A Day in the Life of a Third-Year Resident
PGY3! The Outpatient Year.
Like most psychiatry programs, our PGY3 year is all outpatient psychiatry! We also have outpatient therapy and therapy supervision time a half day a week, and some infrequent call! We spend time in 3 different outpatient clinics, that vary greatly in their patient populations and provide a robust experience. These 3 clinics are Centers for Youth and Families (the community mental health center for Little Rock), the NLR VA, and 1 day at Walker Family Clinic (the University affiliated clinic). The PGY3 class is split into 2 schedule blocks, and mine is below!
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday |
| VA or Centers | VA | Centers | VA | WFC |
| WFC Therapy | VA | Centers | Didactics | WFC |
We share an office with the PGY3 that has the opposite schedule from us, but that is our office for the year to decorate and make cozy! All the attendings in outpatient clinic do a wonderful job of balancing teaching psychopharmacology, furthering interview skills, making sure we learn outpatient time management, and stepping up with notes or patients as we need help! Dr. Winford even has a snack bowl and mini-fridge stocked at the NLR VA for us.
Most days actually start before your first patient is scheduled. I am a chronically late girl, so I know I need to chart review my patients before the morning of clinic. I typically spend so time doing this the night before, or on the previous clinic day. This just works better for me than trying to get there super early. The current PGY4s say this improves as the year progresses and you become more familiar with your patients (which was true for PGY2 Child Clinic!
I try to get to clinic at least 30 minutes early (usually 8 am). This gives me time to organize myself for the day, consume caffeine, and mentally prepare. This also leaves time to answer patient questions or work on administrative things (fix notes, prescription refills, answer patient questions, etc). Starting the day off on the right foot means that the rest of the day continues to run smoothly. In each clinic we have some time slots blocked to catch up on documentation throughout the day, which helps us finish in a timely manner. The 3s offices are all near each other, which means we can easily reach out to each other for help, or participate in one of my favorite activities, yapping! We are also lucky enough to have PGY4s rotating at these clinics as well, and they have been so helpful and encouraging this year!
I try to finish my notes (and tasks) before leaving each day. We have the option to finish notes at home if needed, but I try to keep work at work.
I am reliably home before 5 pm most days. I spend the evenings chasing my puppies around (yes I have two Labrador puppies and yes this is a prime example of poor coping skills, ha ha). I also love to read mysteries, crochet, and spend time with friends eating the delicious food Little Rock has to offer.