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Anyone have any advice for 3rd year? I'm starting in two weeks!!
advice for 3rd year?
- Thread starter pillowface
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Snacks.
Condoms
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Read about your patients; UptoDate usually does the trick.
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Isn't UptoDate like 500 bucks? Is it really worth it?
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If your hospital has uptodate, there is gold right there. If you have to read at home, you can also print out the topic you wanna read for easy money.
Or, you can get a month free trial by e-mailing an article to yourself.
And uptodate is good, but for the most part, you can use the designated review book for each speciality. For ex. Internal medicine, Step Up to Medicine is ideal for going over topics.
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Anticipate pimping questions. I am only 4 weeks into third year myself, but I have found reading up on my pts conditions/drugs during downtime has allowed me to get the majority of the questions my attending asks.
Its kinda obvious, but know your pts disease and meds inside and out.
VPN into the hospital and use upttodate at home. That's how we roll
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Unlike the past 20-odd years you've been in school, the 3rd year of medical school is almost completely unstructured, which invariably leads to panic and confusion. Just remember a few key points:
1) Forget fair. If anything, 3rd year teaches you that life isn't fair. If you don't accept that and deal with it, you'll do poorly.
Not that it won't work in your favor - maybe you'll get honors when you didn't deserve it, or just be in the right place at the right time to get to put in a central line or be first assist in the OR. Just don't be a brat if you're staying later than the orientation packet said you would, or if you get more call days than your classmate. Accept it, embrace it, let it wash over you like a zen ocean tide on the beach.
2) The service you are tagging along with is a group of working professionals who have a job to do, and are not being paid extra to have you along. The fact that you are paying tuition entitles you to nothing. Don't be like one student I knew who, when told to leave a room with an ongoing code, stated "I didn't pay X in tuition to leave the room" - because you'll end up repeating 3rd year just like he did.
Although many people like to say that medical students are an integral part of the team, they simply are not. The team will do just fine without you. Your job - and its a tough job - is to look ON YOUR OWN for ways to help the team, or at least not be in the way. Asking your resident if you can be of help is ok, but then it becomes yet another job for the resident to find something for you to do. If you're paying attention, you will keep an eye out for tasks you can perform and volunteer for them - even something as simple as printing lists for the attending/team every morning, grabbing vitals, getting the charts ready, corralling computers if the team needs those to round, having simple supplies on-hand like alcohol swabs, silk tape, flushes, flashlights, printing good review articles on something that stumped the team on rounds, etc.
3) Read up on your patients. You have to be efficient about this, otherwise you will never have time or energy to do it. Use uptodate or dynamed, some condensed source that gives you the important points.
4) Have a plan for your patients. This is the hardest part of medical school, but is really the most important thing you'll learn before going off to residency. No one is going to be really impressed by the first 3/4 of your presentation, no matter how good it is. They will be impressed if you have an idea of how to manage your patient's problems, because that is 95% of the job in medicine and the only way you can really participate in the work going on.
1) Forget fair. If anything, 3rd year teaches you that life isn't fair. If you don't accept that and deal with it, you'll do poorly.
Not that it won't work in your favor - maybe you'll get honors when you didn't deserve it, or just be in the right place at the right time to get to put in a central line or be first assist in the OR. Just don't be a brat if you're staying later than the orientation packet said you would, or if you get more call days than your classmate. Accept it, embrace it, let it wash over you like a zen ocean tide on the beach.
2) The service you are tagging along with is a group of working professionals who have a job to do, and are not being paid extra to have you along. The fact that you are paying tuition entitles you to nothing. Don't be like one student I knew who, when told to leave a room with an ongoing code, stated "I didn't pay X in tuition to leave the room" - because you'll end up repeating 3rd year just like he did.
Although many people like to say that medical students are an integral part of the team, they simply are not. The team will do just fine without you. Your job - and its a tough job - is to look ON YOUR OWN for ways to help the team, or at least not be in the way. Asking your resident if you can be of help is ok, but then it becomes yet another job for the resident to find something for you to do. If you're paying attention, you will keep an eye out for tasks you can perform and volunteer for them - even something as simple as printing lists for the attending/team every morning, grabbing vitals, getting the charts ready, corralling computers if the team needs those to round, having simple supplies on-hand like alcohol swabs, silk tape, flushes, flashlights, printing good review articles on something that stumped the team on rounds, etc.
3) Read up on your patients. You have to be efficient about this, otherwise you will never have time or energy to do it. Use uptodate or dynamed, some condensed source that gives you the important points.
4) Have a plan for your patients. This is the hardest part of medical school, but is really the most important thing you'll learn before going off to residency. No one is going to be really impressed by the first 3/4 of your presentation, no matter how good it is. They will be impressed if you have an idea of how to manage your patient's problems, because that is 95% of the job in medicine and the only way you can really participate in the work going on.
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What happened that he had to repeat the whole year? I mean, I understand that saying what he did OUT LOUD would probably torch his evals, but did he continue this pattern of douche behavior throughout the rest of the year as well?
👍 I can tell this is great, practical advice. Can you add anymore to the bolded? Perhaps separated by different rotations? 🙂
It's just going to vary by institution, hospital, service.
For instance, I'm on OB/GYN , updating the lists with new admits, room changes, or post surgery saves the residents time so they don't have to do it after performing the surgery and then dictating. Helping set up pre-op and break down post-op. but that's all going to vary. Some residents may not want you updating the list. Some hospitals may not want you helping setup preop or break down.
If there's standard paperwork that always needs to be filled out for a set of patients, ask the residents if you can start prefilling out forms. I.e. all our post partum patients get the same set of prescriptions, so writing the prescriptions so that the residents only need to sign helps. We also fill out discharge papers ahead of time.
If you pay attention, it should be evident the kind of tasks you can do that helps them out.
For instance, I'm on OB/GYN , updating the lists with new admits, room changes, or post surgery saves the residents time so they don't have to do it after performing the surgery and then dictating. Helping set up pre-op and break down post-op. but that's all going to vary. Some residents may not want you updating the list. Some hospitals may not want you helping setup preop or break down.
If there's standard paperwork that always needs to be filled out for a set of patients, ask the residents if you can start prefilling out forms. I.e. all our post partum patients get the same set of prescriptions, so writing the prescriptions so that the residents only need to sign helps. We also fill out discharge papers ahead of time.
If you pay attention, it should be evident the kind of tasks you can do that helps them out.
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This pretty much sums up third year.
For me, the biggest challenge in third year was understanding your role in the team. I tried to avoid wasting residents' time, but that ended up backfiring on me as "not being interested" or some other random bad comment because I wasn't talking to them enough about my patients. If you talk to them too much you're just harassing them though, so learn that fine line between being independent but keeping your resident updated on the things they need to be aware of. It's a difficult process, but you'll figure it out.
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If there is one thing that swamps residents, it is paperwork. Progress notes, transfer notes, med recs, discharge summaries, etc. are all things that med students can help residents out with when they are overwhelmed. They really appreciate it and will reflect that in their evals. Of course, to write these notes for patients that aren't "yours" you need to know their case, so have at least a basic understanding of what is going on with all the patients on your team. This will also help when attendings ask pimp questions about patients that aren't yours.
Oh one more thing. You actually have to show you can write these notes well enough that the resident doesn't waste as much time editing them as he would have spent writing it himself. So learn early on how to write a good note. Ask a friendly resident to critique your note if necessary.
Oh one more thing. You actually have to show you can write these notes well enough that the resident doesn't waste as much time editing them as he would have spent writing it himself. So learn early on how to write a good note. Ask a friendly resident to critique your note if necessary.
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