5:15 am

Wake up, get ready to go to work…

Start rounding on the Thoracic service.  Begin by reviewing all the morning films on our patients on CIS.  My PGY1 types the notes on our “computer on wheels” as we make sure everyone is doing okay.

7:00 am

It’s Tuesday morning, so time for a lecture from one of the esteemed faculty.  We’re talking about IBD today.

8:00 am

Breakout to the Human Patient Simulator.  Every couple weeks, we do a small group scenario.  It’s me and two junior residents.  My PGY1 starts off assessing a patient who isn’t doing well.  The PGY2 gets called in and reviews the labs and some films with her.  They call me for backup and we decide to take the patient to the OR for an exploratory laparotomy.  I take them through how to do a Connell stitch in a simulated hand-sewn intestinal anastomosis.  I learn how to do a Modified Gambey stitch.

9:00 am

Meet up in the real OR with my attending to run the list and get started with cases. My PGY1 heads to office while I scrub in on a VATS lobectomy for lung cancer.

11:30 am

Roll out to PACU, throw in orders on CIS, check the CXR, and meet my next patient.  My PA comes down to update me on a trach consult she started seeing.

12:15 pm

Back to business.  A diagnostic VATS wedge this time.  My PGY1 heads to a mediastinoscopy and bronchoscopy.

2:20 pm

Orders in, I meet up with my team in the cafeteria and we grab a bite. 

3:00 pm

A bit of walk rounds with the attending.  We get interrupted with word from the unit of a pneumothorax on a vented patient.  We head down and my PGY1 pops in a chest tube.  

5:30 pm

After checking the CXR and tidying things up, we sign out our patients to the on-call team and head for home.

6:30 pm

Tonight is our once-a-month surgical discussion group, so some of us meet up at a local restaurant.  Three papers are selected by the faculty in attendance and are presented by residents.  It’s my turn, so I present an article from JAMA that supports medical management of GERD instead of laparoscopic Nissen fundoplication.  After some heated debate and good eats, we head out.

9:00 pm

Back at home to catch up with my couch.

10:00 pm

G’night!