Being good

As a medical student, at the bottom of the heap of medical staff, I get a fair amount of time to watch the interaction of the other members of the team and think about team dynamics. And I've now been on enough teams that I've seen some that function really well and some that function really poorly. As such, here are Janel's list of four parts which are important in being an intern:
1. Knowing your medicine - know enough of the basics to get things covered as people walk in the door, know how to look up the more complex things you don't know, know when to ask for help. This is both the knowledge that the intern walks in the door with and how they pick up new information.
2. Knowing your patients. I actually don't mean "good rapore with patients" though that is separately important, it is not important in functioning with the medical team. I mean more knowing the history of [all] the patient's illnesses, both what happened before you meet the m and what happened during your care of them. I think of it as knowing the patient's narrative in detail - symptoms, lab values, procedures, diagnoses . . .
3. Organizing your time. There is a lot to do and there are a lot of intrusions, being able to prioritize and focus is essential.
4. Team player! Deligate, communicate, helpful. Trust people to do things, but then check that they got done right.

From my perspective, the people who are good (not necessarily excellent) at all four parts are excellent interns. You can also leverage excellence in part 1 or 2 if you aren't as strong in some other part to be a good intern. And the people who don't know the basics, can't remember details of care, are scattered, and insult the other members of the team? Terrifying.