Early Clinical Exposure

[Haybrant]

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Hi,

Do you guys feel early clinical exposure is overrated? I think learning about it is useful; like ethics and how to approach patients in traumatic situations etc... But does it really help if you start seeing patients early? Without knowing much path or physio I wouldnt know what to tell a patient. Im currently applying so curious what those of you that have been through it think?

 

[chicamedica]

I agree with you, it is somewhat overrated.

But it does help a tiny bit in some subconscious way, maybe the fact that you at least are starting to see how things function in the clinical world.

You learn that anyways on the wards. Actually the patient exposure during my 1st 2 years might have made me more nervous than I should have been entering 3rd year, just b/c of what you said--didn't really know much physio/path during those encounters which made me feel like I had no idea what I was doing, and thought it would be like that for me during all of 3rd year.

I think it's good to have a little bit of pt exposure in the pre-clinical years, but if a school you like doesn't offer that, I wouldn't make my decision based just on that.

 

[Jaded Soul]

Early clinical exposure isn't not overrated, in my opinion. It's not about making diagnoses and telling the patient about the treatment plan when you're first starting out. It's about learning how to conduct the medical interview. It doesn't take any knowledge of path and physio to learn how to take a history and physical. You don't want to get to third year and have a hard time collecting data from a patient, so might as well get good at it now.

It's acutally the opposite which I think is very overrated--learning about ethics and learning how to deal with special situations. You can be told how to approach those situations and practice on standardized patients all you want, but it will never be the same as those first few times you tell patients they are HIV+, or have a poor prognosis, or whatever.

 

[JattMed]

Early clinical exposure is great!
You will already know how to take a competent history.
You will know the process of thought that is necessary to arrive at a diagnosis (reading it in a book and doing it are two different things).
You will gain experience with difficult patients and in the process learn how you behave.
All in all early clinical exposure will do you wonders for years 3 and 4.
Imagine you being 'clueless' in year 3-or-imagine being confident-knowing that you can get a good history and arrive at a rudimentary diagnosis all on your own!

 

[Mumpu]

Yes.

You are going to be a doctor and see patients right? The sooner you start, the better you will be by the time it really matters (residency and beyond). In the course of the first year, you can learn interview skills and incidental aspects of anatomy, physiology, pathophys, path, pharm, etc. In the second year, you can reinforce what you learn in classes by applying it to patients. I rocked pharm and pathophys portions of Step 1 (along with clinical questions in general) thanks to my extensive patient experience in the first two years. And I was having a blast in the 3rd year from day 1 of medicine -- no freaking out about patient interviews, exam, or presentation.