Picture this: You’re in the emergency room for your child who accidentally swallowed a quarter. After you are put in a room, the members of your care team introduce themselves as your nurse and your resident doctor. They tell you that your child will be taken back for an X-ray. While your child is having the X-ray and you have a moment to think, you wonder to yourself, “Wait, what kind of doctor?”
The resident doctor comes back to update you that the X-ray did not show any coins or other objects swallowed. You breathe a sigh of relief knowing that your child is going to be fine, but you take this opportunity to ask your care team, “So what is a resident doctor?”
What is a Resident Doctor?
A resident doctor, also just called a resident or a resident physician, is someone who has completed both college and medical school and is now a doctor. Residents are in training to become a certain type of doctor. Most of the resident doctors that you see at Nemours Children’s Hospital, Delaware are training to be pediatricians or pediatric specialists.
Because residents are still in training, there is always a board-certified doctor supervising them. This supervising doctor is called an attending doctor or attending physician. However, it’s important to remember that residents are doctors. If your child is admitted to the hospital, both the resident and attending doctors will examine your child every day. The doctors work together to figure out next steps for your child.
Rounds: A Team Effort
Sometimes, these doctors and the rest of their team will come to your room in the morning for a process called “rounding” or “rounds.” During rounds, the full team is there to talk about your child. The full team may include your resident doctor, the attending doctor, other resident doctors, medical students, dietitians, pharmacists, social workers, case managers, and more.
One person will “present” or tell the story about why your child is in the hospital. This may be one of the resident doctors or it may be a medical student. The medical students on the team will likely either be third-year medical students who are having their first exposure to pediatrics, or fourth-year medical students who are planning to go into pediatrics. Sometimes, the students will be the first ones to talk about your child.
But there will always be a resident doctor and an attending doctor supervising. All that to say, don’t be alarmed if a large group comes by to talk about your child. This is a normal process! It’s important to remember that some of the team members are still learning, and they may sometimes say something that isn’t the most recent update, but they will always try their best.
Resident Doctors in Different Settings
You may also see resident doctors at your appointments when you are not admitted to the hospital, like your physicals, or sick visits, or visits to a specialist doctor. Sometimes, the resident doctor will be the only doctor that you see, but they still have a supervising doctor. This may happen in a resident-run primary care clinic. Other times, you will see the resident doctor and then the supervising attending doctor. This may happen in a specialty clinic (like gastroenterology or endocrinology or allergy) or in a primary care clinic.
Residents spend about two weeks at a time in a certain area of the hospital, then they will move on to a different area or specialty. Because they are still in training, they get exposure to different parts of the hospital and work with different attending doctors. This is to help them figure out what type of pediatric doctor they want to be after their medical residency.
This may mean that one day you see a resident doctor when you bring your child to the dermatologist or skin doctor but may see that same doctor if your child gets admitted to the hospital for an asthma exacerbation. Fun fact: Historically, resident doctors were called that because they used to “reside” or live at the hospitals.
From Resident to Pediatrician (or Specialty Doctor)
Pediatric residents spend three years in their pediatric residency programs. After that, they may go into primary care to be general pediatricians. They may also decide that they want to be pediatric specialists, for example endocrinologists (hormone doctors) or dermatologists (skin doctors). In that case, they do more training after residency called fellowships. Fellows are doctors who have finished their pediatric residency program training (either at Nemours Children’s Health or a different hospital or health system) and they do more training in a more focused field.
Meet a Resident Physician
My name is Dr. Kayla Morrell and I am a second-year pediatric resident at Nemours Children’s Hospital, Delaware. I was born and raised in Delaware. I went to college at the University of Delaware and majored in biology and minored in anthropology. Then, I went to medical school at Thomas Jefferson University/Sidney Kimmel Medical School in Philadelphia. I always knew that I wanted to be a pediatrician when I grew up, and I was lucky enough to end up at my top choice pediatric residency program in my home state! After residency, I plan to be a primary care doctor somewhere in Delaware. This means that I will see children for their physicals and sick visits.
My favorite parts about residency are getting to see lots of different pediatric subspecialties, getting to see my primary care patients every few weeks, and working with my coresidents. My favorite part of the campus at Nemours Children’s Hospital, Delaware in Wilmington is access to the Nemours Estate and its gardens, which share the campus grounds with the hospital.
Q&A With Resident Dr. Morrell
Are you a real doctor?
Yes, residents are real doctors. Because we are still in training, we are still supervised by board-certified doctors, but we have completed medical school and are doctors.
Are you here every day?
Residents usually work 5-6 days a week every week. So, we aren’t at the hospital every single day, but we are most days.
Do we have to see a resident doctor?
Because Nemours Children’s Hospital, Delaware is a teaching hospital, resident doctors are a large part of the care team and are important in getting the best, most timely care for your child. If you have concerns about a resident doctor, you can ask to speak to the attending doctor.
How often will you check on my child in the hospital?
Normally, a resident doctor (and sometimes a medical student) will come to see your child in the morning, then the attending doctor will see them later in the day. We will also check on them as needed throughout the day.
How do I get in contact with you?
When you’re in the hospital, your nurse can always help you get in contact with us. If you see a resident doctor for an appointment in primary care or a specialty, you can always send a message via the online portal.
Will I be involved in decision-making about my child’s care?
During rounds, the team will include you in the discussions and talk to you about the plan for the day, giving you the chance to ask any questions.
What do you wish families knew about working with resident doctors?
While we are doctors, we are still in training and are learning how to be the best doctors that we can be. Sometimes there will be things that we don’t know or something that we need to find out more about. We are all trying our best to provide the best care for your child and we ask that you treat us with the same respect that you would treat any other member of your child’s care team.
Written by: Kayla Morrell, MD a second-year pediatric resident at Nemours Children’s Hospital, Delaware.
