Happy belated Father's Day to all the fathers out there; I hope
everyone enjoyed the weekend. My pops, brother and I enjoyed
Father's Day on the water for the second annual Father-Son Fishing
Tournament my uncle puts on. We were up bright and early, on the
water by 5:45am, fishing the bay as the sun was on its way up. The
early birds ended up catching the worm, too. There were 11 boats in
the tournament, but the Cuban Cowboys (our team name) walked away
with the trophy! It was a perfect Father's Day gift for
pops.
So we're about half way through the trimester and I've already
been getting questions from some the 7th
trimester students about what to expect when they step into Student
Clinic and clinic in general. Very valid question, a question I
wish I could have asked upper classmen when I was in
7th Tri. Unfortunately, being part of the first
graduating class of the Florida campus, I was the upperclassman.
So, being the benevolent blog writer I am, I have decided to share
a typical day of clinic with everyone and hopefully ease some minds
of what's expected of an intern at the Florida campus.
Our Mondays begin bright and early at 8am. I usually like to get
to clinic around 7:45 to check my mailbox for any files that Dr.
Heiser has a tagged with sticky notes, "pieces of flare" as we call
them, that require fixing on my part before he signs off on them.
Once my files are corrected, if any, I like to pull the file for my
first patient of the day, just to remind myself of how the patient
was last visit, where the treatment is going to go--and because Dr.
Heiser loves to quiz you on any and every detail of the file.
Patient interaction and treatment is the easy part; just be ready
to throw out a few differential diagnoses to Dr. Heiser and a few
different treatment options just in case he's still in the quizzing
mood, which is usually all of the time.
The frustrating/not fun part of clinic is the meticulous paper
work that comes along with any patient visit. Though the paper work
is the bane of my existence, it is second only to patient care in
importance during clinic. Patient notes are how you cover your butt
and if it isn't in the notes, it didn't happen, so you just have to
suck it up and work through the hand cramps. A word of advice would
be to stay current on your notes, and try your best not to have
them back up on you. There is nothing much worse than sitting in
clinic until 8:30pm trying to sort through a day's worth of patient
visits in your head and not mix up visits when writing notes.
You will be busy all day while in clinic, so be prepared. If you
are not seeing patients, which should be your goal, then you will
be reading on certain conditions and treatment options, or writing
SOAP notes, or narratives, or auditing files. Clinic is the
accumulation of our education in action, and is an incredible
experience, but like anything else, you will only get out of clinic
what you put in. So please, take it seriously, but have a good time
with it.
I hope this gave a little glimpse of clinic for those who are
entering next trimester, and hopefully gives you a little piece of
mind. I love being in clinic, and the rest of what clinic entails
is better learned through experience. The education up until
8th Tri more than prepares you for what clinic
has in store for you, so don't let it stress you out too much.
Don't forget to be rooting for the Spanish national team during
the Euro Cup! I keep it real even under my clinic attire.
Catch everyone on the flip.
Dex