Alexa Graboske, DO

A day in the life of a PGY-1 resident

6:25 a.m. Snoozing starts. 

6:45 a.m. Officially waking up. Luckily, it doesn’t take me that long to get ready, especially since we can wear scrubs.

7:10 a.m. Take my dog on a walk. I got my dog in medical school which was definitely a challenge. However, now that she is trained, managing a dog this year has been pretty easy. 

7:30 a.m. Drive to work. I also live really close to the hospital which makes my morning simple. 

7:40 a.m. Starbucks. This is by far my favorite part of the hospital!

7:45 a.m. Start pre-charting on patients. I’m on the consults rotation. As an intern you have 3-4 months of consults. During this rotation we see patients who are admitted to the medical floor of the hospital but have some psychiatric concern. A lot of our consults involve medication management, capacity consults, or substance use. We’re able to see a large variety of patients on consults, and we play an important role managing patients alongside their hospital medicine team. Today I have two follow-ups and one new patient. I’m pretty familiar with my follow-ups already, so their chart review only takes about 15 minutes. New patients usually take a little bit more time to review, but I try to finish by 8:30-45 a.m.

8:30 a.m. See patients. 

9:30 a.m. Call collateral. This is sometimes your most important part of the day. It’s good to have insight from the patient's support system to see how patients were before they were admitted to the hospital. 

10:00 a.m. Start writing notes, finish up any last-minute questions before rounds. 

10:30 a.m. Table rounds. This is when everyone presents their patients together. We’re able to discuss cases, build treatment plans, and plan for the rest of the day. Attendings will also use this time to expand on teaching topics and give deeper explanations to any questions the team may have. 

12:30 p.m. Lunch. You can also call any collateral during this time, but since I did that this morning I am able to work more on my notes. 

1:30 p.m. Walking rounds. This is when we see the patient with the attending.  

2:30 p.m. New Patient. We already saw my patients on rounds so I’m splitting off to see a new patient that came in during the afternoon. This was for a capacity consult which is pretty common for the afternoons. 

3:15 p.m. Staffing the new patient. Because rounds is already over, I’ll meet the attending and present the patient before they go to see them. 

3:30 p.m. Write my last note and finish up this morning’s notes. 

4:15 p.m. Write handoffs, finish up any last-minute daily items. Ending time for consults can vary based on the day/how many patients we see. We stop seeing new consults at 4/4:30 but we’re usually still finishing up with our earlier patients.

4:45 p.m. Drive home. 

4:55 p.m. Walk dog. We usually do a long walk after work or go to a park by us. 

5:30 p.m. Make dinner. I try to meal prep and pack a lunch for work. It makes lunch easier during the day and is hopefully healthier than cafeteria food. Sometimes I’m baking cookies or sourdough bread, though they definitely don’t add much nutritional value. 

6:30 p.m. Watch TV/read a book/play with my dog. Some nights I go out with friends, and others I have a yoga class. The Lehigh Valley has a lot of cute restaurants, coffee shops, and plenty of things to do on your time off. As an intern we work about once every four weekends so that leaves a lot of free time for relaxing, hobbies, and visiting friends and family.