My first rotation was Family Medicine in South Shore Family Medical, located in Far Rockaway. This was an underserved area with a population consisting mostly of Black and Hispanic patients. Most patients were not properly educated on their health status and did not have much of an understanding in regards to the diseases they had. Therefore, a great deal of patient education was required. Some pros about this rotation was that I felt this was a great rotation to start off with. It wasn’t so fast paced that I became overwhelmed, but rather, I felt I had a steady introduction into clinical year. This rotation gave me an opportunity to learn how to speak with and educate patients, listen to their problems, and decipher what issues caused them the most distress and focus the visit on those issues. I was also able to practice skills, such as venipunctures and EKGs, several times throughout the rotation to the point where I feel quite comfortable drawing blood (even on harder sticks). I learned to speak to patients confidently and make them feel taken care of by taking my time with them and addressing all the issues they brought up to me.
Because it was Family Medicine, I saw a large variety of conditions and disease states, ranging from hypertension and diabetes, to chronic back pain, to BPH and Prostate cancer. This rotation definitely helped me build my differential list, and taught me how to manage, screen, and test for conditions that most patients tend to deal with.
One thing that I wasn’t used to but had to learn how to do, was to see patients both efficiently and quickly. Shorter patient visits are encouraged by insurance companies and spending 30+ minutes on each patient is often looked down upon. As much as I wanted to be thorough with the patients that I saw, I had to learn to determine what their biggest problem was and focus on that rather than having the patient unveil a plethora of issues that they have been dealing with. Learning to allocate time properly and efficiently while seeing patients is definitely a skill that will serve me well in more fast-paced environments and when working in the field.
