Resident Life

Hi there! My name is Jacki Kiefer, and I am a 2nd year resident ( it’s kind of weird to say that - I really can’t believe how fast my intern year went). Right now I’m on the Medicine service, and it is certainly keeping me busy. Today I am lucky because all of my patients but three have gone home. Two of them I need to see before 7 AM teaching rounds so that means I get to “sleep in” until 5:45 AM so I can be at the hospital in time to round. Neither of these two have a physician in the area so they are being seen by the resident service. The other patient I need to see is my continuity OB patient. She is being induced and is having her Cervidil removed this morning. I am really excited that she is finally going to deliver. I have been following her since her first visit all the way back in January. Ultrasound says it’s a boy – I hope so considering all the blue stuff in the room!

In morning rounds the medicine team and I presented our patients – we all have 2-4 each. We then discuss acute mental status change. Every morning we try to have a short presentation on a topic that has come up in rounds. Following rounds I head out to finish up with my two patients and see my one patient that I am following with one of our hospitalists. They frequently involve us when they have an interesting case.

After I finish this I head to the Family Medicine Center where I have a morning clinic. I am looking forward to seeing one of the babies that I delivered during my last OB month. She is doing well. I also have a new patient who comes to me with hip pain, in addition to a gentleman who is due to have his diabetes and hypertension checked. My typical morning clinic has about 8 patients in it – this will continue to increase as the year goes on. As a third year I will see around 12 patients in a morning clinic.

Following clinic, I hurry back to the hospital for noon conference. Dr. Fashner, one of our associate directors, is giving a talk on how to conduct research. After a brief lunch and chatting with some of the other residents, I check on my patient on OB then head off to St Joseph Care Center West – a nursing home where the second year residents see patients. This is my first trip there, so I’m sure to leave plenty of time to get my patient rounded on before 3 PM rounds with Dr Neumann (and to make sure I don’t get lost). After seeing my patient, a lady with Alzheimer’s dementia, my team and I (there are five of us) gather in one of the conference rooms. We all present our patients and discuss them with Dr Neumann – another of our directors who has a focus in geriatrics – and then we discuss some of the normal physiologic changes of aging. After we finish, I am headed back to the hospital when I get a call that my OB patient is 8 cm and getting an epidural. By 7:30 PM she has had a beautiful baby boy, and after examining the baby and transferring mom to the mother-baby unit, I am finally ready to head home. Talk about an exhausting day, and I wasn’t even on call!

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