End of Day 1

So I'm starting on Family Medicine. For those of you that don't know about the breakdown of specialties, doctors that specialize in Family Medicine (hence forth shortened to FM) are generally the family doctor, the American version of the General Practitioner or GP as it is commonly known as. Requires 3 years of residency training after graduating from medical school and treats patients from all ages and medical conditions. The FM doc also does a ton of procedures in the office, prescribes medication and treatment plans, refers patients to community resources and specialists for additional help. You'll often hear the FM doc described as the Quarterback of patient's care.

For those of you not familiar with how the clinical rolls, I'll explain briefly. We go through rotations that are 4, 6, 8, or 12 weeks long to learn about different specialities and how to diagnose and treat a variety of diseases. The core rotations are as follows: OB/GYN, Family Medicine, Psychiatry, Neurology, Pediatrics, Internal Medicine, and Surgery. Internal Medicine itself is broken down into multiple subspecialties and a med student gets rotated through different ones to get a sense of subspecialized internal medicine care. And all of these have hospitalized patients at the hospital setting and ambulatory (walk-in) patients at the clinic setting. I'm starting with Family Medicine this month, and specifically, we don't have in-patient care for this rotation, but we are allowed to sign up for a rotation in our 4th year through the in-patient family medicine wards.

So, for the first day, we learned about musculoskeletal problems and dermatological problems as well as getting oriented to the whole rotation as a whole. I'm basically scared of how much stuff I need to learn within the next 4 weeks. I mean, really, you're talking about anything that you could possibly go see a doctor for. This includes that sore throat, the cough that won't go away, the blood in your stool, the menstrual period being irregular, feeling tired, lower back pain, pain in any part of your body, weird mucus or smell coming out of different places on your body, a rash, acne, the list can really go on and on. It's going to be crazy, so....I'll start reading and start learning....fast! 'cause I'm seeing patients tomorrow!

A Pray Before Starting Clinical Rotations

So I'm going to start my clinical rotations tomorrow. My prayer is that I will care as much about medicine, the patient, society, the big picture, and people in twenty years as I do now. I pray that I don't become jaded by the ways of the health care system. I pray that I stay committed to advancing the rights and interests of the patient and do so in the best interest of my patient and society. I pray that I practice what I preach in preventive care, diet and exercise. I pray that I never stray from the path of doing what is good and right for the patient, myself, and society. I pray that I will become a dependable doctor, a leader, an advocate-activist, and a role model for others. I pray to become the best that I can be and never settle for my own second best. These are the prayers that I will carry with me as I begin my clinical training and hope that I will carry through with them.