Starting My Clinical Year

Hey readers, and happy almost New Year.  I thought I'd write a little about my schedule just to give those in medical school or in earlier phases a better idea of the order of rotations and such.


At my school, at least, we put together our own clinical schedules out of:
Medicine
Surgery
OB/GYN
Pediatrics
Neurology
Psychiatry
Family Medicine


Then, we cross our fingers and turn them in.  Sometimes we get a variant of what we chose, or something that doesn't resemble anything we've chosen at all.  There's an element of randomness to it.


My schedule happens to be:
Medicine
Neurology
Surgery
Pediatrics
OB/GYN


and then I have Psychiatry and Family Medicine sometime in 2013; I'll be going through more scheduling.


I'll be writing more about each rotation as I spend more time on it and give as many pointers as I can.


My Expectations of Medicine Clerkship:
I'm excited to start on Medicine because I'll be part of an Internal Medicine team and the patients we'll be seeing will have many different diseases, so we'll be able to learn a lot and be exposed to a wide range of pathology.  It's also a clerkship where you hone skills in making differentials, writing notes, and getting better at the history and physical.  


I've also heard that residents in Medicine love to each.  That's been my experience so far doing clinic days with IM residents as well as specialist attendings.  I feel that people in Medicine and specialties under IM are a little more available than those in surgery, but that's not a hard and fast rule.  Stereotypes are definitely not the rule in medicine, and you'll find surgeons who have a passion for teaching and will do everything they can to schedule a one-on-one meeting with you to talk research opportunities.


I'm looking forward to working with great teams, but I do realize there'll be a lot of work to do, possibly a lot of pressure, and competition.  I'll be sure to write more again, keep on reading!