Hanging Up The White Coat Till April
Published: 6 days, 1 hour ago (Jan 29, 2012) in USMLE Step 1Tags: usmle · 2 Comments
It’s time to prep for the United States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE) Step I! Baylor Med students tend to take Step I in the spring-time of their third year. Because we start clinical rotations 18 months into medical school, we have a year of rotations under our belts before embarking on the arduous task of […]
Finished With Family Medicine
Published: 1 week ago (Jan 27, 2012) in Family MedTags: clinic · 0 Comments
After submitting two papers Friday afternoon, I officially finished my month of Family Medicine. It was a fantastic experience, and I learned a lot about the “patient centered medical home” (PCMH) with regards to coordinating a patient’s healthcare holistically across many specialties and time beginning with the primary care physician. The ultimate goal of PCMH […]
Halfway Done With Family Medicine
Published: 2 weeks, 4 days ago (Jan 16, 2012) in Family MedTags: clinic · 0 Comments
Family Medicine has been my first real outpatient experience, and two weeks of clinic have certainly flown by! My preceptors have been incredibly gracious in taking time to teach me tricks to the physical exam, treatment regimens, establishing rapport, and making sure I see a wide breadth of cases. I’m lucky to have been matched […]
Beginning Family Medicine – Back To Katy
Published: 1 month ago (Jan 4, 2012) in Family MedTags: clinic · 0 Comments
After commuting 60 miles round trip to the Texas Medical Center for a year, my Family Medicine rotation has given me an incredibly nice reprieve – the clinic I’ll be working at is down the street from my old high school and pre-school. Basically, it’ll be a 15 minute commute back to my roots. *nostalgia*
Reflecting One Year Into Clinical Rotations
Published: 1 month ago (Jan 1, 2012) in MS3Tags: advice, clinicals · 3 Comments
The last year of clinics have been full of successes and failures. I’ve helped patients and learned a lot, but I’ve also come up short when it mattered most. One year ago, I wrote a summary of my goals as a clinical medical student, and in retrospect, I feel that I’ve mostly achieved what I outlined. […]
Shelf Exams – Fair Assessments of Clinical Knowledge?
Published: 1 month, 2 weeks ago (Dec 18, 2011) in MS3Tags: exam, shelf · 1 Comment
After taking clinical shelf exams in Internal Medicine, Psychiatry, OB/GYN, and Surgery, I’ve arrived at a conclusion which may be shared by others who, like me, aren’t gifted test takers – multiple choice exams cannot accurately assess a student’s clinical knowledge.
Finished with Neurology
Published: 1 month, 2 weeks ago (Dec 17, 2011) in NeurologyTags: vamc · 0 Comments
Yesterday evening… after admittedly pulling an all-nighter to cram for the departmental exam… I finished my neurology rotation. Between Thanksgiving Break, no weekend responsibilities, and the rotation being only a month long, I only spent sixteen days at my clinical site. While that amounts to relatively little exposure compared to other rotations, the lecture series […]
My First Lumbar Puncture
Published: 1 month, 4 weeks ago (Dec 6, 2011) in NeurologyTags: lp · 3 Comments
After table rounds this morning, one of the residents asked me if I wanted to do a bedside lumbar puncture (LP). I instantly jumped at this opportunity and proceeded to gather the patient’s consent, LP kit, and other supplies necessary for the procedure. In the meantime, I tried to recall the nuances of what we […]
Our pediatric grand rounds topic last week was MELAS syndrome, a mitochondrial genetic disorder characterized by neurological and muscular symptoms like ataxia and fatigue, respectively. MELAS is an acronym for: mitochondrial encephalomyopathy, lactic acidosis, stroke-like symptoms. As with typical mitochondrial inheritance patterns, MELAS is passed maternally (from mother to children), although rare cases of new mitochondrial […]
Halfway Done With Neurology Rotation
Published: 2 months ago (Dec 4, 2011) in NeurologyTags: vamc · 0 Comments
Neurology has gone by so quickly! Our hours are great, we don’t work on weekends, and a lot of each day is spent traveling to and from lectures/conferences at the main campus. After morning rounds (which can sometimes take a few hours), my colleagues and I scatter to follow up on pending tasks with our […]
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