Presenting to Ortho attending

[TheBoneDoctah]

On every rotation I go on, it seems like the attending wants and expects a different patient presentation when seeing patients in clinic. However, I have never really gotten much feedback. I have asked how I can improve before, but haven’t gotten much more back besides “I thought you did good” or something of that sort.

When presenting on family med or any other service, I always do it the same way, but when I do this on ortho, the attending starts to walk towards the room which I get the impression I am saying too much. Can any attendings, residents or students let me know what they present/expect so I can improve?


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[OrthoTraumaMD]

Walking toward the room is pretty standard. Don’t take it personally— we just want things to be over with.

If it’s possible, after the day is done, ask the attending specifically if you had enough detail or too little or too much. That usually gets them talking. The other issue is that for every orthopedic subspecialty, the presentation will be slightly different. A trauma attending is not interested in anything beyond the specific body part, smoking history, and extremely basic stuff. A joint surgeon may want to know the entire medical history. You have to gauge what is appropriate, and the best people to tell you that, if you can get them, are the residents.

 

[ChiDO]

Joint surgeon here. Do they have arthritis in the joint? have they tried conservative stuff (ie. Nsaids or inj). Do they smoke? DM? BMI?

It's ortho, get to the point. We walk to the room while talking because there's 50 people to see.

But agree with above. Talk with the residents, they should guide you.

 

[TRT7]

Never begin an ortho presentation without having the key imaging visible. There can be way less talking.