Extent of patient care in 3rd/4th years

[hs2013]

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Just wondering how involved med students are in the care of patients in years 3 and 4?
Do you perform any surgeries, deliver babies, prescribe meds, etc.?
Are you ever solely in charge of a patient? (obviously while being overseen by a real doc)

 

[907914]

Just wondering how involved med students are in the care of patients in years 3 and 4?
Do you perform any surgeries, deliver babies, prescribe meds, etc.?
Are you ever solely in charge of a patient? (obviously while being overseen by a real doc)

You didn’t already do all of that while volunteering at a clinic in Uganda? Lol newb.

 

[WedgeDawg]

3rd year I was in surgeries as 1st/second assist, delivered a baby, was the one who the patient admitted to medicine saw as the “doctor”, counseled clinic patients, helped with emergencies, and performed minor procedures.

4th year I saw urgent consults, did ABGs, did LPs, first assisted in surgeries, was coached through “less complicated” surgeries by residents, held goals of care family meetings, and helped operate under the microscope.

Stay tuned for intern year

 

[ciestar]

Ive delivered a baby. You can suggest medications and whatnot for your patient care plan, but you cannot obviously do any of this by yourself. For my surgery rotation i’ve been first assist many times, mostly second assist. Ive done minor procedural stuff on my own. It depends on what tasks are assigned to your residents and what they then want you to do.

 

[differentiating]

Third year - you’ll deliver babies on ob/gyn, and you’ll follow patients, but you won’t be their main provider since the intern will get all pages & make decisions without you.

Fourth year - you own your patients & get all pages, and work with your senior to get orders in/etc.

 

[aldol16]

You're always supervised. That's the gist of it. At some more rural/community hospitals, you may get to do a whole lot more than at the academic centers because of the difference between resource-poor settings and resource-rich settings. However, you should always have supervision, in the form of an intern/resident, chief, as well as the attending should you need it. If you're not certain how to do a procedure, you just say so and they'll teach you. Or you can just say can I observe you do one and then I can do the next one. You do what you're comfortable with and then have a desire to learn what you don't know.

You'll be following your own patients and you want to act like you're their sole provider. You'll obviously have backup because people would be crazy to allow a medical clerk to manage a patient by themselves. But you should enter it with the mindset that you're their provider because in many respects, you are. You're the person they will be interacting with most from the medical team because you get to spend the most time with them. You're expected to be able to assess a patient and come up with a preliminary plan (you can talk it over with your intern before you present) and to know everything there is to know about your patients.

Medicine is all about graded responsibility. You'll start out with one or two patients and then they'll add on more as you get more experienced/comfortable managing the patients you already have.

 

[OrthoTraumaMD]

Very school dependent. We didn’t do anything on our own until we became interns.