Smurfette said:
Never did any funduscopic exams, passed.
Never used the bell on my stethoscope, passed.
Used a ton of abbreviations, passed.
Only did relevant PE components (i.e. did not do complete physical on any patient, but always did heart/lungs), passed.
Ran out of time on a few encounters and with one write-up, passed.
smurfette, i think i love you...but i'll only know for sure...after i get that "PASS" in the mail.
someone's comment was it was better to be efficient than totally thorough. well, i think i got cut off on about half of my encounters, and on each patient forgot to either do or mention one major test. like others, i remembered those things as i sat down to write my notes so i did write them down as tests/part of the ddx although i'd never mentioned these to the pt. this soooo doesn't test reality bc in real life you could just peak your head back in and say something. anyway, i always got through the PE, but was cut off on wrap up, but i'm pretty sure i always mentioned initial dx impression and at least one dx workup (which, i believe, is all you need in order to receive credit: i.e. you just have to mention one test, not all of them.) anyone know any different? i'm assuming this from checklists from some old csa orientation and guidelines booklets.
my impression from that stuff was also that the primary focus of the exam was your ability to establish rapport and respect the pt. i spent a couple of minutes per case establishing rapport (which is probably why i ran out of time...) and found all my SPs to be quite helpful (e.g. i always wrapped the session with "anything else i haven't asked you about that you'd like to mention or your concerned about?" and almost always either got a direct response or was led to that "mystery fact" that all pts seemed to have.) one of my younger SPs actually translated all *my* "layman's terms" into medical jargon (e.g. "have you been short of breath after walking?" sp: "no, no dyspnea on exertion.") had to resist the urge to laugh every time.
on another note, i heard aortic stenosis murmurs in two(!) of my pts that i know weren't a part of the case! one woman's was somewhat harsh (bordering on III/VI) and when i asked if anyone had ever told them they had a murmur i thought i saw a fleeting moment of character-breaking concern bf she returned to her theretofore nonchalantly relaxed self. i hope she gets it checked out now if she hasn't already!
seriously though, smurfette, you made me feel tons better. there was a retaker there who claimed half his medical school class who'd taken it in sept/oct failed. was getting a bit worried. man, that would suck to fail!!!!
), but from what I garner from previous threads, it's bogus.
