Tricks to impress docs who want you to shadow ...

[Minea1010]

From a III year: I'm in clinic with a doc who wants me to shadow him for the most part.

Any tips or tricks on what to do to impress him and show my knowledge nonetheless?

He/She really likes to talk a lot and does not really enjoy when I'm talking either (so that makes it also kind of hard).... I'm guessing doing anything that will make their life easier - any suggestions?

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[yuiness]

You can always try the approach of reading a lot about the patients that you see and asking questions often (especially if you bring up what you read about in your questions, i.e. "I was reading about X, but I was confused about Y. Could you explain that to me?"). If a question comes up that your attending isn't sure about, you should take the initiative by looking it up and possibly bringing in a paper on the topic.

If you're feeling bold, you can ask to take on more responsibility ("Can I go see that patient first, then present to you?")-- sometimes it doesn't occur to some attendings to give you these responsibilities, and the worst that can happen is that they say no. Either way, it will make you look eager and enthusiastic.

 

[TallScrubs]

From a III year: I'm in clinic with a doc who wants me to shadow him for the most part.

Any tips or tricks on what to do to impress him and show my knowledge nonetheless?

He/She really likes to talk a lot and does not really enjoy when I'm talking either (so that makes it also kind of hard).... I'm guessing doing anything that will make their life easier - any suggestions?

That doesn't make sense to me:

"Hey, I'd love to have you shadow me! Just don't ****ing talk....ever! K thx bye!"

 

[chemistdan]

From a III year: I'm in clinic with a doc who wants me to shadow him for the most part.

Any tips or tricks on what to do to impress him and show my knowledge nonetheless?

He/She really likes to talk a lot and does not really enjoy when I'm talking either (so that makes it also kind of hard).... I'm guessing doing anything that will make their life easier - any suggestions?

So, caveat, I am not a medical student, I was only accepted to med school last week.

I am, however, a Ph.D candidate in Biophysics and so I deal with a lot of professors that tend to talk a lot but give the appearance that they don't want you to say anything. In my experience they do want you to speak up but are generally trying to get you to think before you talk (i.e. if they scare the student enough then the student will only ask a question when they genuinely cannot find the answer on their own. I would agree with yuiness that the best approach would be to either read up a lot about the patients and/or ask to talk to the patients so you're taking a more active role.

Hope this helps

 

[Gheorgia]

From a III year: I'm in clinic with a doc who wants me to shadow him for the most part.

Any tips or tricks on what to do to impress him and show my knowledge nonetheless?

He/She really likes to talk a lot and does not really enjoy when I'm talking either (so that makes it also kind of hard).... I'm guessing doing anything that will make their life easier - any suggestions?

Don't say anything and keep listening to him/her talk. People are really impreseed when you listen to them. You can never go wrong if you let them talk about their patient/their life/their life problems.

 

[todds]

From a III year: I'm in clinic with a doc who wants me to shadow him for the most part.

Any tips or tricks on what to do to impress him and show my knowledge nonetheless?

He/She really likes to talk a lot and does not really enjoy when I'm talking either (so that makes it also kind of hard).... I'm guessing doing anything that will make their life easier - any suggestions?

Shadowing is an absolute waste of your time. You need to see patients for yourself, think for yourself, and then have it corrected by the doctor, how else are you going to learn?

Impress him by taking initiative and insisting you see patients yourself because you to come up with your own impression and plan. You're learning to be a doctor, not a professional observer.

 

[yuiness]

Don't say anything and keep listening to him/her talk. People are really impreseed when you listen to them. You can never go wrong if you let them talk about their patient/their life/their life problems.

Being respectful and receptive is one thing, but I would argue that never doing anything but listening is a good way to blend in with all the other med students that this attending has worked with. You want to come off as intelligent, enthusiastic, capable, and engaged. This is no time to act timid.

 

[viper930]

Be an overenthusiastic tool like every other M3 and his dog. Fortunately for you and unfortunately for the world at large, attendings seem to be immune to seeing through it for the most part.

 

[Perrotfish]

From a III year: I'm in clinic with a doc who wants me to shadow him for the most part.

Any tips or tricks on what to do to impress him and show my knowledge nonetheless?

He/She really likes to talk a lot and does not really enjoy when I'm talking either (so that makes it also kind of hard).... I'm guessing doing anything that will make their life easier - any suggestions?

My experience is that when a resident or attending is too lazy to let you work as a medical student there is very little you can do to fix the situation. Odds are you're going to get an eval with the same number in every category and the comment 'read more'.

What you can do is avoid unforced errors. Be polite, never be late, ask questions, and ask about his hobbies/personal life if he seems like he likes to talk about himself. Ask for feedback at least weekly (use the words 'can you give me feedback' and not 'how I am I doing' to make it more formal) so that you're sure you're doing what he wants you to do. Finally make your program coordinator aware of the situation in advance so that when you do get a randomly bad eval it doesn't sound like you're just whining about a bad grade after the fact.

Just thoughts. Watever the trick is to getting honors out of these guys I definitely never mastered it.

 

[Doctor Bob]

Shadowing is an absolute waste of your time. You need to see patients for yourself, think for yourself, and then have it corrected by the doctor, how else are you going to learn?

Well... it's not a complete waste of time. It's a matter of how long it lasts.
Shadowing on a new rotation is good, as each specialty approaches things differently and shadowing can help save you a lot of time in patient evaluation down the road (e.g. if you come to the ED and interview a patient like you're in the internal medicine clinic, then you're wasting your time).

But yes, eventually it has to end (and that amount of time is dependent on the student; some can be set free after 1-2 patients, others need to follow along longer... and some have to be reduced to shadowing after going off to see patients on their own because they're doing things wrong and not in a "but it's good for learning" sort of way).

 

[wrkndply]

sorry for tagging onto this thread but a minor and slightly similar question:

If an attending asks you a medical question that you don't know, is it best to say so or to make an educated 'guess' and show that you are thinking or at least attempting to reason it out?

Giving a wrong answer results in a negative comment from my attending in return but don't know whether to read it as 'don't say something unless you specifically saw it in the literature and are sure', or that's just normal and I should get used to it and keep trying....
thanks

 

[evilbooyaa]

You could start off with "I'm not sure, but it could relate to etc. etc." or whatever version of that works for you.

Unless you blatantly don't know, in which case say so. If you can make an educated guess that may at least partially have a foundation of logic, go for it, otherwise just say you don't know and be prepared to look it up for the next day.

 

[VenusinFurs]

I'd just go with asking a question once in a while.

 

[yuiness]

sorry for tagging onto this thread but a minor and slightly similar question:

If an attending asks you a medical question that you don't know, is it best to say so or to make an educated 'guess' and show that you are thinking or at least attempting to reason it out?

Giving a wrong answer results in a negative comment from my attending in return but don't know whether to read it as 'don't say something unless you specifically saw it in the literature and are sure', or that's just normal and I should get used to it and keep trying....
thanks

I was always told that when you don't know the answer to a question, you should try to start with what you do know and reason it out. That way, even if you get the answer wrong, you will have shown the attending what you DO know and that you're not just completely ignorant about the subject matter. For example, if you're asked to identify a structure in surgery and you don't know what it is, you can start by pointing out nearby structures with nearby structures and then working your way toward the thing that you don't know. Sometimes just taking the time to talk it out to yourself will also make you realize what the correct answer is.

 

[VenusinFurs]

I prefer to go with the squeaking out a random answer and peeing my pants approach.