Over the past few months I started to finally get a hang of the workflow of the hospital. I’ve gotten used to personally managing about 3 or 4 patients and hearing about another 10 or so more that my team handles. At first this seemed like a ton of patients to be able to keep track of and monitor, but it quickly became more and more doable.
…or at least that was until I had my first overnight shift. Working at the hospital in the middle of the night is certainly a unique experience – but terrifyingly stressful at the same time. At the hospital I rotate through, the overnight resident might have to cross cover as many as 60 patients.
It’s a daunting task to have to manage so many people, especially without any prior information about why they are here, what’s happened to them, what tests they’ve gotten, etc. All the decisions are basically made with the few lines of sign out information that the day team leaves and a lot of gut instinct. It is crazy and stressful, but defiantly forces you to think on your feet and is an amazing training experience.
