Thread: shinning in clinicals

Pretty soon I will start my first rotation, and is in a non affiliate Ross university hospital. I am excited and nervous, I want to ask you guys how do you impress without being so obvious you are trying to impress. The attending is the program director for the residency and gives elective to the local school of medicine, where he takes only one student! so there is nobody where I can hide behind on the first day, not that I want to hide but like to analyze the situation before I act. What do you guys think they expect, what they like and want. I want to open the doors for more students in my school so is very important not only for me but for other people after me. Please give suggestions.It will be mostly inpatients.

Go early, stay late. Know everything about your patients and be willing to do everything related to patient care.

you don't have to get your residents coffee or crap like that....leave that stuff to students at Wyckoff. If this is a real university rotation they will be impressed with you if you are medically knowledgeable and are willing to learn

absolutely agree with go early, stay late, and don't complain.

be a complete yes man, ask questions, know your patients in and out

All of us should know how to do a full head to toe, especially if you've completed 5th semester, but start reading up on how to do focused H & Ps. For some reason at the place I am doing a core at (non-affiliate) thought that I knew how to do one from the get go. A good book for this is either the St. fran c is Clinical Clerkship Guide to Outpatient Medicine or a book simply called Internal Medicine Clerkship Guide. It teaches you what parts of the physical exam and history to apply to your patient's chief complaint.

Basically depending on the patient's complaint, you'll need to learn how to pick and choose what components of the ROS and Physical Exam you'll need to do for that particular complaint. Ross did teach us how to do the full head to toe exam, but they never taught us the focused H&P. You won't be doing a full head to toe for every patient you see.

And of course, what the others said, arrive early and never leave early unless they want you to go. Ask questions, but don't overdo it.

Thank you guys, I hope everything is going well for you all in clinicals.

even when i do admits in the ER (currently doing internal med) we don't even do complete physicals like from 5th, although what we learned in Miami did help a lot technique wise. You should be able to do a "complete" physical in about 5-10 minutes tops and definitely make sure to keep the majority of your interview/physical exam focused.