A Typical Week for a Third-Year Psychiatry Resident
Monday
I spend the full day at Fellowship Hall, an addiction treatment program in Greensboro. This is an offsite rotation and I usually leave home at 7am to get in at 8am, but the drive is nice and I’m happy to have some time with podcasts. I love the patients, staff, and grounds here. It’s a wonderful place and I get to spend a lot of time in more casual group settings with the people receiving treatment here that I don’t get in my other clinical settings. I’m usually off from here by 3pm (lovely) and try to take it easy Monday nights with a run and a night in! Sometimes I’ll work on art projects or tend to chores.
Tuesday
My Tuesdays are also pretty laid back. I spend the first half of the day on research projects and fitting a few meetings in, usually at a coffee shop in Durham or Chapel Hill. Caffé Driade is my favorite. :) I head over to Duke for Academic Half Day around 1pm to eat lunch with my resident friends and spend the rest of the afternoon in didactics. We might have a class- or residency-wide meeting and then three hours of different lectures. On rare occasion we’ll have a class outside and that’s really the best. Tuesday evenings I join some Chapel Hill friends for a regular potluck (Too Much Food Tuesday)! This gives me an excuse to cook something fun and maybe elaborate.
Wednesday
Wednesday mornings I have admin time, which I use mostly to catch up on emails and patient messages, attend meetings or go to appointments, and prep clinic notes. I head to clinic around 12:30pm and see patients until 4pm along with a few of my co-residents. Then we all have an hour of supervision with the attending in clinic. This time is really valuable. It’s great to be able to talk through cases with your co-residents and the attending in a smaller setting like this, and it’s fun to watch your friends be great doctors and learn from them. In the evening, I drive to Carrboro for a workout class with friends and then we meet up at our favorite spot downtown. Carrboro is very cool and cute!
Thursday
I try to make it to an early yoga class Thursdays, but this is sometimes sacrificed. I get to clinic around 7:50am and see patients until 11am, and then meet with all the residents and attendings in clinic that day. Our attendings usually have a lecture prepared for us relevant to outpatient psychiatric practice; these have been great and usually answer questions that are beginning to come up for me in clinic.
We break for Grand Rounds and lunch and then all head to a different clinic for Family Studies, where we help conduct therapy for families and couples as a team. We end here at 5:30pm and I usually either meet up with friends in the evening for trivia at a brewery or maybe for an event downtown.
Friday
Friday mornings are similar to Thursdays for clinic, and in the afternoon, I head to a different site to see my therapy patients. I have an hour of supervision with an attending and a resident friend at the end of the day, and this is always a nice end to the work week. Friday evenings usually involve dinner with friends.
Weekend
There are plenty of competing fun events in Triangle on weekends and not enough time. There are also so many neat places for exploring/camping/nature adventuring nearby!
If I’m at home, I usually start Saturdays with a run around East Campus or a workout class with a few friends, then head to the farmer’s market at Durham Central Park (my favorite part of Durham). I might get lunch with resident friends or take a stroll through the gardens, or swim at the quarry if it’s warm enough. We’ll often catch a show at Motorco or Cat’s Cradle in the evenings. Sundays are a little more low-key and might end with a movie at the Carolina Theater (my other favorite part of Durham).
Read other Week in the Life narratives:
- Julia Tucker, MD, PhD (PGY1)
- Soji Ojo, MD, MPH (PGY2)
- Abdelrhman “Rooma” Elnasseh, MD (PGY3)
- Molly Fessler, MD (PGY3)
- Carolina Nadal Medina, MD, MS (PGY3)