High/Low Fund of knowledge

[OR 1]

Wondered about the fund of knowledge eval. It seemed to appear in several threads I read on SDN. I thought I understood what it meant, but maybe not.

I know evals are very unpredictable but I've seen where I have answered minimal questions and recieved " good fund of knowledge" on my evals and other times I've worked my butt off answered 85- 90 correct and recieved low fund of knowledge. Go figure. But Idid honered in my chosen field.

Is the fund of knowlege eval a general statement like needs to read more?

Is fund of knowlege refering to book info or patient into or treatment??? Just wondered if this eval continues in internship year and residency?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[ChildNeuro]

I think that the fund of knowledge part is pretty subjective, but is based on whether you have a good vocabulary of whatever field you are doing, plus also attendings usually ask questions about specific disease processes. Basically, what would you do if you had a form that asked you to rate 7 students funds of knowledge in 6 weeks? or maybe just a month? Most attendings ask a couple of questions, some ask questions everyday as part of the learning environment/process, some ask you questions to see if you understand the differential dx. of your patient. I think this can be a very subjective thing, but usually those who read alot will get uniformly good fund of knowledge evaluations. Often times if you know something better than an attending they will pepper you with questions during the rotation to find your weak points, (most as a self-defense mechanism because they are frustrated they didn't know the latest about this or that . . .)

 

[kito]

Fund of knowledge is usually a load of bull because it is unlikely that an attending is going to spend enough time with you on the service to be able to properly gauge what you know and how well you know it. That is what the shelf exams are for.

 

[Top Gun]

Fund of knowledge is usually a load of bull because it is unlikely that an attending is going to spend enough time with you on the service to be able to properly gauge what you know and how well you know it. That is what the shelf exams are for.

I agree. An attending or resident can decide how good your fund of knowledge is based on a few random pimp questions, some of which completely come out of left field. Only way you can have some possible effect on the fund of knowledge eval is to read and at least know the basics. Even then, though, I don't think there is any guarantee.

 

[ChildNeuro]

Reading before/during the rotation helps alot. I think if you answer most/all attending questions correctly then 70% it will help, and 30% chance it won't help and they will make your fund of knowledge higher or lower based on other unrelated factors. If you mess up big-time on a simple question then 40% chance it will bomb you fund of knowledge even if you answer all others correctly, especially if early in rotation (or at least according to others I have talked to, I have personally noted no make or break first impression the first couple of days). If you *really* know your stuff, you can use it to smack down an attending who doing the aggressive pimping. I did this with an attending who asked me about the clinical manisfestations of syndrome, I blurted out like 10 or so, some he didn't even know about and was unsure, result was that I wasn't pimped anymore because it was apparent that I had done alot of reading.

 

[AmoryBlaine]

Two ways to increase your chances of winning this game.

1. (harder) Get pimped on some random thing that you just happen to know. On Medicine one time my attending asked me something about which I had just read a paper. In my response I was not only correct but I taught her something. It wasn't in the high-and-mighty arrogant med student way and she was impressed, immediately told me so, and included it on my eval.

2. (easier) Know the basics really well. On the same month of Medicine a fellow student was going over an H/P with the senior resident. She was basically completely incapable of incorporating lab values into her assesment. She knew that the pt had ESRD b/c it said so in the chart but she wasn't really sure exactly how the 'lytes played into that situation. It's pretty hard to argue in favor of your fund of knowledge when you don't get basic pathophysiology.


I agree though, it usually is pretty subjective...

 

[ChildNeuro]

Ouch, yeah not know how creatinine and changes in it plays into ESRD will look bad. In the general medicine clerkship we read up on our patients, but this is hard when a patient has 10 medical problems. There a few good topics to read-up on before your medicine clerkship that you will be bound to run into, such as CHF, diabetes w/ complications like foot ulcers, HIV/AIDS, community acquired pneumoniae, cellulitis, ESRD would be a less obvious one, but we all have had medicine patients getting dialysis, stroke, rule out MI, MI, endocarditis, bacteremia, delirium tremens, metabolic acidosis-both anion-gap i.e. MUDPILESS, and also non-AG, i.e. RTA, meningitis, sepsis. Most important is to cover all the bases, i.e. read first-aid to medicine clerkship twice if you can before hand, so you won't be stumped not being able to say anything about ESRD and BUN/creatinine/K . . . most attendings will let you talk around the topic with what knowledge you do have to flush out their question, so it is not like a written test where either you know it or you don't . . .

 

[Top Gun]

Another way to increase your knowledge base might be to pay close attention during morning report and noon conference. Noon conference especially gives a good discussion of pathophysiology, clinical manifestations, diagnosis, and management of common illnesses seen by house staff and medical students. If you have teaching rounds, that helps a lot too, because everyone usually has to do research on a particular topic and then present it to the group.

 

[bivwack]

yea evals can be subjective.....and at times contradictory. Here is a good example, this is my surgery eval, (with a few things edited) I always find it funny when i read this

 

[kito]

that's just awesome.