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I'm going to be starting 4th year in a couple weeks and will be doing sub-internships in the NICU and general wards. Besides working my butt off, any particular advice you guys have?
Peds Sub-I advice?
- Thread starter SB100
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1. Know every single detail about your patients and take initiative. Don't take on too many patients-- 1-3 is the range, I would say-- and will help you shine when you give presentations.
2. Have well organized presentations for morning rounds-- speak fluidly and clearly, look at your attendings/fellows when you talk, and actually make a plan for the day in your assessment/plan. It helps to go over this plan beforehand with the resident following the patient with you so that you are on the same page and so you can ask questions. This also means coming in early to have time to formulate your plan and ask your resident what they think. The residents are going to be busy prerounding as well and its no fun for them to rush through stuff the 5 minutes before rounds with you.
3. Sit in on all family meetings/discussion with patient families, answer questions that you feel you can answer when families ask you questions, and offer to ask their questions to resident/fellow/attending when you don't know the answer.
4. Be easygoing and fun-- go with the flow of the team and you will fit in.
Good luck!
2. Have well organized presentations for morning rounds-- speak fluidly and clearly, look at your attendings/fellows when you talk, and actually make a plan for the day in your assessment/plan. It helps to go over this plan beforehand with the resident following the patient with you so that you are on the same page and so you can ask questions. This also means coming in early to have time to formulate your plan and ask your resident what they think. The residents are going to be busy prerounding as well and its no fun for them to rush through stuff the 5 minutes before rounds with you.
3. Sit in on all family meetings/discussion with patient families, answer questions that you feel you can answer when families ask you questions, and offer to ask their questions to resident/fellow/attending when you don't know the answer.
4. Be easygoing and fun-- go with the flow of the team and you will fit in.
Good luck!
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1. Eat breakfast before going to work. Hypoglycemic sub-interns are annoying.
2. If you're a guy, don't wear a bow tie. If female, no high heels. Actually, I recommend against bow ties and heels regardless of your gender.
3. Don't even think of touching a NICU baby without asking the nurse first.
4. Have a great time. Pediatrics, especially neonatology, is a lot better than grown-up medicine.
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1. Eat breakfast before going to work. Hypoglycemic sub-interns are annoying.
2. If you're a guy, don't wear a bow tie. If female, no high heels. Actually, I recommend against bow ties and heels regardless of your gender.
3. Don't even think of touching a NICU baby without asking the nurse first.
4. Have a great time. Pediatrics, especially neonatology, is a lot better than grown-up medicine.
I'm sure it is
I had a two week NICU elective but didn't have the roles/responsibilities of a sub-I. I'm very much looking forward to it!- Joined
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I agree with all the advice posted above. I did an away sub-I (and matched there last month!) and a couple of other things that I thought helped get me a good eval/letter of recommendation are as follows:
1. If there are 3rd med students with you, take some time out to do some teaching. I made copies of some of my notes that I made during my peds clerkship and gave it to them and also ran through some shelf/CK and CS related cases with them. It only took out a few hours of time, but it made the 3rd years happy (which made them more willing to help me out and more likely to say good things about me to the residents), and it ended up being prominently mentioned in my eval (part of the resident's job is to educate the medical students, so if you show an interest in it as a sub-I you will look very good). Personally, I also think it's a lot of fun to teach.
2. If you know you'll be presenting a patient with a certain condition the next day, do a quick pubmed search to see if there are any recent articles that relate to your patient. If you can succinctly bring up relevant current research when presenting a patient you will look like a superstar. If you have access to UpToDate, you can search the topic there and they will oftentimes have good links to important publications. This is not something I did every single day, but on those occasions when I could find a really pertinent/interesting article I would bring it up and also have a copy or 2 ready to give out if there was interest.
Hope this helps, and best of luck!
1. If there are 3rd med students with you, take some time out to do some teaching. I made copies of some of my notes that I made during my peds clerkship and gave it to them and also ran through some shelf/CK and CS related cases with them. It only took out a few hours of time, but it made the 3rd years happy (which made them more willing to help me out and more likely to say good things about me to the residents), and it ended up being prominently mentioned in my eval (part of the resident's job is to educate the medical students, so if you show an interest in it as a sub-I you will look very good). Personally, I also think it's a lot of fun to teach.
2. If you know you'll be presenting a patient with a certain condition the next day, do a quick pubmed search to see if there are any recent articles that relate to your patient. If you can succinctly bring up relevant current research when presenting a patient you will look like a superstar. If you have access to UpToDate, you can search the topic there and they will oftentimes have good links to important publications. This is not something I did every single day, but on those occasions when I could find a really pertinent/interesting article I would bring it up and also have a copy or 2 ready to give out if there was interest.
Hope this helps, and best of luck!
Definitely agree with that. The nurses also love if you are flexible about when you do your exams (which you definitely have more flexibility as a sub-I) - and try and time them with when they have to break into the incubator to do something with the baby like a feed, etc. Just in general make friends with the nurses, they can be really helpful sources of information. And if you're nice and they remember you they also can come to your rescue months later when you're on the wards and need IV access on an infant with an irate parent telling you it needs to be done in one stick or they will leave AMA in the middle of the night.
