Our orientation lasted almost the whole day. The interns were oriented about the hospital, its staff, the various departments, and a lot of other things. We were also given our schedule for the whole year. We were also given free snacks and lunch, almost ala-medical conference style of catering: a thing which we barely get to experience back during JI-ship/clerkship. We got to see and hear each and every department chairman, chief resident, intern's monitor, nursing supervisor, social service head, and even the librarian and resident chaplain, explain and describe both ends of this "big book" called MMC life. The orientation was enlightening, and at the same time, humor-filled. The good words of each department chairman speaking in front of the incoming interns gave everybody optimism that life at MMC will be unforgettable, and at the same time memorable.
Some details which were shared to us during the orientation are as follows (as far as memory serves me right):
- Attendance is usually at 7am (6:30am for Surgery and OB-GYN, 7:30am for Pedia), and sign-out is at 4pm (for pre- and from-duty status, except for OB-GYN, which sends their interns home at 11am).
- Interns get to have one day-off every 7 days
- Interns have 5-8 hours (usually 5-6 hours) mandatory rest periods for each department, usually from 12mn-5am (OB-GYN places the mandatory rest period during the from-status, making interns on from-status go home earlier than 12nn)
- The intern's ID has a microchip in it which can be used to gain access to various places. It is also used to check attendance. (just like what is being done in prominent universities)
- Community Medicine only has 5 working days. Weekends are days-off.
- Smoking constitues to termination of the internship program, (bigat ah)
- Interns get to wear 3 kinds of uniforms: the gala uniform (any formal top with white pants/skirt, and black shoes), the working uniform (the blue scrubs), and the OR/DR scrub suit. (Our outgoing Intern's Council President suggested that we wear the gala uniform during pre-duty and formal gatherings, and the working uniform during duty status.)
- Parties are held on certain occasions, and everybody even on duty status are excused from their posts when there are officially-announced events, even nightly events.
- Interns are required to complete a certain number of procedures for clearance (i.e. 10 IV insertions, 1 minor surgery, 5 NSD's, etc.). A booklet is provided for that purpose.
- Each intern is assigned to a mentor, who is tasked to guide the intern regarding career and anything under the sun
- Not attending any orientation, this General Orientation included, constitutes to 2 Sunday make-up duties, whether excused or unexcused.
- There are so-called "star merits," which can offset any demerits from any department that has demerited an intern.
We were also given the opportunity to meet our new group mates. We were oriented by our outgoing interns about our future departments. We also assigned our individual groups different pipette colours for our OR/DR scrub suits (ours was apple green/sea spring). Most importantly, we get to know each other for a short while. (Personally, it was fun meeting new people, especially my new group mates.)
Senior Internship life is about to start in 24 days. It's about high time that each intern starts to leave that shell of clerkship and start new ground. Like what one consultant from Med. Education said, everybody starts off with a clean slate, regardless of whatever past which may have been haunting each and every intern during clerkship. This is the time to make a new name for every intern: something that is worthy of having that M.D. after each surname.
