Family Med Rotation Tips

[theTruth_97]

I'll be starting my first rotation in 3rd year and the one I got is family med (our school uses random schedule generator) and I am kind of worried/freaked out since it seems online that everyone says that the family med shelf exam is impossible

Any tips on just how to approach the family med rotation as a whole? Especially if its your first rotation ever?

Thanks in advance!

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[Psai]

family medicine shelf is easy if you took medicine, ob and peds already
if you didn't, you're in for a bad time

 

[bashwell]

Check out Case Files FM. Quick read and covers a lot.

Be positive, have a good attitude, work hard, ask for help when appropriate. Treat it as a learning experience, you're there to learn, and they agreed to teach you and get your help, so win win. Common sense stuff.

It'll be harder without having done IM, peds, OBGYN but you can still do well. Plus most FPs are pretty nice in my experience. Don't worry, you'll be alright.

 

[operaman]

For shelf prep, the key is this: practice questions.

They look like Step 1 questions, but they are NOT the same. They will require a certain measure of clinical thinking that you have probably not developed yet, but is the very thing you're supposed to learn during 3rd year. You know how in step 1 questions you tended to focus in on certain things and ignore the others? Well, you'll find yourself having to switch that up a bit as you focus on other parts of the stem.

Make this your goal: get through at least TWO complete sources of practice questions. I liked PreTest and Lange Q&A, but anything will do. Just make sure you get through ALL of BOTH. This gives you ~1200 questions and should cover pretty much everything on the shelf. Add in other resources as needed and do whatever mandatory didactics your school has, but make time to get through all your questions.

As for the rotation itself, have a good attitude and go in planning to work hard and see as much as you can see. It's a great time to build up your interviewing and physical exam skills, and your preceptor should allow you to see as many patients as possible. Depending on your future specialty, this may be one of the only times in your medical career where you get to be on the true front lines of the healthcare system seeing patients who haven't seen anyone else about their complaint. This is an interesting population that you don't often see in tertiary academic centers where everyone has been referred by someone else. It's an easy rotation to fall into the shadowing rut, but force yourself to see patients on your own and then read about their conditions. In a busy FM practice, you'll probably be able to see a substantial chunk of what's on your shelf in actual patients, something I personally find much easier to remember than what I only read in a book or question explanation.

So have fun! Look for the good parts in every rotation, even this one. Every rotation has it's elements of suckage and you'll find no shortage of fellow students willing to wax poetic about the suck on their own rotations. Just accept the suck and focus on the good parts 🙂

 

[Jlaw]

Sign up for the free AAFP membership and you get access to board review questions. I think there were 1,000+. Get through Blueprints, Casefiles and the AAFP bank and you will do fine on the shelf.

 

[theTruth_97]

For shelf prep, the key is this: practice questions.

They look like Step 1 questions, but they are NOT the same. They will require a certain measure of clinical thinking that you have probably not developed yet, but is the very thing you're supposed to learn during 3rd year. You know how in step 1 questions you tended to focus in on certain things and ignore the others? Well, you'll find yourself having to switch that up a bit as you focus on other parts of the stem.

Make this your goal: get through at least TWO complete sources of practice questions. I liked PreTest and Lange Q&A, but anything will do. Just make sure you get through ALL of BOTH. This gives you ~1200 questions and should cover pretty much everything on the shelf. Add in other resources as needed and do whatever mandatory didactics your school has, but make time to get through all your questions.

As for the rotation itself, have a good attitude and go in planning to work hard and see as much as you can see. It's a great time to build up your interviewing and physical exam skills, and your preceptor should allow you to see as many patients as possible. Depending on your future specialty, this may be one of the only times in your medical career where you get to be on the true front lines of the healthcare system seeing patients who haven't seen anyone else about their complaint. This is an interesting population that you don't often see in tertiary academic centers where everyone has been referred by someone else. It's an easy rotation to fall into the shadowing rut, but force yourself to see patients on your own and then read about their conditions. In a busy FM practice, you'll probably be able to see a substantial chunk of what's on your shelf in actual patients, something I personally find much easier to remember than what I only read in a book or question explanation.

So have fun! Look for the good parts in every rotation, even this one. Every rotation has it's elements of suckage and you'll find no shortage of fellow students willing to wax poetic about the suck on their own rotations. Just accept the suck and focus on the good parts 🙂

Thank you so much!!! I really appreciate the time you took to reply to me!

 

[theTruth_97]

Check out Case Files FM. Quick read and covers a lot.

Be positive, have a good attitude, work hard, ask for help when appropriate. Treat it as a learning experience, you're there to learn, and they agreed to teach you and get your help, so win win. Common sense stuff.

It'll be harder without having done IM, peds, OBGYN but you can still do well. Plus most FPs are pretty nice in my experience. Don't worry, you'll be alright.

Thanks for the advice!

 

[Kaustikos]

Yeah,
I did family medicine first and that shelf was a bitch. Although mine was paper and I have heard it's being transitioned to computer.
Nonetheless, it's not that easy. Do AAFP questions on their sites and focus on screening and diagnosis algorithms for various diseases such as hypertension, hyperglycemia, etc

Also, know about what foot/leg exam results point to for a diagnosis.
And the Ottawa rule.

 

[JustPlainBill]

Begin a self imposed life of a Tibetan monk eating a bowl of gruel per day with 5 Animals exercises each morning before morning tea, read each question book slowly while running your finger down the page with a curious look on your bespectacled face, calmly finger your stethoscope while contemplating the patient history and become one with FA for family medicine --- yes, you too can become a wise FM doc if you but apply yourself....if you are a good student, you can have a teaspoon of honey with your rice.....Be sure to breathe deeply with 4 count breathing to slow your anxious pulse and remember to palpate the 3 pulses, superficial/medium/deep and check the 5 humors at all times-- tis but these that grant the clues to diagnosis ----FM is but a mystery mastered by a select few ----

Sorry, couldn't resist --- The question books are probably the way to go supplemented by the questions on AAFP. it's so broad in scope that you really can't prepare for it. It turned out to be my worst shelf exam (and I had medicine prior and did quite well on that one) but it's what I chose to go into --- copious questions are probably a good idea....

 

[qngdaxop]

Treat it as a learning experience, you're there to learn, and they agreed to teach you and get your help, so win win.