What's the deal with Ward Experience?

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gojonn

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I am about to begin my MS1 year at LLU and we are starting with 2 weeks of Ward Experience; what exactly is this and is there a lot of homework or reading involved? What should I expect? Also, is homework or reading given out before the first day of the quarter?

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actually i want to see some MS2's-to-be answer this. I'm curious too, because we start working with a physician soon after school begins (at NYMC). I want to know what is expected of me.
 
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We did not have "Ward Experience", but we did have a preceptor. Every 4 weeks or so, we would have a week where we learned a part of the physical exam and interview and had to practice it at our preceptor's office. I would actually get the opportunity to practice what I learned that week maybe 2 or 3 times. For the most part, I just shadowed the doctor like I did before med school except this time I had a white coat and name tag.

Every once in a while he would pimp me, but it wasn't anything to get anxious over since we were not expected to know much of anything at that point. He made it clear that he did not expect me to be able to answer his questions based on what we had learned, and he was just curious as to what I already knew. I would expect something along those lines. Just be eager and learn what you can as it comes to you.
 
We had this Practice Course class and starting January we went to the wards with our doctor-teachers and we also had a preceptor.
We already knew how to do H&Ps (I mean we learned but no one was great at it)...the first day at the clinic I went to I was handed a chart and went into the room and did a crappy H&P then crappily presented the patient to the doctor.....I got a little better but not a whole lot better because he was a nice doctor (too nice to tell me I stunk and what I needed to work on)/ plus you forget everything if you are there only every 2 weeks.
This year (our clinical year) they are teaching the crap out of us about H&P (and other stuff)...
any hospital experience as a student is a learning experience...even if you learn how to write a script or use the computer record stuff or which elevator is the fastest, it is all useful and information you will need when you get to your clinical year..
plus it takes some of the intimidation of the experience out of the equation when you get to the wards
for some reason being a student following a doctor around is different than shadowing...not sure how to explain it but it just is
 
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