previous rotations: Obstetrics & Gynecology, Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, Surgery

daily schedule:
9am – 5pm

actual daily schedule:
9am – noon-ish on quite a few days (this was SO helpful to my Step 2 study schedule)

what to wear:
Professional. White coat was optional at the centre I worked at, but I wore it anyway.

what’s in my pockets:
I didn’t use my pockets for anything other than lip gloss and mints. I did bring a book bag full of study materials for in-between downtimes.

patient notes you will be asked to write:
The centre I worked at had converted almost entirely to electronic records. I didn’t write any notes on this rotation, but I did do a lot of patient presentations.

what to study:
Kaplan and Saddock’s Synopsis should be your bible.

a few unforgettable things learned along the way:
In Oklahoma, mental health facilities are prohibited by law to house or treat patients with mental retardation (MR). The (probably correct) justification is that the MR patients often end up as victims. But when the department of health services is dragging their heels to help a family with a violent autistic adult in their home and they just can’t take any more abuse, where does the family turn? And how can a Crisis Centre turn them away?

curious things other students do:
I was the only student on this rotation. I guess the most curious things I did were to consistently show up on time, offer to stay late, ask questions that I actually thought about and couldn’t find the answer just by looking in a textbook, and try to show interest in a specialty that otherwise didn’t get my biological med school clock ticking. I want to go into primary care and it’s unbelievable how many of these patients (substance abuse, depression, etc) will first present to their Family Med doc.

Hopefully we can help them before they end up at the Crisis Centre.

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.