THE WARD TEAM
The members of the team are described below. Students are an integral member and may be most knowledgeable about a patient.
Attending Physician has completed a residency and possibly a fellowship and is a member of the Northwestern faculty. He or she is ultimately responsible for the patient's care and will thus make or approve all major decisions. A private patient will have a private attending. A clinic patient will have a floor or service attending assigned for coverage. If they have both, the floor attending has the teaching responsibilities, while the private attending has the patient management responsibilities.
Fellow has completed a residency program and is now in subspecialty training, e.g. cardiology, vascular surgery, high -risk obstetrics, etc. As a junior student, your contact with these individuals will occur in the setting of a subspecialty consult. Fellows are, in general, exceptionally knowledgeable about their specialty, and as such, are excellent teachers.
Resident is anyone with more than one year of postgraduate training.Since attendings typically round once a day, the resident is in charge of the team. Besides helping the intern in managing the team's patients, he or she is also primarily responsible for the education of students. Clerkship evaluations are usually solicited from residents.
Intern is anyone in the first year of postgraduate training (PGY-1). The intern is primarily responsible for the moment -to-moment patient care. You may be paired with an intern who will work with you on the patients you are assigned. The intern usually has many tasks to be
completed through the day, so any work you can do to help out will be greatly appreciated. In return, they can show you the ropes around the hospital and offer a good evaluation of your performance to the resident.
Senior Student is a fourth year medical student who is taking an elective or a sub-internship (Sub-I). He or she has the responsibilities of an intern and is supervised by the resident.
Junior Student: The goal of the junior clerkships is to continue to teach you the clinical skills of a physician. During the M1 and M2 years, you learned pathophysiology, problem solving, and patient interaction skills. During the ward years you will learn how to integrate and apply
these skills towards actual patient care. This is a challenging endeavor, but you will slowly improve as the year progresses.
You or we will frequently find that you lack knowledge of a particular disease process or the skills to perform a certain procedure. Remember, you are there are to learn, and nobody expects you to know everything already. In time, your clinical judgment problem solving skills, ability to manage patient issues, and self-confidence will
develop.
