reference/help for sub-i

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quietude

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I'm doing my sub-i this month and a week in, am feeling underprepared, which I can't stand. I did my M3 medicine rotation early in third year and took Step 2 in July. I haven't been on the wards for a long time.

A lot of clinical stuff has come back but quite frankly it's been unhelpful for "what's the next step" when managing my patients. For example, a patient with serious CHF-related issues had elevated SGOT but otherwise normal LFTs, and isolated elevated CK-MB with no history of immobility: I know how the basic steps for managing the pulmonary/cardiac issues but addressing these isolated lab values is where I don't feel confident. (Before anyone chimes in, I do know how to handle these two issues now. I honestly think I must have skipped over elevated SGOT secondary to CHF during third year reading.)

So far I have been asking my senior resident or the interns for help understanding pathology and what is the normal management. It's a very busy ward and I can tell that I am taking up too much of their time (they have been amazingly nice about it). I do not have time/computer access to UpToDate everything and Step Up is mostly useless for management issues. I have Pocket Medicine but have found it's too general.

Can anyone suggest a reference book that I could use? I am looking for something that focuses on hospital management of patients and not just a regurgitation of pathophysiology like Step Up. Harrison's is a little long considering I have only three weeks left. If what I should know will only come from experience, I don't mind hearing the ugly truth. I didn't expect to be playing catch-up and want to be a competent intern next year.
 
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Oops. Looking above at my original post, I said Washington Manual when I meant Pocket Medicine. I'll go back and edit that.

Pocket Medicine is great...if you are trying to figure out the basic direction of orders for rule out ACS, syncope, GI bleed, whatever. I'm looking for something slightly more detailed. I can do about 40% of a A/P, I'm looking for something that will make me less clueless about the other 60% of nitpicky management.
 
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