It's not all Grey's Anatomy - A day in the life of a real intern

Kate Williamson is completing her internship at the Royal Adelaide Hospital and is currently working in the orthopedics unit "relieving".

The day starts the same in almost every unit with a ward round. This is a time where we review all the patients on the unit briefly, discuss the patients' progress with the registrars, and sometimes the consultants, and detail our management plan from thereon in. The ward round can vary from half an hour (surgical) to 8 hours (general medicine).

Following ward round is coffee. This is mandatory!

Then, it's time to do your jobs for the day which have been allocated at ward round, trying to squeeze them into the timeframe of your rostered hours (which is usually supposedly 5pm, but can get up to 7-8pm on a busy unit). Obviously there are "take" days, where your unit is taking any new emergency admissions, and you have to hang around late ready to chart any admissions (basically fill in the drug chart, carry out the registrar's initial plan, and check the patient's current health status). There are also meetings on each unit (interdisciplinary meetings, educational meetings, grand rounds) which are so much better when you are an intern because you actually know all the patients and gain something from them. Plus there is free lunch!

What is laid out above is the framework. What actually happens each day is vastly different from one day to the next. There are the ordinary tasks, such as checking a patient's lungs and charting their vital signs each day, booking imaging studies, writing discharge letters and answering short calls about patient's symptoms. Then there are the things that you suddenly find yourself doing which you never would have imagined doing 6 months before as a student. Things such as clarifying whether a family would like CPR done on their relative, or do we let nature take its course and allow them to die. Telling a patient they have cancer and we cannot cure them. Telling someone they haven't got cancer and the biopsy was benign. Discussing with a patient their suicidal thoughts, and trying to show them that there is hope. Diagnosing your first myocardial infarction and implementing the appropriate pharmacotherapy. Seeing a patient in Emergency in the most excruciating pain from kidney stones, and being able to relieve their pain in a matter of minutes. Doing your first pleural tap/becoming pretty damn good at jelcos/ABGs/ suturing without someone having to supervise you.

One thing about being an intern that's pretty awesome is feeling like an important part of a team and actually being needed. As a student, you can be pretty useful, helping out the interns/reg's, but it's not until internship that you gain a feeling of being a vital member of the team. On the flip side, it can be annoying with the amount you are required to do, your pager is going off incessantly, and all you want to do is flush it down the toilet (which I did accidentally do once!)

Another great thing is the friendships and relationships you develop during your internship. Fellow interns become your new "classmates" - you go out with them socially and you gain a whole new friendship circle. I have never worked as hard in my life as I have this year. But then I have never had such a fun time socially - that's right, there is time for a social life (and, bonus, you finally aren't broke anymore!)

So, to sum up, a day in the life of an intern cannot be summarized as a typical day - every day is unique, and you are constantly learning and doing new things. You can get sick and tired of it and need a holiday, which happens in any job, but then feel constantly inspired and lucky to be an intern.

I love my job, it is unpredictable and exciting. I hope that when it comes time for you to do your internship that you find it as rewarding as I have.

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