and new second year residents. They were stars, and for just a week I felt like I was helpful, haha! I had more local experience than the interns who had just arrived - so I could show them where the bathroom was, who to call for completing this task, etc. Unfortunately, that was short lived, because it took like two days for them to get up to speed. hah!

During my month as an acting intern, I would get one day off a week. In true Alyce fashion, I used those days to the maximum. We went to the zoo to look at the animals, we played around the house, and one weekend I was babysitting for a friend who was unexpectedly in the hospital - so we had three kids under the age of 3 to run around with. It was a blast. The month went by very quickly after long days at the hospital. It was a glimpse into my intern year that is soon to be upon us.

My days would start around 6-6:30, and end at sign out at 6:30-7PM. I was starting to master efficiency, since I was trying to get up to speed with note writing in order to write complete, efficient patient notes, call consults, eat, pump for my baby, and still be up to the room for afternoon teaching. At one point, I was in the pumping room, writing notes on my laptop, eating pizza, and calling consults all at the same time - it was impressive. ha!

It was a good month. My patients sure left an impression on me, and I hope I left a positive feeling with my patients. I look forward to connecting with my team and patients again, but I better rest up so I'm ready for the next round! I have a few months off until my ICU month! So here we go!

Medicine Acting Internship

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