Medical ICU at the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center - Houston, Texas

I'm spending my first month of residency at the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center in Houston, Texas. Starting out we have one or two patients usually and we order all the tests and medicines our patient needs as well as taking care of any problems that come up. An upper level resident and critical care fellow mostly supervise our work and we round twice a day with a critical care attending physician who teaches us various relevant material and reviews our patient assessments and plan. When we are on call, we work with an upper level to care for the patients in the Medical ICU and CCU. It's a great place to train with lots of teaching and interesting patients to work with. I like taking care of the veterans and talking to their families. In the ICU there isn't much conversation with the patients because they are very ill. However, the families are very appreciative and it's a good feeling when you do something that helps the patients recover an improve. Even if there is really nothing that can be done for a patient medically, there are sometimes good ways to help the family go through the process of dealing with death and grieving that seem to be helpful and appreciated. I'm looking forward to learning a lot and like the other physicians and nurses I work with.