work her up/resident

[GUEST2008]

Hi

Certain lady went to the hospital to receive specialized, clinical training. She wrote in a book:

On the first day, my resident came to me, gave me the name
and age of my first patient, and said simply, “Work her up.” That
was it. I was terrified. How was I supposed to figure out what was
wrong with her when I had no information other than her name
and age?

1. Does "resident" in this context mean a doctor? Because she was a resident in my view, so why is she saying "my resident came to me"?

2. I understand that "work her up" in this context means simply "take care of her"?

 

[JMurray]

According to the Free Online Medical Dictionary:
work-up = procedures done to arrive at a diagnosis, including history taking, laboratory tests, x-rays, and so on.
resident = a physician in one of the postgraduate years of clinical training after the first, or internship, year. The length of residency varies according to the specialty.

not a teacher

 

[Raymott]

Hi

Certain lady went to the hospital to receive specialized, clinical training. She wrote in a book:

On the first day, my resident came to me, gave me the name
and age of my first patient, and said simply, “Work her up.” That
was it. I was terrified. How was I supposed to figure out what was
wrong with her when I had no information other than her name
and age?

1. Does "resident" in this context mean a doctor? Because she was a resident in my view, so why is she saying "my resident came to me"?

2. I understand that "work her up" in this context means simply "take care of her"?

The resident is talking to an intern or a medical student - she has to be because otherwise she's the lowest on the pecking order.
"Working a patient up" means doing all the boring initial work like taking a history, doing a physical examination, ordering basic tests, etc. - things that interns should be competent to do. Then the resident and her superiors will come along, and much of the work will have been done, so as not to waste the senior doctor's time.
This is the American system.
In the British/Australian system, you have residents (interns; first year or two); registrars (who are training for a specialty - similar to US residents) and consultants, who are trained specialists.