... although sometimes, we are taking your pulse.
So, continuing along on my medical journey, I have had real interactions with real patients! We've been learning how to take medical histories, and after practicing on each other, our clinical skills teachers took us to their emerg department and found us some patients who were kind enough to let us take their histories. Without any knowledge of what is and isn't relevant, these histories take a LONG time. Working in pairs, we spent about 45 minutes finding out about a patient, and then reported our findings back to the teachers who then helped us puzzle out the relevant details and guess at what might be happening. I lucked out with an amazingly patient (haha) and helpful patient - although we ended up having no clue about the diagnosis. Apparently, the "House" of the hospital is on the case.
Yesterday morning, we had another chance to practice interviewing - this time with standardized patients (aka actors). After the real patient, this was much less intimidating. The focus this time was also on rapport-building/communication skills rather than detailed history-gathering, and according to feedback from my patient and the teachers, I did a pretty good job of it. Yay!
Yesterday was a really, really long day. We had to be on campus by 8 am (I had to leave home before 6:30! WOW!) for our first 'test' - questions that track how well we've been learning the main concepts during our tutorials. Of the three short-answer questions, I think I did pretty well on two of them, but mixed up obstructive and restrictive lung disease on the third (big oops there). Next was the patient, from 9-12, and the first 'exam' from 1-4. Everyone in the school writes the same 'exam,' whether they are in first or third year. As first years, we're expected to do poorly - but the 2% I got sill shocked and stung. Hearing about many others who got the same mark did help. Since I was only supposed to answer questions we've learned about, I was out of the exam after half an hour - giving me more time to read up for my tutorial 4-7 (and it went really well).
Afterward, I headed over to the health professionals recruitment fair, where I was able to check out some communities where I could do my big elective next summer (I'm thinking rural family medicine, up North or possibly overseas). It was saddening to see how desperate some of the communities were to recruit doctors (and other health professionals), especially the rural communities. Sadness aside, North Bay seems pretty awesome - their slogan had me cracking up everytime I saw it: "Just North enough to be perfect!" I guess there is a longitudinal scale of perfection running up Ontario.
All in all, yesterday was 12 hours on campus, and 15 hours away from home. My sleep-in today was the awesome-est ever.
Just in case you are wondering what science/medicine I am learning, here is a list of cases/diseases I have studied to date (all relating to the respiratory system):
-Opiod-induced respiratory failure
-Shallow-water blackout
-Effects of altitude/exercise on health
-Airway obstruction
-Croup
-Guillaum-Barre Syndrome
-Pneumonia
-Asthma
-and currently, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
3 comments:
AMAZING.
sounds like you are on one intense, but totally amazing journey - and i am so proud of you!
I'm so proud of you.
OOOH - asthma and COPD - get lots of details on smoking?? I hope now I won't be the only broken record anti-smoking public service ad!
And... oh crap what was that other thing I was going to comment on. Patient rapport building - huge deal. Medicine isn't always an exact science, so sometimes you'll be able to fix a medical problem - and sometimes you won't - but the rapport you build and the way you deal with someone kindly and respectfully always has the potential to help - no matter what the prognosis.
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