Halfway through IM
We started out with 5 students. Then dropped to 4 as one student rotated out to the ER. After next week, there will be 3 of us left.
Our Internal Medicine team is capped at 15 patients, which can sometimes swell to as many as 18 with special exceptions. With 15 patients and 5 students, we are each assigned 3 patients to pre-round on every morning, present their case and/or updates in our 10am meeting and follow their care during their entire stay. After next week, we will have 5 patients each.
I’m not good at math, but with more patients and the same amount of time, it’s not surprising I find myself going in to the hospital earlier and earlier.
It’s going to be an interesting holiday season with Brandon working and studying for the Step and me voluntarily going in to the hospital on the weekends. I think I noted via Twitter that I went in every day during Thanksgiving weekend. Everyone else on our student team had family close by to visit on the 4-day break. As such, I rather inevitably ended up standing out as (at best) ambitious or (at worst) a “gunner“. Either way, my attending looked at me like I was crazy. I told him I inherited a genetic defect from my dad.
I’m 6 weeks into my 12 week Internal Medicine rotation and something super cool, awesome, weird, frightening or amazing happens every single day. I’ve decided (and I remember this was suggested by some savvy commenter) to start jotting stuff down when I come home and publish it a week or a month down the road.
Please note: this does NOT mean I plan to start sharing real details about real patients.
I’m hoping it does mean I get to share a little more about how much I love learning.
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December 4th, 2009 at 10:17 am
i feel like i should give you my history so you can help me with my pulmonary embolism treatment. that’s what knowing someone in med school is for, right? helping understand one’s own medical problems? ;)
December 4th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
I think you need not worry as much as you do about breaking HIPPA.
Share! As long as identifying features are left out you can discuss cases. Have you ever been to an M&M report, or any case presentation?! Those are presented in a way that does not break HIPPA rules.
Anyway, I think I remember you saying that you don’t want people in your area (?) thinking you are writing about them? Maybe not. That seems excessive.
Really, you ARE allowed to discuss work/cases! I do it all the time, other med students do it all the time, doctors do it all the time, and we are not giving away any identifying information.
Don’t be so timid, their are blogs all over the web discussing their patient’s.
Wait, I can see Sarah ready to stand up for you because I probably sound too rude!
December 4th, 2009 at 8:43 pm
I don’t stand up for her, she hardly needs that. I just can’t resist responding to some of the stuff you post. This one wasn’t too bad though. You kept your ‘holier than thou’ attitude in relative check.
We too discuss cases as a group of students all the time. We just leave out names.
December 5th, 2009 at 6:21 am
For once, I am with Alexia. I think you would be right in your method of discussing patients. I think you are very careful in all things that you do and I know for a fact you know right from wrong so I really would not worry too much about it. If you find something interesting out in clinicals I would love for you to share because maybe it is something that we have not shared together before or something that is easier to explain in writing…just a thought!
December 5th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
ha! ‘hollier than thou’; you don’t even know me, you just have read a few opinionated posts on here (and honestly, i can’t even remember the content, i just know you are the first to whine about it).
December 5th, 2009 at 7:29 pm
I don’t need to know you to form an impression of you based on your posts.