Y’all this is my last Rotation Reviews post! I cannot believe it, time has definitely flown by! I have to pinch myself because it does not feel real tbh. But this is it. 🥳 🎉🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾. I recently finished my Family Medicine rotation which was after my additional IM elective (which I did in the same place as before so same experience tbh). After everything that went down in my peds rotation, I was so nervous to start my Family Medicine rotation. What if I got paired with another preceptor who would make my experience terrible? What if I almost fail? How was I going to balance going to the clinic, completing my assignments, studying for Step 2, and focusing on additional things in my life? Well, keep reading to find out more!
The Tasks: For this rotation, I spent 6 weeks at an outpatient clinic near my house, so I was very happy I did not have to drive far! There were multiple students who came from different schools on the rotation so it was amazing getting to meet different people. Each morning, we would go to a huddle, which is where all the staff would come together to discuss the plan for the day. And then the students were paired with a resident or attending who was in the clinic for the morning time and then a different one in the afternoon. Therefore, I got to work with many of them and learn how they managed their patients. My tasks differed based on who I was with. For the most part, I would see the patient first, present my findings, and then we would both go into the patient’s room together.
If I was paired with a resident, then after we saw the patient together, we would both go to the preceptor’s room and present the patient. I generally disliked presenting. I do not know what it is but my presentation skills have gotten worse as I did more rotations. It’s because different attendings want certain things to be said during them and I end up getting jumbled up haha. Definitely a work in progress for me. 😅 Then all three of us (student, resident, attending) would follow up with the patient and go from there.
For the most part, it was not too bad. I would get there around 8 am and leave by 4-5 pm each day. However, I would be so EXHAUSTED. I do not know what it is about family medicine, but for some reason, I would feel so drained after the day ended compared to my other rotations. It can be very busy and require a lot.
The Subjects: Family medicine pretty much encompasses everything we learned in medical school. From womb to tomb as they say. There’s general adult management, peds, Ob/gyn, psych, addiction medicine, derm, preventative health care, the list goes on. You just never know what you will be seeing when you enter a room. I got to see some injections, perform pap smears, see skin biopsies, check fetal heart tone, brush fluoride into children’s mouths, etc. It was pretty cool.
One thing I will say is that it was challenging for me to see children. As I said earlier, I still have PTSD from my peds experience so whenever I would be placed in the room to see a child, I would feel lightheaded, short of breath, and have to calm myself down. It’s really unfortunate how one bad experience had the impact to ruin future experiences for me and I really hope I can get rid of these feelings one day. 😞
Didactics: Well, let’s start with the clinic didactics. I pretty much had to get there by 8 am and get into the preceptor room where a resident or attending would give a 10-minute talk about a certain topic. Then in the afternoon after the lunch break, I had to get there at 1 pm for an additional 10-minute talk. They were not too bad. There were also resident’s didactics on Wednesday afternoons but I did not have to be there because I had my school didactics in the morning. 🎉
Now let’s talk about my school didactics. Y’all…they were doing a LOT ☹️. So many assignments! We had to do a total of 4 SOAP notes, multiple modules, quizzes, complete other documents, and submit a Quality Intervention project with slides on the side! Really?! On top of doing all of that, I was studying for Step 2 because, after the trauma I experienced with Step One, I knew that I had to put my full body forward in order to change my life course this time around. It was not it and I was fed up. I could barely see the finish line until the week before this rotation ended lol. So yup, definitely not it, and I hope they cut these assignment requirements in half for future cohorts.
The in-person sessions were pretty cool for the most part. I got to learn how to perform certain maneuvers for MSK injuries, use an ultrasound to detect injuries, use instruments to perform skin biopsies, and learn more about Women’s Health. I definitely learned a lot on this rotation. 😊
The Environment: Y’all everyone here was soooo nice! Truly impeccable character. Definitely the place I needed to be after my horrific peds outpatient experience. I especially loved the medical assistants. They were all so kind and I truly felt like they were my sisters lol. ♥️
As I said earlier, the clinic could get busy really quickly. Some of the preceptors I was paired with had so many patients so sometimes it felt like I could not catch a break. Also, the clinic is very big with different pods so it was challenging to find my way the first couple of weeks. But after a while, I got used to it.
I forgot to mention, the other medical students made this experience great also. They were super cool, so shoutout to them! I have truly been blessed to have been paired with great students on all of my rotations. It can suck to be paired with students who try to constantly one-up you so for me to have been with ones who were super humble made the experience worthwhile!
Pros: The environment with great attendings, residents, staff, and medical students, getting to see a variety of cases, getting to see procedures, being close to home
Cons: DIDACTICS and the many ASSIGNMENTS, how busy the clinic could be, seeing peds patients (nothing against them of course just my prior experience), feeling overwhelmed with how little I knew about everything
Overall: I honestly had a good experience! Of course, everything has its cons but thank God the pros outweighed the cons with this one. I kind of wish I had this rotation earlier in my third year because I was truly checked out with this one, especially halfway through. I just wanted to be done with rotations, turning in unnecessary assignments, and being in a clinic. But honestly, Family Medicine is a great specialty and one that I have considered. I do not think I am a big fan of clinic life though. However, there’s so much to do with it so if you are considering it you should definitely read up more about it!
Ranking: Overall, I would give this a 7.5/10. I would have given it a higher score if it were not for the excruciating assignments haha but I had a good time!
Well, y’all that’s it! Wow, alhamdudillah I cannot believe it’s over. I am super relieved but also super scared for what’s to come haha aka 4th year stuff requirements, arrgh. 😩 I will try to keep y’all posted so look out for that. But thank you to everyone who has followed my journey thus far. I truly appreciate your support and I hope these posts have been helpful. I wish you all the best on all of your beautiful journeys. Lookout for my next post coming soon!
Oumou Fofana
Oumou's Personal Posts 