big lack of direction

[hyperorchidism]

Does anyone feel like just a little bit of structure would go a long way towards making 3rd year more productive? Like for example:

"Here's some suture to mess with, tomorrow you're going to do this in surgery so practice"

or

"Here's a chest xray, be able to present one next time on rounds tomorrow"

I mean, I don't necessarily want things spoon fed to me, but I feel like I'm just wandering around practicing surgical techniques and scrawling off notes and reading up on my patients and no one gives a crap, and there's maybe a 1 in 5 chance that any given thing I do will help me to participate on the team or answer questions. When my attendings do finally ask me stuff, it's just so out of left field.

I'm learning to make my own objectives and stick to them, but I feel like some objectives from those who do clinical medicine day in and day out would make the process so much more rewarding.

Anyway, still better than sitting in class.

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[LurkNoMore]

This is what MS3 is most of the time, it really makes you appreciate the moments when a resident/attending goes out of their way to teach (which will happen, don't worry). I know it may not seem like it now, but all those little things you are doing on the side that don't get noticed really are helping you. As the year progresses you will remember some of those little things you read up on, become more comfortable in the OR and with surgical instruments and begin to realize you really are learning something. Remember, in your first two years you were studying all the time, and most of the stuff you were studying didn't make it to the test in the form of a test question....so I guess it's still kind of the same, a lot of work with minimal "reward" in the form of tangible results. Your fellow students are perhaps your biggest allies, so use them to get answers to those questions you are afraid to ask a resident/attending (one of my good friends taught me how to one hand tie, something I'd never want to burden a surgical resident with showing me, since it's "illegal" to do until your PGY2 year). Good luck