To current students: Does it hurt?

[bobbigboote]

Hi all,

I'm considering a change of careers to medicine. I currently have a repetitive stress injury from too much computer use (from my current career). I'm concerned that my condition might make it difficult or impossible to make it through med school.

For those in school now, can you give me a sense of how much writing/typing or other repetitive tasks you have to do? Has anyone here developed symptoms during school or during rotations?

Thanks for your insight!

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[womansurg]

Well, we do quite a lot of carpal tunnel releases on IT people, and I can't say that I've ever seen a medical student, resident, or physician who needed one.

 

[A&W]

I hardly ever have to type, except to write short papers (1 page) and histories for some of my problem based learning classes. If anything, I type a lot less now than I did in undergrad, but that was probably because one of my majors was a humanities one.
My hand does end up hurting around exam time though because I write a lot when I study, but this is only due to writing by hand. Bottom line, I type very very little now. Maybe second year will be different, but first year I spent very little time with my computer.

 

[CANES2006]

The only repetitive thing that you will be doing in medical school is reading. You use your eyes ALOT. My eye sight has gotten progressively worse during this last year, and it was pretty bad to begin with!

 

[Weil-Felix]

During third and fourth year (especially third) you will be writing A LOT. You will constantly be handwriting progress notes in the charts, scribing for attendings and residents, and doing histories and physicals, which generally require a lot of writing. Granted, this is not typing on the computer, which is probably what you are most concerned about, but MAN my hand gets cramped up after a while.

 

[bobbigboote]

Thanks for everyone who has responded so far! It sounds like the first 2 years are a lot of reading and minimal writing/typing, and then then second have a LOT of writing.

I currently volunteer in an ER and we recently got a fully computerized patient tracking system. So now all the nurses/docs have to enter in a lot of info by keyboard instead of on paper (though that's not all gone yet). This turn of events leads me to more questions...

Some more clarifying questions:
Are there some rotations that have more writing than others? And are there some that have more computer use than others? Would I have to be pretty much writing a lot through all the rotations, or are there some that would give my hands a break?
When you are writing, are there no other options than paper? (I.e. can you possibly use tape decks/dictation, pocket pcs/palms, etc.)

Thanks again!

 

[Digginit]

We fill out a lot of bubble sheets....lol

Peace~
Lindsey

Originally posted by bobbigboote
Hi all,

I'm considering a change of careers to medicine. I currently have a repetitive stress injury from too much computer use (from my current career). I'm concerned that my condition might make it difficult or impossible to make it through med school.

For those in school now, can you give me a sense of how much writing/typing or other repetitive tasks you have to do? Has anyone here developed symptoms during school or during rotations?

Thanks for your insight!

 

[Skip Intro]

... and, so long as you can still "point and click", you can make it past the USMLE. Of course, you have to be able to do it (point and click, that is ) for seven hours.