Hem/Onc 4th year Rotation

[medpride]

Hi Everyone,

I am a fourth year international medical student from India going for a 1 month elective at Cornell this January in the dept of Hemonc. I am really worried about my performance in this rotation as I have no idea how Hemonc rotation is structured 'cause in India we don't have separate division or clinic for Hematology patients. But I really want to impress my attending and get a good lor from him/her.

Please anyone give me some brief idea how the inpatient wards are like, the duties that are involved, the most common cases we see and the resources available for a student to build some basic knowledge about hemonc before going for the rotation. The first 1 week I was posted in Leukemia clinic and 4 days more to go for the start of the rotation.

Thnx

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[medpride]

Guys anyone please suggest me something. 105 views and no reply lol........

 

[gutonc]

Guys anyone please suggest me something. 105 views and no reply lol........

At least you waited 4 1/2 hours before getting bent out of shape.

 

[medpride]

Guess everybody is out for holidays

 

[TKib]

Guess everybody is out for holidays

I think you might see leukemia on the leukemia service. (AML>ALL if adults.) As far as exactly what the rounding schedule is, etc. only someone at Cornell can tell you that. In general though, rounds are rounds. Not sure if Cornell has a separate BMT team (i.e. some places have a dedicated NP/PA service for BMT), or whether it is part of their leukemia services. You can assume you will see lots of neutropenia/pancytopenia and all of its complications. You might want to know a thing or two about transfusion medicine too.

As far as how to impress people as a visiting medical student...can be tricky. You probably want to be in the background initially, and then develop rapport with the fellow and housestaff. Once you can establish that, hopefully the fellows and housestaff will try to make you look good in front of the attending. What you don't want to do is try to make insightful comments on day 1 in front of the attending on rounds...will make you look like a tool.

 

[medpride]

thank you

 

[carrigallen]

My advice is, offer to write up a case report. On any given inpatient leukemia service in NYC, there is always one or two weird cases of something, and plenty of low-tier journals to send these kind of reports to. That way you are helping your resume as first-author, and also padding the resume of your co-resident / fellow, and attending may remember you. Just include everyone directly involved in the case as a co-author.
It is true that visiting students from other countries are often very smart and may make rest of team feel dumb, so I suggest keeping reserved for the first few weeks. Even though you are paying to be there, you are literally last on the totem pole, so tread gently.