8 Ways to Maximize Your Value During Clinical Placements
Your clinical placement is one of the biggest steps of your medical career so far. It’s very important that you bring value to your team to maximize your worth during clinical rotations.
Want to know how?
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Want to succeed and maximize your value within the clinical environment? Use the following eight tips to make you an asset to your team during clinical rotations:
1. Be Thorough
Make sure to do a thorough workup on your assigned patients. Think about all labs, tests and imaging studies you want to order. Make sure you admission H&P is complete. Remember. Your patients’ nurses spend more time with them than you do. So, always get updates from them.
2. Carry Dry Erase Marker
Always have a dry erase marker in your pocket. Most hospital rooms have whiteboards near the patients. Offer to document patients’ goals for the day and work with them for mobility improvement.
3. Be Proactive
Offer to hold the pager and respond to calls for the resident. This is one more way to be helpful, dedicated and proactive toward helping the intern, who’s handling multiple tasks at once.
4. Cite Your Management Plan
Continually cite your management plan by your resident before doing your rounds. It can be a disaster if after giving your presentation on your patient notes, history and exam, your management plan is contrasting to the one your resident has written out. You don’t want your words to bewilder your attending.
Always try to meet with your resident, even if only for 3-5 minutes, to guarantee that you’re both are on the same page.
5. Provide Factual Presentations
Do not give a bunch of different scenarios or outcomes if the probability of any one of them being the actual diagnosis is lesser than 5%. Instead, try to think about what the top five conditions/disorders could be causing your patient’s symptoms. Then give a reason for each.
Through your clinical rotations, a major key factor you’ll learn is how to think acutely and provisionally. Apply evidence from your patient’s history to reinforce your arguments.
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6. Keep Your Notes to the Point
Only compose candid progress notes that your team can count on. During your clinical rotations, do not get carried away with writing out more information than necessary.
Keep your patient notes clear and to the point. The purpose of your notes is to provide the resident or attending with updates on the patients that are needed to provide quality healthcare.
7. Be Loyal, Not Sneaky
Do not be sneaky about working extra hours without getting it approved. And do not ask your fellow residents if you can take on some of their work for them behind others’ backs trying to be sneaky.
They may agree since it will mean another set of hands. But if other med students find out you’re trying to OUTWORK them, you can lose their trust. And your teamwork solidarity will be destroyed.
8. Never Leave Early Unless Necessary
Don’t look for excuses to leave your rotations early. Only leave before the end of your shift if you absolutely have to. If you do, your team may question your obligation and loyalty.
If you have concerns about things like your performance or issues with another team member, approach your attending and talk about it. But never use this as an excuse to leave early.
Make sure to stay on track with all your patient’s reports, labs and studies. Know your way around the EMR system. If all your work is finished for the day, offer help to other team members. But stay until your shift is over.
Prepare for Your Clinical Rotations
Be proactive by using these eight tips to help you help your team during clinical rotations. This will bring good opportunities your way. Basically, your goal is to be known as a team player that makes effective influences on your patients.
Worried about getting a clinical placement? Not sure you’re prepared to be successful during your rotations? MedSmarter is here to help.
The MedSmarter Clinical Placement Course helps you learn what it takes to successfully land and complete your rotations. Get the tools you need from physician instructors who know the medical industry.
Our instructors are board-certified physicians. Class sizes are small, so you get the one-on-one time you need. Learn how to become a valuable member of the medical team, so you build a good reputation during your placement.
Click the button below to learn more about MedSmarter’s Clinical Placement Course.
