ICM

On monday, we had our second Intro to Clinical Medicine class. I'm still deciding whether I like that class or not. I think that I will, but just not this semester maybe. This semester, the focus is on patient centered interviewing. That's basically the part where you introduce yourself, make the patient feel comfortable, and find out exactly what's wrong with them, but in their own words, and by asking open ended questions. Some doctors forget to do that part, and go straight to asking specific questions about what they want to know. There's definitely merit to what they're teaching us, but it's just not terribly exciting right now. They have us saying things like "We have 10-15 minutes to conduct and interview and in that time we're going to......what would you like to accomplish today?" I think telling the patient how long they have is kind of tacky, and so do a lot of the doctors that are teaching us. But, I guess it gives them a general idea of how in-depth they should be going.

This week, we spent almost the entire 2 hours doing the introductory steps with a mock patient. While being a paramedic has not helped at all in most classes, it is definitely going to make a difference in this one. I think it was fairly obvious to everyone that this was not the first time I had talked to a patient. While most of my group was extremely nervous and some even forgot to ask the patient's name, I thought it was very easy to do. And, while the mock patient had comments for everyone on how to improve, she just looked at me kind of dumbfounded and said, "that was really professional, I felt very comfortable talking to you." So, it was good to hear that 9 years of practice is finally gonna make a difference. Next week, we're spending probably the entire class learning how to take vitals (BP, pulse, and such), so that'll probably be another incredibly boring day.

Despite how boring the class can be right now though, at least we discuss things that are going to matter when we're doctors. And, every once in a while, the doctor throws in a clinical scenario, which I'm sure will become more frequent as we go. So, the class will probably become one of my favorites. At the moment, MCB is looking like it's gonna be my highest grade right now (although certainly subject to change), but man is it dull!