- Plan to be present on service from the time the day team receives sign out from the evening team, to about 4 or 5pm. This will vary by service. It might be possible to be sent home early, but this should not be an expectation you have going in to your rotation. Asking to go home early every day and also reporting you didn’t learn anything generally don’t go together.
- You should contact the senior resident (or attending if no resident) for a patient assignment prior to your first day. You are expected to take an active role in your education and showing initiative will be seen favorably. This includes having EPIC training complete.
- Plan to follow 2-3 patients at a time on each inpatient service. Try to see new admissions/consults instead of patients with an established diagnosis to truly challenge your knowledge/skills. Avoid excessive regurgitation of other notes.
- Each presentation should strive to provide excellent history that includes order of symptom onset, time course, prior medical history, relevant home medications, etc. All students should report an accurate and appropriately detailed examination of each patient daily. For new patients, the combination of the above should be used to localize the lesion, and use the localization to list a differential diagnosis (emphasizing a most likely diagnosis), and a work-up appropriate for the differential diagnosis.
- Pay attention and try to learn from each patient, even when it’s not a patient you are presenting. If you do this well, your future self will thank you.
- Look for ways to contribute to the team – help with tasks that are within your ability, read and report relevant literature to the team in a manner that is helpful and succinct, etc.