Per the USMLE website, Step 2 Clinical Skills (CS) “uses standardized patients to test medical students and graduates on their ability to gather information from patients, perform physical examinations, and communicate their findings to patients and colleagues.” Yeah, and it’s a pass/fail exam which costs over $1,100 and is offered…
The first week of CV anesthesia was relatively uneventful as many of the surgeons were out-of-town on vacation or attending conferences, but I enjoyed being back in the operating room. On my first day, I watched one of the most well-known surgeons in the Texas Medical Center conduct his cases…
Now that I’ve completed my surgical ICU experience, I have a renewed sense of how pivotal teamwork is in the clinical setting. Coordination between pharmacists, respiratory therapists, nurses, and physicians was absolutely paramount in creating an ideal plan for each patient. It was also interesting to note the other parts…
I’m staring at a crazy patient census to start my second-half of this SICU rotation. :shock: Now that I’ve become acclimated to how things operate from a logistics standpoint (discharge criteria, admissions, trauma, etc.), I’m better able to gauge just how much longer patients will remain under intensive care. I’ve…
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is how Sauron’s Ring of Power met its demise… not to mention any ring that needs to be removed in the SICU. :-)
I’ve walked through the SICU on my core rotations, but it wasn’t until this week that I realized how ill some of the patients really are. Its been fun working with the new interns to create plans for challenging patients from a systems-based approach. Fortunately, our census has been low,…
This post concludes my time as a third year medical student (MS3) and aims to reflect on a few milestones I’ve encountered over the last twelve months of clinical rotations (links to summaries of my MS1 and MS2 years). USMLE The USMLE Step 1, easily the most important exam I’ve taken…
With residency applications opening in the coming months, it’s about time I stopped bouncing between career choices and settle on one. I’ve finally decided on anesthesiology.
During my surgery and pediatrics rotations, I wrote down things related to practice questions I did and compiled them into a PDF for anyone who wants to review the “high yield” topics without having to go through hundreds of questions again. I’ve done my best to minimize errors, but by…
Today was my first day of outpatient pediatrics, and right from the get go, my attending had a mission to make me about a pediatric clinic visit from all aspects. She showed me the floor, made me follow a nurse (taking patient vitals, hearing/vision test, etc.), and then had an…