Notebook and Clipboard

[itsnosolution]

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What are people's preferences for taking notes during rotations? Do people do their H&Ps on looseleaf paper, spiral notebooks, pocket sized notebooks? I've seen everything while shadowing, even folding clipboards, and wanted to know what works best for people.

 

[Crayola227]

I love White Coat Clipboard

 

[Coupd'Cat]

I made my own sign-outs by the end of the year, like the interns, and printed them out each morning. Very helpful to have all the meds, labs, imaging in one nicely typed out sheet (forgive me for the trees I have slain).

 

[CajunMedic]

Our EHR had an option to print out a patient list with boxes for notes. I'd print them out for the existing patients and write the pertinent info down. Used blank paper with an H&P template for new admits.

Learning points I kept on a sheet of paper folded in my inside coat pocket.

 

[nitcomp]

I made my own sign-outs by the end of the year, like the interns, and printed them out each morning. Very helpful to have all the meds, labs, imaging in one nicely typed out sheet (forgive me for the trees I have slain).

Hi, so what do you mean by this? Did you format your own macro on the EMR so you can print out the lists of patients w/ relevant labs a la interns? Thanks in advance for clarifying!

 

[Moose A Moose]

Pocket-sized spiral notebook.

 

[Coupd'Cat]

Hi, so what do you mean by this? Did you format your own macro on the EMR so you can print out the lists of patients w/ relevant labs a la interns? Thanks in advance for clarifying!

Exactly! Well, I haven't gotten that fancy. But I kept a Word Doc on our password-secured computer and updated it throughout the day. I think the end product would be the same.

I'd keep them for about 5 days at a time in my white coat pocket and could easily refer back to what X's Hgb was 3 days ago if I wasn't close to a computer, for instance.

 

[JustPlainBill]

I used the MedFools patient cards and had a bunch printed up on cardstock paper at my local printshop, folded those beasts in half and kept them together with a binderclip; I had no system for taking notes but have seen people use what used to be the little red book (mass gen IM IIRC) which is a small 7 ring (?) binder with looseleaf pages in it (Pocket Medicine IIRC) -- they would get paper inserts and take copious notes -- kept that thing and used it for intern year; Doctors In Training used to sell a little booklet with his notes which was more patient management than "How do you work this up?" type of stuff --- watch running into too many resources; find one you like that presents the info in a way that makes sense to you -- keep it as you'll use it through your intern year....I've still got my old stack o' stuff from my white coat held together with a 3 inch thick binder clip sitting on my desk right now -- use it regularly for adjusting Coumadin when it gets a little gnarly.....