My first day as a "resident"

One of our vice deans gave us an interesting proposition: a half day off of being a fourth year medical student a week in exchange for a half day of being a resident for a week. It was an interesting offer; five of us on PM&R took him up on it.

So after a morning of being a fourth year (on PM&R, the translation there is, standing around looking like you're doing something while, well, not), we grabbed lunch and came back for our first afternoon as "residents". Near the end of second year, students take a course to teach how to take histories and perform physicals. Usually, these are facilitated by residents, but our students get, well, us.

It was a rather enlightening experience. For one, it forced me to remember how to do a complete history from scratch. Usually, we start by looking the patient up on the computer, and then talking to the patient to fill in the gaps, but the students are taught to start knowing nothing about the patient, which is much harder, and kinda pointless. Talk about reinventing the wheel.

The second thing that was enlightening was how much we've learned in two years. These kids know, well, nothing about how to take a history. They've practiced on each other and standardized patients, but everything there is scripted. These are real patients. So while they know the right questions to ask, they don't really know how to ask them. It was quite entertaining, actually. More so (and a bit painful) when they were presenting these histories to said vice-dean. Fortunately, Dr. Clinchot is probably the most laid-back vice dean in existence. He spent as much making fun of the fourth years for being mentally checked out pre-match (civilian match is on March 19; that's all my classmates think about) as he did correcting the students. Most of their mistakes came from being nervous about presenting to attendings, and the only way to get over that is to practice presenting to attendings.

Oh, and my med student did a good job, which makes me look good :) As a med student, the most valuable lesson learned is that your primary job is to make your residents look good. My med student will go far.