First SP of the semester

Now that I have a minute to catch my breath, I should write about what we did last Friday. We had our first SP of Clinical Medicine. In the fall when we took History and Physical taking, we had an SP (standardized patient) every week so we could practice our question asking and physical exam and patient interaction skills. We didn't have to worry about diagnosis and treating the patient, since technically we hadn't learned the stuff yet. Well now that we are in Clin Med and are learning how to diagnose and treat different conditions, we are going to have to start diagnosing and explaining treatment to our patients when we see them. It is a little nerve wracking just because you have no idea what you are going to see when you walk into the room, and we've supposedly learned how to diagnose and treat a bazillion different conditions. I walked in and my patient's chief complaint was vertigo, and thankfully I had a pretty good idea on what body systems I should be examining and the right questions to ask. I didn't know what to tell her specifically at the moment in terms of what she had, but I was able to flounder up a general treatment plan and cover myself with a "I need to double check my plan with supervising physician and I will be right back." I figured it out later, and I've just finished writing my first SOAP note (which is all the subjective and objective information you've obtained from being with the patient, as well as your assessment as to what the patient has and what the plan of action for them is). I like this method of learning wayyyyy better than memorizing and regurgitating. I feel as if I could be asked a treatment question about Menieres (which is what my patient had) when I'm out on rotations and I won't look like a complete idiot.

We had our second pathology exam today and it was definitely much much tougher than the first one, but somehow I managed to do very well in it. That is good news! My avgs in all my classes are hovering at the 80 mark, which is the avg you need to have overall before you go on rotations, so I don't have a lot of wiggle room there.