A faculty’s perspective: Doing well on your EM clerkship

To follow-up with Dr. Connolly’s perspective about the Top 10 tips for medical students to rock the EM clerkship rotation, I thought I would post some additional tips. Here are some more pearls:

11. Take ownership of your patients.

This means that you should take it upon yourself to make sure that your patient’s care is stellar, addresses key clinical and social issues, and is timely. Constantly check for your patient’s results. Don’t be the last to hear of your patient’s lab or imaging results. Figure out why there are unexpected delays. Address any psychosocial issues which may hamper your patient’s clinical improvement in the ED. (more…)

By Michelle Lin, MD|2016-11-11T18:52:47-08:00Jul 5, 2011|Medical Education|

An intern’s perspective: Doing well on your EM clerkship

It’s that time of year again. When medical students interested in EM are stressing over doing well on their EM rotation.

Here’s a very insightful guest post from Dr. James Connolly, who is a new PGY-1 resident at Hahnemann Hospital in Philadelphia. I’ll write my personal top-10 list next week, from the perspective of a faculty member.

Many MS4 interested in emergency medicine will be starting their EM Sub-I’s in the next few weeks and are naturally wondering what to expect, and how they can be successful, both in terms of getting a strong letter of recommendation, and all while still having a fun and enjoyable rotation. With that in mind, I’d like to present a unique “Top Ten” list, written with the aim of helping the student succeed on his or her upcoming rotation. The list is my own, based on my experiences during three EM rotations last year as a medical student. I’ve also asked a few of my fellow interns for their input on the list, so the list really reflects thoughts of a handful of people who recently successfully matched into emergency medicine.

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By Michelle Lin, MD|2019-01-28T22:42:19-08:00Jun 30, 2011|Medical Education|

Article review: Carnegie’s vision for medical education

In 2010, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching published recommendations for the future reform of medical education. This same Carnegie Foundation had also commissioned and published the landmark 1910 Flexner report ¹ on medical education, exactly 100 hears prior.

Here is a summary of the four major recommendations:

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By Michelle Lin, MD|2019-01-28T22:43:03-08:00Jun 27, 2011|Education Articles, Medical Education|

Article review: Professionalism in the ED through the eyes of medical students

Teaching professionalism in a formal curriculum is so much different than demonstrating professionalism in the Emergency Department. So much of what students and residents learn about professionalism are from observed behaviors of the attending physicians — that is, the hidden curriculum.

In a qualitative study assessing medical student reflection essays during an EM clerkship, the authors (my friends Dr. Sally Santen and Dr. Robin Hemphill) found some startling results. The instructions to the medical students were to “think about an aspect of professionalism that has troubled you this month. Write a minimum of one half-page reflection describing what was concerning and how you might handle it.”

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By Michelle Lin, MD|2016-11-11T18:52:55-08:00Jun 20, 2011|Education Articles, Medical Education|

Article review: Improving case presentations with theater training

“To be or not to be?”

What could be more strange on a medical school curriculum than a theater training course? The authors of this study in Medical Humanities innovatively designed a 1-week elective course to help medical students at Mayo Medical School to improve their case presentation skills in partnership with the Guthrie Theater.

In this pilot course, seven medical students (six 1st year students, one 4th year student) participated. The learning objectives were:

Hear stories: those told by patients, colleagues and in written narratives
Identify the elements of a narrative, and examine stories for narrative structure
Share stories: through case presentations, body movement, storytelling and acting
Present a patient’s story with elements of traditional medical presentation and narrative

Students were evaluated for the following competencies:

The cognitive capacity and flexibility needed to evaluate and acquire reliable clinical information.
The ability to actively and generously observe and listen to another.
An understanding of the components of narrative leading to effective story construction.
A performance sensibility that ensures the delivery of a good story, otherwise known as stage presence.
The finesse to communicate empathically with a patient to create an environment in which she or he feels safe, satisfied and heard.

Eleven sessions, over 25 hours, comprised of the following topics:

Improvisation activities
Introduction to case presentations
Body language – contact improvisation
Performance of story
Neutral dialogue and elements of a narrative
Narrative in context – what’s lost, what’s gained?
Listening with a neutral mask
Storytelling
Writing and presenting case histories
The art of personal monologue
Final presentations with professional critique

Survey responses uniformly found that students valued this creative, non-traditional approach to learning about interpersonal communications and oral presentations. The art of focused storytelling to an audience is exactly what physicians do every day when presenting clinical cases.

Reference
Hammer RR, et al. Telling the Patient’s Story: using theatre training to improve case presentation skills. Medical humanities. 2011, 37(1), 18-22. PMID: 21593246
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By Michelle Lin, MD|2016-11-11T18:53:06-08:00May 30, 2011|Education Articles, Medical Education|

Videos: The EM Eye Exam

Thanks to Dr. David Duong and Dr. Najm Haqu (UCSF) for letting me cross-post their amazing instructional video on the “EM Eye Exam”. These videos were made for the purpose of teaching senior medical students on their UCSF-SFGH EM clerkship. I thought it’d be great to share these tutorials, since the eye exam is typically a daunting task for many medical students (and residents).

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By Michelle Lin, MD|2019-01-28T22:49:24-08:00May 12, 2011|Ophthalmology|

Article Review: Online curriculum for non-EM residents in the ED

In many academic Emergency Departments, there are “off-service” or non-EM residents rotating in the department. They are sometimes invited to the EM residency conference series for the month. Often times though, they have too many departmental didactic events and obligations of their own that they don’t have time to attend formal EM didactics.

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By Michelle Lin, MD|2016-11-11T19:00:11-08:00Jan 24, 2011|Education Articles, Medical Education|

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