A Day in the Life of a Psychiatry Resident

6 am and the alarm goes off. It’s time to get ready for another day! This year I’m excited because I am a PGY2, and the rotations have become more specialized. As I’m getting ready, I am looking forward to work, thinking about all the new pathology I’ll be exposed to during the day.

At 7 am, the rotation starts. Second-year rotations include Consult Liaison, Psych-Onc, Dual Diagnosis Unit, Geriatric Unit, Child Unit, general inpatient units, and more. I start the day by getting a list of the day’s patients and deciding which ones will be interesting for the medical students to learn from. I then check-in with the nurses and see if anything significant happened with the patients overnight.

Pre-rounding takes a few hours and includes chart reviewing, preparing the medical students for their presentations, seeing patients, and formulating the proposed plans. For consults, it includes calling the primary team to clarify the consult, and for inpatient units, it might involve getting collateral information.

Around 9:30 am, we are ready for table rounds. Together, we go through the patient’s history, formulate a differential, start medications targeting the patient’s symptoms, and ensure we leave time to teach.

At 11 am, we are on walking rounds, discussing the plans with the patients.

It’s finally time for lunch and to get together with my co-residents. The big debate is who has better food: the main hospital or the behavioral hospital? On Wednesdays, we are fortunate enough to have grand rounds, journal club, or Mortality and Morbidity conferences. Some of my favorite grand rounds from last year included The Future of Psychedelics and Leveraging GLP-1 Signaling to Curb Drug Use.

At 1:00 pm, it’s time to finish putting in orders, writing notes, calling families, or for consults, discussing our recommendations with the primary team.

I look forward to afternoon team teaching with the medical students. We get together for about 30 minutes and go over a designated topic or mini presentations. Most recently, I thoroughly enjoyed one of our medical students teaching about Zuranolone, the new FDA-approved medication for postpartum depression.

On didactic days, we have protected time to attend lectures to deepen our knowledge base and, as an added bonus, hang out with our co-residents.

At 4:30 pm, it’s time to go. Some days we have call shifts. As a first year, it was in the psychiatry emergency room (crisis), where we see everything from involuntary holds for psychosis/mania/suicide to children, but don’t worry, you also have an attending by your side. As a PGY2, call is at the VA, where you start to develop more independence. The attending can be reached by phone, but you are really holding down the fort. I know I’m prepared because of the opportunities we had as PGY1s.

All in all, the second year is for tremendous growth, and I am eager to see where the third year takes me.

Jessica D. Leuchter, MD
PGY2 Psychiatry Resident