Teaching during the surgery rotation - what topics?

[augeremt]

Incoming surgery intern here, interested in providing the best surgery core rotation for my med studs.

I know I won't have much time to teach, so I want to make it worth your while. Do you want practical things like which dressings to use in which situations? Or shelf things like recognizing and treating certain disease states? Or a tutorial on how to read imagery?

Med studs, what do you wish the interns/residents taught you during down time? I know you want to do stuff (procedures on the floors, doing anything besides retracting in the OR, etc.) so I'll try to get you as many opportunities to do that as possible. But with regards to mini lectures/short tutorials, what do you want to be taught when we're twiddling our thumbs (if that ever actually happens)?

Help me help you!

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[TypeADissection]

My favorite thing to teach med students was fluids and electrolytes, assessing volume status, working up a fever, and then reviewing indications for central lines/chest tubes/intubation. If things got quiet, take them over to suture lab and teach the basics of a good two-hand tie and horizontal/vertical mattress. After that, start going over the basic pathology stuff that they'll see on their shelf: acute chole, hernia anatomy, breast cancer, etc. If you do those things, your med students will love you, you will learn a lot more and you'll also have contributed to the next generation of physicians. I get that we can be crabby at times, but in my program; we're all bros, we enjoy hanging out with each other and I know for a fact that the vast majority of med/PA students that leave our service don't think surgeons are a bunch of curmudgeons. Most common complaint from students actually is how handsome we all are, and talented...and humble... Congrats on almost being done. July 1 comes quickly. Enjoy this time while you can. Cheers.

 

[Blunt Dissection]

Bless the guys and gals like you that are willing to teach seriously. I second a lot of what cj says and I would add:

-Help me to get into the mindset of how a surgeon thinks. What's the plan? What's the backup plan? What do I need to watch out for?
-Make sure I justify my answers to you because I might be regurgitating something I read, but I might not actually know what I'm saying.
-I want to be as helpful as I can to you and the team and if all I can do is help with rounding and patient information, then tell me how I can best do those things to be useful. What do you want to know? If something with the patient changes, what do you urgently need to know and what isn't so important?
-What should I always have extra of on me in case you're in the middle of something and you can't go grab it yourself? It sounds silly, but I'll probably keep it in mind for when I do things on my own later.
-If we're in on a procedure and I haven't said anything in awhile, it's not because I'm not interested, I just don't want to distract you.

 

[Glowes]

As a current general surgery resident here are my 2 cents:

- Technical skills are obviously important but as an intern you are learning these as well. Things you should be able to help teach - simple suturing/tying, laparoscopic camera driving, wound care, NGT placement/removal, drain removal.
- Perhaps you are much smarter than me, but as an intern I still had a lot of knowledge gaps (especially early in the year). Teach them what you know you well. If you don't know the answer to something they are asking have them look it up and tell the group
- Ask them what they want to learn about at start of rotation. This way you can review these topics and at various points during the block have teaching sessions...it will help you look smart
- Surgery rotations are often busy and you have to find time to teach. If I am going to see a consult for an umbilical hernia I will talk about that subject with the student while we are walking to see the patient. At the end of the encounter I go over the diagnosis, next steps
- Review the relevant anatomy and steps of procedures with students before the case.

 

[Krishna1234]

Incoming surgery intern here, interested in providing the best surgery core rotation for my med studs.

I know I won't have much time to teach, so I want to make it worth your while. Do you want practical things like which dressings to use in which situations? Or shelf things like recognizing and treating certain disease states? Or a tutorial on how to read imagery?

Med studs, what do you wish the interns/residents taught you during down time? I know you want to do stuff (procedures on the floors, doing anything besides retracting in the OR, etc.) so I'll try to get you as many opportunities to do that as possible. But with regards to mini lectures/short tutorials, what do you want to be taught when we're twiddling our thumbs (if that ever actually happens)?

Help me help you!

Where are you located .if youbare around Philadelphia area please let me kniw