An overwhelmed intern (shocker) . . .

[zoondel]

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. . . not with the floor work or the NICU or the hours, but with reading material!

Rudolphs, Nelson's, Oski's, Peds in Review, Annals of _____, five zillion handbooks, etc.

Given the limited amount of time one has to read on a daily basis - does anyone have suggestions for an approach in order to yield a decent return?

Or is it just buckling down with SOMETHING?

Ok, have at me.

 

[Stitch]

It will probably get worse, but it will also get better, I promise. Peds in Review I think does an excellent job of collecting good review articles which are relevant to the Boards as well as being clinically useful. You probably won't be able to read every day, but aim for 15 minutes a day with Peds in Review or Peds Consultant or something like that. Even just looking something up on Up to Date or Nelson's should count.

 

[TexasRose]

I like Peds in Review as well. It's very clinically relevant and easy to pick up when you have a few spare minutes. I carry the recent issue in my bag and have been known to read it during a few quiet minutes on call or overnight in the EC.

 

[bks524]

As far as a text book-they are not terribly helpful. I would look for review articles on common subjects -ie PIR. Uptodate is great too. For the most part text books won't teach you the everyday peds stuff you need, nor will they prepare you for the boards as they are often to in depth. Having said that, have one of the above handy for reference. At a place with decent volume, reading is not going to be your primary mode of learning.

 

[J-Rad]

. . .
Or is it just buckling down with SOMETHING?

Yes. Something that works for you. It's just like med school. Remember, someone always said "you've got to do this". "You've got to study in a group". You've got to study by yourself for at least six hours a day". "You've gotta get this." "Gotta have BRS Proctology" So on and so on.

But it's really just about finding something that will work for you. A lot of us found it useful to "read about what you are seeing" as that will stick better than just reading abstractly about something.

Me personally, I like a lot of review articles (which gives me an idea for another thread). I like Up To Date, but don't love it as much as some. It's lost its quick-review quality it once had and sometimes the viewpoints on subjects are very reflective of the authors own opinion/practice (pediatric sinusitis is one that comes to mind). emedicine is great and has kept its format more digestible in short time intervals. The mags you get in the mail can be really good too: PIR, (I love) Contemporary Pediatrics, Pediatric Annals (my least favorite), even AAP News and the Pediatric Infectious Disease newspaper can have some really good stuff. All of these have articles which can be taken in in short time intervals (over breaksfast or something). Every once in a while I'll even get something interesting from reading the news (a la CNN.com) that might introduce a novel treatment or something to talk about in journal club. My favorite was the newsbit about honey and cough in children (I loved being able to tell parents that yes, there is something they can give their coughing >1yo at night. It also led to a journal club, actually shared with Stitch's peeps [and Blue, I was the one who wasn't talking a lot]). My absolute favorite place to dig up more intensive review articles (the kind that you need more time for, but you may get more out of) is The Clinics Of North America. I go to their web site and look at what articles in what issues are available (from Pediatric Clinics, Clinics in Adolescent Medicine, and sometimes good articles can be found in random other Clinics [found an interesting one once in the Oto Clinics once]) and then search for it in mdconsult (sometimes you have to change the search parameter date for older articles).
Yes the volume of information seems overwhelming, but you'll find your groove.