Today was one of those realizations that kind of scares you. I had a medical student following me around today for the first time, and after I slowed down to realize enough that I was supposed to teach I was like "Oh yeah! I'm supposed to teach!" It is the first time that I realized that I may have something to offer.
Remembering back to my third year when I was a brand-new bright-eyed student on their first rotation and said things like "This is so cool" when we were signing out patients. It is actually somewhat refreshing to have her around. After only one week of being on the floors (almost a week and a half really, feels like years), being yelled at till I cried only twice (you can't make me cry! You'll never make me cry!), and having to tell my best friends that I couldn't make it to their wedding rehearsal that I am supposed to be in because I couldn't get anyone to cover for me, well, I have been getting a little bit cynical.
It is nice to be reminded of how exciting it all once was and why I got into this in the first place. Now certain aspects that have become so routine and are something that is annoying to me could be a teaching moment. Stuff that I think is so mundane that others obviously should know the same things, but sometimes they don't. After being followed around for two patients where I just hastily wrote notes for fears that the attending would get there before I was finished with the chart, I finally realized, I know some things that this girl doesn't yet.
I hope that in this process I can be able to learn and teach at the same time. She watched me sign a prescription today and said "That is awesome! You sign your own prescriptions!" I told her how our days usually go, we do sign out, then we break to go see our assigned patients, and write a full SOAP note, get to know everything that happened and all the new information from overnight, then go over your plan for the day with the attending, make the changes, put in orders, (yeah, I can put in orders now), have some lunch at some point, and then in the afternoon follow up on anything you may need to re-check or that you ordered. I told her to document when you see the patient and talk to them, so that everyone knows the work you did (including billing, your supervisors, your senior residents, and god forbid, lawyers). She actually seemed like this was all news to her so I think I wasn't telling her something she already knew.
I guess the hard part is finding out what the students know already, and what you can teach them. But also, knowing that I was not to distantly in their shoes--that maybe they can teach me something too. Like today, Bianca reminded me to enjoy medicine because although it scares the shit out of me right now, gosh darn-it, this is pretty cool.
Remembering back to my third year when I was a brand-new bright-eyed student on their first rotation and said things like "This is so cool" when we were signing out patients. It is actually somewhat refreshing to have her around. After only one week of being on the floors (almost a week and a half really, feels like years), being yelled at till I cried only twice (you can't make me cry! You'll never make me cry!), and having to tell my best friends that I couldn't make it to their wedding rehearsal that I am supposed to be in because I couldn't get anyone to cover for me, well, I have been getting a little bit cynical.
It is nice to be reminded of how exciting it all once was and why I got into this in the first place. Now certain aspects that have become so routine and are something that is annoying to me could be a teaching moment. Stuff that I think is so mundane that others obviously should know the same things, but sometimes they don't. After being followed around for two patients where I just hastily wrote notes for fears that the attending would get there before I was finished with the chart, I finally realized, I know some things that this girl doesn't yet.
I hope that in this process I can be able to learn and teach at the same time. She watched me sign a prescription today and said "That is awesome! You sign your own prescriptions!" I told her how our days usually go, we do sign out, then we break to go see our assigned patients, and write a full SOAP note, get to know everything that happened and all the new information from overnight, then go over your plan for the day with the attending, make the changes, put in orders, (yeah, I can put in orders now), have some lunch at some point, and then in the afternoon follow up on anything you may need to re-check or that you ordered. I told her to document when you see the patient and talk to them, so that everyone knows the work you did (including billing, your supervisors, your senior residents, and god forbid, lawyers). She actually seemed like this was all news to her so I think I wasn't telling her something she already knew.
I guess the hard part is finding out what the students know already, and what you can teach them. But also, knowing that I was not to distantly in their shoes--that maybe they can teach me something too. Like today, Bianca reminded me to enjoy medicine because although it scares the shit out of me right now, gosh darn-it, this is pretty cool.
