What's Going on with Clinical Rotations

Hello hello, it’s been a while since any posts have been made and trust me I’ve been very busy with rotations and so that’s why things are hectic. I am in rotations currently and I love it. I never thought, as a medical student, we could be as invasive as possible during rotations, but we are.

Last year when I was studying for USMLE Step 1, I always talked about what it would be like to be in the position I am right now and now here I am, thank the Almighty. It’s a great feeling that you are now considered a doctor, even though you don’t have the title, you are a doctor after passing USMLE Step 1.

When I was working at the nursing homes for my Family Practice rotations, a nurse comes up and starts off calling me a doctor. I stopped her before she can say any further and told her that I am only a medical student. She continues and tells me that it’s the same thing since we do what the doctor is supposed to do. Apparently, we spend more time with the patients than their real doctors. We medical students listen to the patients, conduct the physical examinations, and report what we find and the labs we get to our attending doctors. The doctors will then see what our finds are and spend couples of minutes with the patients and then he will make the assessments and plan for treatment.

Unfortunately, it’s heartbreaking to see the pain and suffering of the elderly at the nursing homes. The elderly are there because their own families cannot take care of them because the elderly requires oxygen and constant monitoring that they need to be there. Sometimes I think what happen to the old days of taking care of one’s parents in one’s own home. Our parents raised us from childhood and took care of us when we were young so it’s our obligation to take care of them while they are old. The ground reality is, the children of the elderly residents of the nursing homes are not from good socioeconomic places so they have to work and cannot attend to their parents.

I’m learning a lot about people and how to take care of them while being in rotations. However, it’s not helping me as much for the USMLE Step 2 CK. It’s only helping me for the USMLE Step 2 CS because we have to do H&Ps and progress notes and make diagnosis from what we find.