Introduction and Goals
The Day Float rotation allows junior residents to see a variety of neurological patients while helping to ensure smooth inpatient clinical operations during the day and reduce resident workload compression in the early to late evening.
In the early evening, the Day Float sees new consults, while the Night Float resident covers nursing calls from the floors and patient phone calls. Please see the Rotation and Call Schedules section for further details about this role.
Objectives and Evaluation Matrix
As with all of the neurology rotations, the specific objectives are reflected in the entrustable professional activities and individual milestones listed below. These form the basis for the end-of-rotation evaluation. (Please see the section End-of-Rotation Evaluations above for the list of milestone abbreviations).
| Rotation Objectives | ||
| Upon completion of the curriculum, residents will . . . | ||
| # | Description | Milestones |
| 1 | Evaluate and manage changes in clinical status that arise on cross-covered patients | PC1, PC2, PC3, PC5, PC6, PC8, MK1, MK2 |
| 2 | Quickly and accurately determine eligibility for endovascular and other advanced treatments stroke patients transferred from outlying hospitals | PC1, PC2, PC3, PC6, PC8, MK1, MK2 |
| 3 | Evaluate and manage inpatients with neurological complications of systemic disease, surgery, and other treatments | PC1, PC2, PC3, PC5, PC6, PC8, MK1, MK2 |
| 4 | Appropriately select and interpret neuroimaging studies | PC8, MK2 |
| 5 | Communicate effectively with requesting clinical services, nurses, and other members of the patient’s team | SP3, SP4, PR1, IC3, IC4 |
| Milestones | ||
| Please grade the resident on any of the following milestones you were able to evaluate during this rotation: | ||
| PR2, PR3 | ||
Schedule
The Day Float resident is expected to arrive no later than 3:00 p.m. on weekdays in order to be ready to go on pager by 4:00 p.m. From Monday through Friday, the Day Float resident should be available to help the primary services if they get multiple consults or stroke codes before 4 pm to ensure a safe and timely sign-out. The Day Float carries the pager from 4:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m., and may stay a bit later as needed to complete pending consults or patient care tasks. This ensures that there are at least two residents in-house in the early to late evening. The Night Float resident is responsible for getting sign-out from the primary team, managing cross-cover issues, and taking 22122 afterhours calls but can still help the Day Float resident if they get multiple consults or codes at once. From 8 pm to 10 pm, the Day Float and the Night Float residents split the new consults halfway. Day Float then signs-out any outstanding patients to the Night Float resident as early as 10 pm.
The Day Float’s weekend responsibility is on Sunday, covering the pager from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. They round on general neurology primary and consult patients in addition to taking new consults. The Day Float resident should coordinate with the Night Float resident splitting the patients for Sunday rounding but the Day Float should aim to take more of the existing patients as the Night Float resident will be taking all new overnight patients.
Work Hours
The anticipated number of work hours on this rotation is 55. As with all rotations, the resident will be responsible for tracking work hours and reporting any risk of violation immediately to program administration.
Suggested reading
Because of the variety of patients that will be seen on this rotation, it is expected that the resident’s reading will focus on the finer points of diagnosis and management of the particular patients seen on service. This will serve to both foster the resident’s own knowledge and provide a means to educate the other members of the team.
Last revision: 08/07/2025, Natalie Wheeler, M.D. J.D.
