New attending, different style

Hi!

I am in the last week of my internal medicine rotation. I have been fortunate to be able to spend this week with a new attending. He is double board certified in internal medicine and pediatrics. So far, my attendings have been pretty laid back. He is not. He is quite demanding and formal. However, it is great to work with him, as he really teaches. For example, over the weekend (yes, I had to come in on Saturday and Sunday this weekend), he sent me to see patients and asked me to write a SOAP note on them. Then he came down to see the same patients. Before seeing them, he asked me to 'present' the patient -- basically use my SOAP note to update him. The last part of the note is of course, the plan. He asked me what I wanted to for the patient today. This, by the way, was an unconscious patient in the ICU on a ventilator! Well, I gave him my plan. He told me to write them out on the yellow 'Physician Orders' sheet and then he signed them! It was pretty cool. I felt like I was managing the patient. Of course, not all my presentation went as well. Sometimes, I was completely lost. Well, rather than tell me what to do, he would ask questions. The answers led to the plan. For example, I wanted to get a CBC on a patient we suspected of having an infection. He asked me "What is the life span of a WBC?" To my shame, I did not know. He said, "Guess". I guessed 20 days. A 4th year medical student guessed 2 months. The answer: 4-6 hours. Oops!

Oh well... one can't get them all...