Every couple of months, each first-year medical student spends an afternoon with a primary-care physician in the community. The doctor I’ve been following around is really awesome. He has a wide range of patients with varying health problems, and his interactions with them are great to watch. I learn a lot from my afternoons in his office, and I try to remember what he does so I can use the same skills someday.
This week was the first time that he had me do things somewhat independently - I had just been shadowing him, but now he sends me in to talk to the patient and find out how they’ve been doing and what their current problem is, then I summarize that to him and he examines them, asks further questions, makes a diagnosis, and makes whatever decisions need to be made.
I had never talked to a real patient without a physician in the room before, and it felt great! I thought I would be really nervous, but he just pushed me in there so I didn’t have time for that. I was also surprised at how easily the patients talked to me - they listed all their symptoms and asked me questions about what was wrong. I was even able to answer a few of their questions, though of course I said something like “Well, that could be due to X; we’ll see what the doctor thinks.”
Feeling like I was actually providing care to someone, rather than just observing and staying out of the way, was very neat.