Inpatient Family Medicine

I spent this morning with the inpatient team. Although family medicine as a whole is mostly outpatient, the resident training includes inpatient care similar to that of internal medicine. And since the only residency here is family medicine, they run all the usual hospital stuff. The day started early (or earlier than I am used to) with the usual morning rounds, discussing new admits. Then we had radiology rounds on brain imaging, which was really educational. I like didactics like that, and I think radiology is one that works so much better when you have things explained. This was followed by the usual morning "hour of power" (where residents get most of the work done). I tagged along with one of the residents to see our patients and write up a SOAP note. But one of our patients needed a tunneled catheter for hemodialysis access. The vascular surgeon came around and asked if the resident wanted to do it. So the resident and I got to scrub in (good thing I'd done that before) and place a tunneled internal jugular vein catheter! That was awesome! It was not an intense surgery, but a fun one because it involved ultrasound to place the cath and X-ray confirmation. I got to make the incision on the chest wall where the catheter was placed and then suture the catheter down.