How to prepare for clinical rotations? - MBRU

How to prepare for clinical rotations?

22 April 2022

Show up early
While every rotation will have a different start time and be located in different areas from where you live, it’s always important to be aware of those timings and travel times to make sure you arrive early. It shows respect to the healthcare team who are willing to teach you, it also can help you get ahead of the daily rounds by pre-reading on the patients overnight and getting the chance to ask more well-formed questions during rounds. Additionally, it helps you in developing the habit early on which will be critical by the time you are in a residency program.
Positive mindset and attitude
The clinical setting is an everchanging environment in which some days will be jam-packed with didactic and bedside teaching while others will have a more sporadic structure due to the responsibilities that the clinicians have to take while caring for patients.
Show eagerness to learn
During your clinical years, you will be exposed to almost all specialties at the hospital and as such, you may dedicate different efforts to each. Having the eagerness to learn as much as you can from each area of medicine may start to spark an interest that you did not have before or one that was plagued with misconceptions. As a medical student, take the opportunity to give each experience its fair share of time, effort, and energy. There have been countless students who were set on a certain idea that changed during their time while training in a different department. Having the ability to wear multiple hats while maintaining eagerness and will to learn might help simplify the process of choosing your desired specialty in the future.
Take initiative
You learn mainly by doing. In some cases, one might have a supervising physician who will push you to take a more hands-on approach to your daily tasks rather than be an observer. In most cases, you will need to display enough interest and show that you’ve taken the initiative which will then earn your more responsibilities from the team. Not only will this help you in developing your clinical skills but it will also show you what the day-to-day work is like in that specialty of medicine. Taking the initiative to do more not only will help you get a better understanding of disease and treatment, but it will also help solidify your role in the team and make your rotation more fulfilling.
Focus on improving a little each day
You will notice that to most seniors, the process of getting to your answer is far more important than how fast you’ve arrived at the correct answer. Clinically speaking, there are many caveats to each patient and a small detail can entirely change a set of differential diagnoses and an initial treatment plan. Therefore, don’t be haste and take your time in developing the skill of formulating a well-thought differential and treatment plan. Throughout your clinical training, you will notice that your ability to achieve better results and more efficiently has vastly improved.

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Clinical rotation

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