The End of Intern Year

Yesterday I delivered my 16th baby! The residency requirement for Emergency Medicine is that I perform 15 spontaneous vaginal deliveries. This means I have now completed all the official procedure requirements for my entire intern year of Emergency Medicine! It feels good. Very very good. This was a hard year in so many ways which I have eluded to in past posts. It got quite dark in the first few months of the year for me, but these last several weeks have helped me to recharge. I had some time to return to Seattle and see close friends and my current OB rotation offers mostly a normal daily schedule which allows for some daily balance.  Now that I have completed my deliveries for the rotation I am also hoping that I can take a few extra well earned days off!

Intern year for us is when almost all of our work is in "off service" rotations. We are the neophyte in a field we know little about in order to learn a particular skill or procedure. That year is past! I will now be in the actual Emergency Department almost 10-11 months next year as opposed to 3-4 this previous year. I finally have a chance to focus primarily on my specialty, get to know the nurses and co-workers and quit being the "ignorant intern" on everyone else's service! The schedule will be tiring in the ED as we work 12 hour shifts that are usually 13-14 hours long but we work a couple less days per month as 2nd year residents. I am hopeful that I will have a better plan for maintaining balance this upcoming year and that is the key. We are moving into a new Emergency Department (stressful but also exciting) and we have a new residency director starting who we all love and will likely be a force to re-energize our department in many ways. As far as learning, this next year is where we really dig into the meat of Emergency Medicine and find our stride from what I understand. That is both intimidating and exciting. I will begin work on my research project and actually start thinking more seriously about applying for EM positions in 3rd year and where I will go from here. In our second year we can start moonlighting at some point which is not only a source of some extra needed income, but also valuable educational experience working in an autonomous environment as a provider without backup. A lot will happen this year but at least it has a focus and I feel there are more realistic goals to achieve that center on the actual career I have been trying to get to for so many years!

So - here is to the end of my OB rotation and the beginning of my real career in Emergency Medicine! I hope to have a more thoughtful post up soon about much that has been going on, but that will come with a few well earned days off I hope! If I really get all my wishes I will be able to take a few sick days and make a trip back up to Seattle and spend some time with friends in addition to carving out some quality reflective time in the back country before the terror of another July 1st in academic medicine arrives!