For those of you have done rotations, you know that it takes time to reach a comfort level. Once you reach a comfort level, then you are really ready to do your best work. Anything that you can do to reach that comfort level earlier is to your advantage.
So, in my opinion, the process of getting comfortable should begin even before a rotation starts. If you happen to know the name of your attending physician before the rotation starts, by all means, learn a little bit about the attending. A good place to start is your medical center/school's website (specifically the department the attending is in). Quite often, these websites have information about faculty members (where they went to med school/residency/fellowship, interests, research, organizations they belong to, etc.). Other sources of information would be your fellow medical students (other students may have had that same attending) and interns/residents. A pubmed search using the attending's name can also yield considerable information.
How can this information help you? Once again, the research that you are doing is helping you learn more about the individuals you are working with. And the more you know, the more comfortable you will be. Let's say you learn that your attending is a gastroenterologist. After perusing the departmental website, you discover that his main area of interest/research is gastroesophageal reflux disease. Chances are good that this topic will come up during your month in which case the attending will be very excited to talk about it. With that in mind, you can take some steps to become more knowledgeable about this disease so that when you are asked questions about it, you will be ready to field them. Even if you aren't asked questions about it, your reading and research will help you engage in a more intelligent discussion about the topic. Perhaps, that attending has written a recent review article on the topic, in which case, it would be a good idea to be familar with it.
One word of caution - be careful how you use the information you find out about an attending. The last thing you want to do is come across as kissing the attending's rear end.
Samir Desai, MD
