How could the knowledge I’ve gained here be applicable in other rotations/disciplines?

The knowledge I’ve gained from these rotations can be applied to life after PA school. I’ve learned that medicine is not just a means of curing the illness but sometimes it requires us to put the patient’s and family members minds at ease. This was especially true when it comes to the pediatric population. Even prescribing simple things as saline nasal drops can help the parents be more active in the treatment of their child’s care. It can also help to buy some time while the self-limiting illness resolves. In addition, I truly learned what it means to be the patient’s advocate and preventing harm asides from diseases. There were multiple cases where we had to involve child services in order to make sure that the child was protected and away from harms way.

 

Skills or situations that are difficult for you (e.g. presentations, focused H&Ps, performing specific types of procedures or specialized interview/pt. education situations) and how you can get better at them

 I believe that I still need to further increase my ability to come up with a list of differential diagnosis on a moment notice. This was especially true when we had several patients come in for respiratory distress and my differential diagnosis was limited for some reason. I believe that I can improve upon this more as I study for my board examinations and train for my future job. 

Managing new types of patients and the challenges that arise from that

In pediatrics there is a saying, many times the patient is not only the child but the parent as well. This is very true and I came across these types of situations multiple times during this rotation. As I mentioned before medicine involves also alleviating the concerns that the parents have. I believe that the attendings I worked with have taught me well when it comes to these situations. First and foremost, managing the parents involves being calm and never getting frustrated and providing adequate reassurance.

What do you want to improve on for the following rotations? What is your action plan to accomplish that?

Even though there are no more rotations I still have many different things I would like to improve on. For instance, as I mentioned before one is the differential diagnosis formulation. Another skill I would like to improve upon would be to be able to convert medical knowledge into language that all my patients can understand. This can greatly help me improve my patient education and I plan on doing this while I study for my boards. Another thing I would like to improve on would be my Spanish skills, which I have not utilized since high school. Hopefully after board studying I can take a few courses on medical Spanish.