
By: Denver Niles, PGY6 Fellow, Pediatrics - Infectious Disease
My typical day starts at 8 a.m. arriving to the office pre-pandemic. Since the pandemic I have been working remotely from home. When on a research month I like to lay out my agenda for the week and have a to-do-list. Items on the agenda may include:
- Completing chart review for my primary research project
- Editing my manuscript associated with my research
- Reading articles/literature related to my research
- Working on posters or presentations for a conference
- Working on my personal ID board review agenda
- Working on homework for my master’s level course
During the week I will meet with my mentors at least once in person or via Zoom to discuss my progress with my research and discuss plans going forward. I find these meetings especially helpful because my mentors help me troubleshoot problems and they allow me to bounce ideas regarding my research.
During the noon hour there is usually some kind of conference, lecture, or board review. On research months, we participate in teaching by giving lectures to learners who rotate through the ID service and we have the opportunity to present interesting cases seen while on the inpatient service to the Infectious Diseases Division at Texas Children’s or to the ID community at the Citywide conference. When there is not a lecture or conference, I will have lunch with the co-fellows.
In the afternoon there may be meetings with others for side-projects such as writing a case-report or a QI project. I may use the rest of my time to finish homework for my masters-level class or work on a presentation for a conference that I have to give. My day finishes around 4:30-5 p.m.