Rules for Interns on the Inpatient Service

1. You are expected to ‘pick up’ your sign-out from the covering Night Float intern @ 7AM in the Pulmonary Conference room. Please be considerate and be on time.

2. Work rounds begin @ 8AM. You are expected to physically ‘walk round’ with your resident and the entire team. Attendings may or may not join you at 8. If not 8, they’ll be with you by 9.

3. Noon Conference (12:30-1:30 PM) is mandatory. Please be on time. Attendance will be taken. No shows may be asked to explain their absence.

4. If you are admitting with either your team resident or a covering resident, you must verbally review every admission with the resident before leaving the hospital. COMMUNICATION is key!!!! If you cannot reach the resident let one of the Chiefs know in real time.

5. You are expected to physically be in the hospital until at least 5PM on weekdays and 3PM on weekends. You can NOT sign out to the covering intern prior to 5PM on weekdays and 3PM on weekends. If you have absolutely no notes to write, no patients or families to talk to and nothing you need to look up/read about, let us know.

6. Be careful and considerate with your ‘sign outs’, especially over the weekends. Do not sign out work that you yourself should be completing. For example, checking x-rays after lines, talking with families, consultants should be done by primary team whenever possible. A good rule of thumb is to only sign out items that will be of immediate importance overnight.

7. On Clinic days, if your work is not completed, you are expected to return to the wards after Clinic.

8. Cutting, copying, and pasting is notes is illegal and unethical. Keep your notes short and sweet. No need to type in the labs, for example. The key is the daily PE (especially any changes or worrisome findings) and the problem list. This problem list should incorporate the meds/labs of note. For example, if a problem is anemia, you should mention the Hg/Hct, ferritin, retic count, etc and then what the dx or therapeutic plan is. Notes found to be “cut/pasted” will not be accepted, the note will have to be re-written. This behavior will be treated as a serious breach of professionalism by the Residency Program. Please see the attached article on the “problem list” style of daily notes.

9. Medical students are NOT allowed to write your notes. Students are there to learn. Teach them. If you find the student on your team is not making more work for you, you are not doing right by the student.

10. You are expected to ‘read up’ on your patients and their disease processes. Most questions are background (e.g. ‘what is CHF’) and best answered by a review article (good journal), chapter or sub-chapter from a good textbook or a card from Up to Date, rather than a Medline search. Please know how to access all such resources at the AECOM library website.

11. Wash hands and stethoscope every time

12. Answer your pages

13. Ask questions