Happy Sunday friends! 🍁
This edition of Sunday Morning Rounds features:
✅ Tips to help you crush your next EM sub-I/away rotation
✅ A brand new video series I recently created
✅ Must-have residency interview gear
…and more!
1️⃣ First things first: If you're a fourth-year medical student currently doing your Emergency Medicine audition rotations 🩺, you'll definitely want to check out my new Emergency Medicine Sub-I Series where I break down various chief complaints and how to evaluate them 🔎. These videos will help you look like a rock star in the Emergency Department 🎸!
On the topic of medical students doing their EM sub-I rotations, I wanted to share some tips and takeaways from working with students so far 💬. I wrote a similar article last year, and will probably make this an annual thing. Keep reading below for my thoughts ⬇️:
- Organization is key 🔑. In a busy and often chaotic Emergency Department, staying organized is critical to keep afloat 🛟. One thing I've noticed is some students trying to work fast and see a lot of patients, often resulting in incomplete and disorganized presentations 😐. It's important to remember that speed and efficiency come with time and experience. As a medical student, it's better to see fewer patients and do a thorough evaluation than to see more patients with incomplete plans 😵. Students often learn small ways to become more efficient and faster as the rotation goes on 📈. Having a hard time creating a differential diagnosis on shift? Read this article for some help! 💡
- Anchoring will sink you ⚓️. Whether we realize it or not, we all approach medicine with certain preconceived beliefs, and it's important to recognize this and take steps to minimize it. Recently, I was working with a medical student who was evaluating a patient with abdominal pain 😩. The student overheard the nurses complaining about how the patient was just discharged and was being mean 👎🏾, and he ended up including some of those details in his presentation and suggested doing a minimal workup. However, that patient ended up having a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm 🩸, and the medical student felt terrible about it 😕. While this could happen to anyone, it's important to evaluate and treat the patient in front of you, not what people are saying about them.
- Curiosity leads to learning 🧠. Sometimes when I'm working with students, they'll ask me questions about why we're doing a certain test or using a certain medication. And I love that 😍! Not only does that mean the student is interested and engaged 🤓, but it also means they might be drawing on previous experiences and are open to learning and building on that 🏗️. When students approach the job that way, it excites me as a teacher and makes me want to show them as much as I can, which often leads to a better learning experience 🤝.
As a fourth-year student on an EM rotation, it's important to remember that you're probably not going to be thinking about all of this on day one 🤷🏼♀️. But as your rotation progresses, you'll become more comfortable and show growth as you move closer and closer towards matching residency.
Good luck on those audition rotations! 🍀
💻 Virtual Interview Tips: Read this article for advice on preparing your next virtual residency interview.
💚 Something I love: TrueLearn is a powerful tool that helps students prepare for exams, residency, and beyond. Click here to learn more and use code 'moose25' for $25 off your subscription.
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