Inpatient neurology at The Children's Hospital

The Neurological Care clerkship at The Children's Hospital is split into two weeks of outpatient clinic work and two weeks of inpatient service. Most neurology inpatient services are rather low-key, but not this one. For the past week, I've been working between 13 and 16 hours per day.

A major contributor to these long hours is that my attending physician is a long-rounder. Starting rounds at 9am, we never finished before 2pm. On Friday we paused for lunch (he treated) and finished up around 3:30. The upside: this guy is a master of the neurological exam in infants and children. I learned a lot by watching his exams and started incorporating many of his tricks into my own exam.

Another reason for these long hours is simply that I'm slow. It still takes me a long time to put together a good History & Physical or a progress note. But I'm getting faster with each day.

We get a new attending for the second week of inpatient service. It will be interesting to see how this coming week compares with last week.