I'd like to add to the great comments made by doepug about bringing in articles. To further your team's knowledge, consider bringing in an article about your patient's illness.
A recent review article on the condition can supplement what you and the team have already learned from your reading of the traditional textbooks. Keep in mind that textbooks quickly become outdated and, in many areas of medicine, advances occur at a remarkable pace.
If questions come up during rounds which remain unanswered, take the initiative and perform a literature search. Share what you have found with the rest of the team at the appropriate time. Your attending physician, resident, and intern will be impressed with your initiative and appreciate your efforts to further their education.
This will certainly help your clerkship evaluation - in fact, on some clerkship evaluation forms, evaluators are asked to comment on whether their students have turned to the literature. So you need to show them that you really have done so and, of course, one way to do this is by bringing in articles.
At a recent talk I gave on the mistakes students make during their 3rd year of med school, one of the students came up to me after the talk to ask me a question about bringing in articles. She was concerned that doing so might show up the other student(s)on the team. Of course, showing up other students on your team is a big no-no and you certainly don't want to do this. For example, you wouldn't want to bring in articles on your fellow student's patients. But it's great to bring in articles on your own patients - once again, it shows initiative, interest in furthering everyone's education, and can certainly enhance patient care.
Hope that helps,
Samir Desai, MD
Assistant Professor of Medicine
Baylor College of Medicine
