sacrament said:
I'm on family medicine myself, which I hate with such a burning passion that I now station myself near the nurse's desks, where the patients cannot help but see me as they are led to the rooms, and stand there with an incredibly dismal scowl on my face. I feel that this has dramatically increased the percentage of patients who choose to not have a medical student chat with them. The excitement of talking to 90-year-old women about their itchy vaginas and creaky knees has faded somewhat over the weeks.
Our rotation is pretty much redundant with outpatient medicine ( 4wks that I completely and utterly hated), with the occasional Pap (that women dont want me to be a apart of thank "god" because I am a man who wants to look at their smelly, discharging, purulent vag). I wish they would axe this rotation, and let me do a cool elective like "Basket weaving for med students" or "How to make money selling prescriptions".
I tried the "hiding in the resident's room" technique at the clinic last week in order to avoid seeing more than 2-3 patients each morning/afternoon. Needless to say it didn't go according to plan. A couple of the more zealous attendings came in and drug me out by the hair to get me to see these "lab follow up" or "med refill" patients. WTF AM I SUPPOSED TO DO?
ME: your labs are good
Patient: Great
ME: so....I guess thats it. F/U as needed.
Patient: I had to wait an hour in the waiting room for that?
ME: Yeah, I guess you did.
OR
ME: You need refills. (looks at todays BP and HTN meds)
Patient: Yes
ME: Thats all?
Patient: What are you deaf? I told 3 people already thats all I need.
ME: Sorry.
Patient: I just want to get outta here. Can I please have my refills?
ME: Sorry sir, but my preceptor wants me to do a complete physical on you (including manual check of the signoid colon with a bare hand) before I can let you go.
Patient: (pissed) let me talk to the doctor. You aren't putting your fingers in any orifice.
To make a long story short, the patients that we have been seeing have already been exposed to "Would it be ok if our med student sees you today?" For some insanely sick reason, some enjoy the extra attention. Others, say to hell with that, I dont want to be seen by some bastard med student ever again. I love the latter types. I think I was meant to be a pathologist.
2.5 weeks down, 3.5 more to go.
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