Stethoscope & Sparkle

This post is super, duper over due – which is why I decided to combine my typical “what’s in my pocket” and “EOR study tools” into one, longer post! Also, the Behavioral Medicine EOR exam tends to be thought of as easier end of rotation exam, and I really only used just a few resources for studying and no real pocket resources.

I ended up loving my Behavioral Medicine rotation, which was a shock to me! I’m not a huge lover of emotions (I tend to feel super uncomfortable) and I was at a children’s hospital, so it could be kind of emotionally distressing. I was on a Consult / Liaison service. So basically the different medicine teams would consult us throughout the day on patient’s that they thought had need for some sort of behavioral medicine services. A lot of the cases were consulted on were steaming from concerns of depression or anxiety related to their medical conditions, but we also ended up blocking a lot of consults. Seeing this in action really helped me understand the need for a concise (and real) reason behind calling a consult, and not just calling one to throw the kitchen sink at an illness.

So here are some of the resources I ended up using (and a few that my classmates have told me are amazing).

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Internal medicine can be very stressful and the medicine can be very complex – so I was really worried about how I would do going into the rotation, but I ended up having a wonderful time and learning SO much! I was at a hospital in lower socioeconomic area of DC, which means that my patients had a lot of medical co-morbidities and weren’t regularly getting care. That was daunting at first, but my preceptors were very enthusiastic about teaching. At the end of my rotation, I was able to handle my own set of patients almost entirely on my own with very minimal direction by my preceptors. It really did wonders for my confidence and I feel like I learned so much.

With that being said, I definitely got a lot of use out of my pocket resources. I was looking things up on a regular basis since I was so independent! I wanted to do a lot of the research on my one before I went to my preceptor, because I wanted to get more of a realistically feel for what it would be like when I graduated and was with a supervising physician.

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I think pediatrics can be a daunting rotation for some! Kids are unique, it’s not like treating adult diseases in little bodies. Plus there’s the fact that doing a physical exam on a kiddo takes a special kind of person because you have to really work at convincing a child to hold still. And I think that can be very challenging for a lot of people, especially if you haven’t been around children that much.

However, I definitely think its very doable to excel on your pediatric rotation! There are a ton of great resources out there for you to use, and I wanted to share some of my favorites.

I did do something new for this rotation, and that was creating a differential diagnosis chart! I still used my classic chart, but I found these Ddx Charts really helpful for actually seeing patients – which in all honesty is the real test in medicine. My preceptor wanted me to have five differential diagnoses for every patient I saw, so making this chart was seriously helpful. I also think it did a lot for my confidence level as I was seeing kiddos – especially since I was a little unsure going into this rotation.

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