FAQs About Inpatient Months
Yearly Schedule Daily Structure Call Schedule FAQs ICUs and ED Consults and Electives
Who makes up my inpatient medicine team?
Your team is typically made up of your attending, a PGY2 or 3 resident, two interns, and a third and/or fourth year medical student. In addition, a pharmacist and/or pharmacy student rounds with the inpatient team each day.
What is the patient population?
We see a variety of medical illnesses. One of the great things about our patient mix is that we do a great deal of diagnostic workups for previously undiagnosed disorders. It is rare that you would have a patient admitted with the diagnosis already made. All of our inpatient services are generalist admitting teams. This allows you to care for an incredible diversity of patients and disease states. It is up to your team to decide if you want a subspecialty consultant to assist you with patient management. We do not have mandatory consultation for any service.
Who gives me approval to order diagnostic tests, etc.?
Your team, led by your attending, will make these decisions. If you feel a patient needs an important radiologic study, such as a MRI or a PET scan, you simply write the order. You don't need radiology approval for these studies. If you feel a certain antibiotic is indicated, you order it. We don't require ID approval, etc. We pride ourselves on giving you the autonomy that you need to take care of your patients along with strong guidance and support from the faculty.
Who will I see in clinic?
When at our Myers Park facility, our categorical residents will see their own continuity panel of patients. They serve as a primary care provider and get to know their panel of patients quite well over the course of their residency training. Our preliminary residents rotate through Myers Park clinic as well but primarily see hospital follow-up and urgent care type visits. Interns will not see more than three to five patients in a half-day, and all their patients will be seen and examined by an attending for at least the first six months of the year.
What is the average inpatient census?
This will vary somewhat depending on the time of year. Often the busiest months of the year are during the winter, and the team census will occasionally be as high as 18 patients (nine patients per intern). Most of the time, however, the average team census is approximately 12-14 patients (or six to seven patients per intern) depending on where the team falls within the five-day call cycle. The number of patients per intern may be less if there is a fourth-year medical student working as an Acting Intern on the team.
Of course, we comply fully with ACGME (Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education) patient care caps which require that inpatient services be under 20 patients, with no more than ten patients per intern. In fact, we set our inpatient censuses LOWER than ACGME's current requirements because we feel that this provides a more optimal balance between service and education. From July 1st to October 31st, we have team caps of 16 patients- so no more than eight patients per intern. This allows new interns to learn the process of operations and work on improving their efficiency with a more manageable patient census. From November 1st to June 30th, the team cap increases to 18 patients, or 9 per intern, which is still less than what ACGME requires. We believe our team caps provide the optimum amount of patient exposure and help to foster an excellent learning environment.
In addition, the inpatient specialty consult services have very reasonable census numbers to provide an optimal balance between service and education. Some of the specialty consult services follow lower numbers of patients in the hospital with most the patient care delivered in the outpatient setting.