Your First Day in the Hospital

The first day in the hospital may feel confusing. The nursing staff will try to orient you to your hospital surroundings. All patients are interviewed by nursing, medicine, occupational therapy and social work staff on admission. This allows for a complete assessment that has a multidisciplinary focus. Although it may seem repetitive to be asked the same questions by so many people, this helps the treatment team to do a thorough assessment. In this way, your treatment team, in collaboration with you, can develop a treatment plan, which will take into consideration your personal treatment needs and goals.

During the first 24 hours of the hospital stay, a meeting with the multidisciplinary team, called “rounds” occurs. “Rounds” is the term used for the meeting in which the assigned treatment team develops the daily plan of care. In this meeting, the patient is interviewed primarily by the Attending Physician in the company of the rest of the treatment team. Because RNPH is a teaching facility, there may be many people in this meeting, including students. This affords the unique advantage of having many people who can collaborate on your care at the same time without additional consultation charges. Rounds intimidate many people at first because there are so many people present. We find, however, that most people adjust to this format rather quickly.