Observerships

[Anatole11]

I am an FMG and I will be doing an observership at a University Hospital (a good one) and eventually would like to get a LoR from this rotation in order to apply for residency here in USA.

As an observer you don't any thing. You learn a lot how people practice here in USA but it does not tell about your own clinical skills.

Q. What can one do to show some objectivity?

Cases belong to the people (mostly students or intern/residents) who present them and mostly (if not all the time) it is their right make some presentations or gather interesting research data about the topic. It will look very odd if you (as an observer) try to make a topic presentation about a case which was presented by someone else. It will sound like you are stealing something from someone.

One can participate case discussion but mostly attending start asking questions to the person who has presented the case and in most cases these students/residents cover most of the stuff (remember I will be doing observership at very good University Hospital) so there is very little to add.

Any one has some suggestions or been in such a situation or have worked with an observer in their medical team?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[34140]

I've worked with several observers as a student.

Some wouldnt really interact with us and just be in the background.
Some outfront said they would like equal share in patient load and would present to the attending and do what a student was allowed to do.

If the place you are observing lets students do a lot, you should ask not only the people in charge but the students that you will want to and will be presenting to the attendings as well. I definitely would.

Best of luck.

 

[smq123]

Moved to Clinical Rotations.

 

[Anatole11]

I've worked with several observers as a student.

Some wouldnt really interact with us and just be in the background.
Some outfront said they would like equal share in patient load and would present to the attending and do what a student was allowed to do.

If the place you are observing lets students do a lot, you should ask not only the people in charge but the students that you will want to and will be presenting to the attendings as well. I definitely would.

Best of luck.

Thanks but hospital specifically made me sign a paper that I will NOT provide any kind of medical advice or suggestion to the patients that's I am not sure how this could be possible to be an observer and be able to take history/exam and present a case?

People who are doing clinical rotations here in USA, can do either electives (externship/sub-I if they still a students) or observerships (if they have either graduated or their school did not have electives programs).

Q. Did your school/hospital did not made any objections about observers working as students? or did they make them buy malpractice insurance than let them work as medical students even though they were observers?

 

[braluk]

Every AMG is insured through the medical school, and is part of our tuition. Your school may provide this type of liability coverage, but to be honest, unless you're covered into the millions (typically $1.5-$4 million) which seems to be a figure thats generally thrown around when doing externships, you might be hard pressed of luck to be able to interact with patients. Also patient privacy and so forth will require all types of privacy HIPAA certifications, and so forth, which would then bar the ability to just take a history or discuss patient matters.