How do people do it...?

[surfguy84]

Was just presented with an insane looking algorithm/flow-chart for diagnosing the many causes of vasculitis. Our professor (a physician) is sitting there telling us we need to know all of this cold..not just for the exam, but as a matter of practice.

Are practicing physicians actually able to commit all of this to memory and apply it on the spot? Knowing the exact details of the 30-40 causes of vasculitis off the top of their head and what the subtle differences may be for each upon hearing lab findings/symptoms?

This is just blowing me away right now....

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[Cinclus]

I am about to graduate, and I am sure I do not know this chart cold. Oh, well. So much for the doctor thing...

 

[kenjixshadow]

LOL vasculitis is easy. Pathoma + FA is all you need to know. For the nitty gritty info, you'll be expose to them again when you actually see them in practice.
You may need to know these info for your next exam, but don't worry if you regurgitate them.

 

[FrkyBgStok]

and now you see that every specialist that lectures you will give you "the most important lecture you will get in medical school."

 

[megatomotagem]

I think a lot of medical algorithms are similar to steps in a procedure. The first few times you run through it you have to think about every step but once you do it over and over you start to get a mental sort of "muscle memory". Keep working at it. It's ok to be slow and deliberate, that's how you learn.

 

[Dr Tony T. Chopper]

I am about to graduate, and I am sure I do not know this chart cold. Oh, well. So much for the doctor thing...

Are you saying we gotta send you back to the dungeon again?

 

[JustPlainBill]

Ah, yes, the "you gotta know this cold" lecture --- at TCOM they had us convinced that pheochromocytomas were out there, in mass numbers, carefully hidden, waiting to leap upon unsuspecting medical students/interns/residents and foolish physicians who didn't pay appropriate tribute --- what utter BS --- if it's coming from a Ph.D, they're not clinicians and most don't know F-all about what we do -- they're great at basic sciences and moving the body of knowledge forward but when it comes to diagnosing and treatment, not so much....

if it's coming from a specialist -- sure, in their world, you gotta know it cold --- because they're usually experts in maybe 2-3 things and have shaped their practice as such -- at the medical student level, you need to be developing a general database of pathology -- something that will trigger in your mind,"I've seen this somewhere before and it's usually vascular -- let me go look it up" --- rather than being able to immediately recall from memory the histology, pathology, presenting symptoms, lab workup and treatment options of each and every vasculitis -- remember that's why they call it residency and clinical practice -- you're building a knowledge base layer by layer that will gradually look like a pyramid with the stuff you use every day at the top and the rest will be out there somewhere, enough to tickle something in the brain-housing group ---

Heck, you'll never really shake the feeling of "I need to learn more, I just don't feel like I know this well enough" -- if you do, watch it, because you're about to get dangerous --- my attending surgeon during MS3 was a Harvard undergrad/med school/Mass General trained general surgeon with over 20 years of surgical practice -- I noticed one afternoon during some downtime that he was reviewing for the cases he had scheduled for the next day -- I asked him when he had stopped reviewing the surgeries prior to doing them --- he told me that he still went over the steps of each one and the potential complications and anatomic variants to be ready for prior to each one -- even if it was briefly ---

 

[NBLogical]

Ah, yes, the "you gotta know this cold" lecture --- at TCOM they had us convinced that pheochromocytomas were out there, in mass numbers, carefully hidden, waiting to leap upon unsuspecting medical students/interns/residents and foolish physicians who didn't pay appropriate tribute --- what utter BS --- if it's coming from a Ph.D, they're not clinicians and most don't know F-all about what we do -- they're great at basic sciences and moving the body of knowledge forward but when it comes to diagnosing and treatment, not so much....

if it's coming from a specialist -- sure, in their world, you gotta know it cold --- because they're usually experts in maybe 2-3 things and have shaped their practice as such -- at the medical student level, you need to be developing a general database of pathology -- something that will trigger in your mind,"I've seen this somewhere before and it's usually vascular -- let me go look it up" --- rather than being able to immediately recall from memory the histology, pathology, presenting symptoms, lab workup and treatment options of each and every vasculitis -- remember that's why they call it residency and clinical practice -- you're building a knowledge base layer by layer that will gradually look like a pyramid with the stuff you use every day at the top and the rest will be out there somewhere, enough to tickle something in the brain-housing group ---

Heck, you'll never really shake the feeling of "I need to learn more, I just don't feel like I know this well enough" -- if you do, watch it, because you're about to get dangerous --- my attending surgeon during MS3 was a Harvard undergrad/med school/Mass General trained general surgeon with over 20 years of surgical practice -- I noticed one afternoon during some downtime that he was reviewing for the cases he had scheduled for the next day -- I asked him when he had stopped reviewing the surgeries prior to doing them --- he told me that he still went over the steps of each one and the potential complications and anatomic variants to be ready for prior to each one -- even if it was briefly ---

This is very uplifting as an incoming OMS-I. I think it just emphasizes to work hard, to be humble, and to be proactive. Thanks.

 

[JustPlainBill]

This is very uplifting as an incoming OMS-I. I think it just emphasizes to work hard, to be humble, and to be proactive. Thanks.

Don't sweat it -- you got this -- if you can walk and chew gum on a relatively level surface into a mild headwind, you can do this -- material is not that hard, there's just a lot of it very fast --- when I was in, we were told that a few of the Dean's of medical schools were considering making medical school a 5 year stint since the body of knowledge had expanded so much. Unfortunately, they were of the belief that no one would want to go to their schools if they were the first to make it a 5 year program so the idea died on the vine. I think AZCOM has a decelerated option but I'm not sure ---