Dr. Henry Fisher confirms that a patient’s sodium level no longer puts her at risk for brain edema. Then, it’s off to a faculty lecture before returning to the clinic, where a kid who is seizing needs the right medication.
Just the beginning of a typical day for this first-year resident in pediatrics.
Fisher ’25 (MD) earned his Doctor of Medicine at the UNC School of Medicine, then matched residencies at UNC Health. He is living his goal to serve North Carolina’s children and gaining experience in different medical specialties and subspecialties. Fisher, from Durham, North Carolina, likes to hike, fish, play soccer and paint. His undergraduate degree is from Carleton College.
⏱️ 6:07 a.m. I check morning labs for a hypernatremic patient to verify that her sodium has corrected by no more than 10mEq/L over the last 24 hours to avoid cerebral edema.
⏱️ 6:50 a.m. I see an 11-year-old patient with botulism. He’s getting stronger every day and is able to walk around his room today. We talk about the Olympics.
⏱️ 8 a.m. I attend grand rounds in our clinic auditorium, where a faculty member gives an excellent lecture on a new sepsis alert and treatment system that’s being launched at UNC.
⏱️ 10:19 a.m. During rounds, a 13-year-old patient with Lennox Gastuat has a seizure. We give her a rescue medication and the seizure abates. I call neurology and we discuss temporarily increasing her seizure medication while she has a viral illness.
⏱️ 11:19 a.m. I see a 15-year-old male with rhabdomyolysis. His labs show that his kidneys are fully healed. He’s playing Minecraft and asks me when he can go home. We talk about his basketball team and a safe plan for him to return to playing.
Fisher is one of roughly 1,000 medical residents at UNC Health, the health care system’s second-largest workforce segment. (Johnny Andrews/UNC-Chapel Hill)
⏱️ 12:21 p.m. A 14-year-old female being treated with supportive care for salmonella gastroenteritis has a blood culture that reads positive for salmonella. I know I need to start antibiotics. I look up the correct antibiotic and dosage, then start her on ciprofloxacin.
⏱️ 1:58 p.m. A patient with altered mental status needs a lumbar puncture. I review the protocol, obtain informed consent, then head to the procedure room and perform the lumbar puncture. I obtain 4 vials of cerebrospinal fluid.
⏱️ 3:23 p.m. A nurse messages me, saying the mother of a 14-day-old who is not feeding well noticed white spots on her baby’s tongue. I grab a tongue depressor and do an oral exam. She has white plaques on her tongue that I can’t scrape off. I diagnose her with thrush and start an oral antifungal solution.
⏱️ 4:30 p.m. I review a chest X-ray I ordered for a patient who threw up and now has a fever. Opacities in the right lung tell me she has pneumonia. I start an IV with Unasyn, an antibiotic.
⏱️ 5 p.m. I’m paged for an admission and head to the ED to see a child who follows with complex care here with a cough and fever. I do a full systems review to make sure I understand her baseline and what is different today. I review her medications and call our pharmacy to make needed substitutions.
⏱️ 5:58 p.m. I give sign out to the nighttime shift, summarizing what happened to the patients over the past 12 hours and things the team may need to know for the coming 12 hours.
