Clinical Presentation skills

[fluxthis]

Hi All,

I was wondering whether people had advice on improving clinical presentations skills during rounds? Or any ways to practice outside the actual clinical setting?

I got a Pass (as opposed to a high-pass and honors) in 3 internal medicine rotations (general internal medicine, infectious diseases, and my acting internship)... Kinda stinks, because I think it has limited my residency prospects. Based on feedback from preceptors, my main issue is my presentation skills. I think a contributor to this is a lack of confidence when presenting (which I think i've made some strides on, but still limits me at times) and I think sometimes I have difficulty in presenting an assessment and plan in an organized fashion (this happens particularly when it's fast-paced service and don't have time to become fully flesh out my A&P)

Any tips or ways of practicing presentation skills that worked for you? I'm hoping to make some improvements on this communication skill during the more chill M4 year before the stress of intern year

Thank you!

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[mdjo]

You have to practice with people who know how to do it. When I had med students who couldn't present, I made them do their whole presentations to me before rounds and I would help them clean their presentations up for attending rounds. Everyone who did this got at least somewhat better and rounds were much less painful since the major bugs had been worked out beforehand. You should ask your residents on your upcoming rotations to practice your presentations with you and give you in-the-moment feedback. Also, if you're finding you don't have time to fully flesh out your A/P, then you need to get there earlier to have more time to think and more time to discuss with the residents before rounds.

This isn't directly applicable to you anymore of course, but to any other students who are reading: if you don't get a good grade in a rotation you're interested in doing, then you should sit down with your attendings and/or course director right away to develop a plan of action to improve in your sub-I. The OP is right that if he had improved to a HP or H in his Sub-I, the pass for his medicine clerkship wouldn't have seemed so bad.