Life as an Internal Medicine Resident at Bassett

A Day in the Life of an Internal Medicine Resident at Bassett Medical Center (BMC)

Internal medicine residents provide primary care to patients at BMC in Cooperstown, while occasionally rotating through Bassett Healthcare Network facilities in Oneonta, Cobleskill, and Herkimer.

Residents are assigned to inpatient rotations, which include medical wards, cardiology service, and the intensive care unit. Every 5 weeks, the medicine residents will be on an outpatient primary care rotation. Each medicine resident will rotate through each subspecialty elective at one point during their three years of training. The subspecialties include endocrinology, gastroenterology, infectious disease, nephrology, neurology, hematology/oncology, Palliative care, psychiatry, pulmonary, and rheumatology.

A Typical Day at Bassett Medical Center:

Below is a breakdown of a typical day of a PGY-1 resident on the medical ward. 

0630: The day starts with resident arrival at the inpatient conference room to receive sign-out from PGY-1 night float colleagues. At this time, residents also speak with admitting residents about any admissions that occurred during the night.

0700 – 0830: Residents report to the team room to expeditiously scan patient charts. Afterwards residents independently conduct initial patient evaluations.

0830 – 1200: Attendings will arrive at 0830 to begin rounding with residents and the team co-intern. Residents will then place orders in the electronic medical records system (EMR), and make any necessary phone calls after discussing the patient visits with the attending.

1215 – 1300: Noon conferences. Mondays are dedicated to evidence-based medicine conferences, Tuesday conference topics are variable, Wednesdays and Thursdays are core curriculum lectures, and Fridays are typically case conferences.

1300 – 1700: Progress notes are written, and patient families are contacted to provide them with updates. Residents then write up and print hand offs to provide to their night float colleagues.

1700: Residents will sign out to night float colleagues and then end their workday.
 

We strictly adhere to ACGME and New York State duty hour regulations, including having at least one day off per week (defined as Sunday through Saturday), and working fewer than 80 hours per week, averaged over four weeks. While rare, whenever a resident is approaching the limit of 80 hours per week over four weeks, they are encouraged to speak up in order to be appropriately released from duties, and are never penalized.