My guest today is Entrepreneur and enabler, Tuhin Ghosh has been pursuing his dream of enabling business and catalyzing growth mainly in the education industry. He is the Co -Founder of Prepgenie, a test prep provider that offers exam preparation courses for GAMSAT, PCAT, HPAT, LNAT, UMAT and UKCAT to aspiring medical students globally. – DonO

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If you’re starting your third year of medical school, you’re finally learning how to be a doctor. You’ve spent two years learning about cellular biology, anatomy, physiology and pathophysiology. You’ve covered histology and you have a working knowledge of pharmacology. This will all be useful in your third year, but this is the year you begin to learn about patients.

Each patient is different. Patients are as variable as snowflakes – no two are alike. Their diseases may present in vastly different ways. You’ll be interacting with a lot of different personalities. It’s your job to see through all of the differences and tease out the important information you need to care for that patient.

How to Prepare For Each Rotation
To do that, you need to prepare for each rotation. Surgery requires a different set of skills and a different approach from neurology. Internal medicine has its own focus. Each service has its own style. Read the textbook. Not all at once, but as you are confronted with different disease processes, make sure you are prepared for rounds.

You will be assigned to specific patients on the service, and normally, you should have time to check on each one before you go to the nurse’s station to look at the lab work and test results. Read the chart, especially the notes from the day before. The plan should be evident, and you should be sure all orders written the day before have been carried out.

The Etiquette
If you pull up in the parking lot a moment after your resident, expect to be chastised. It is your job during your clinical rotations to see the patients before your resident arrives. Collect all the radiology results from the evening and morning, and share them with your resident before rounds. If you do this, your resident will appreciate your help and will probably take the time to explain the significance of any unusual findings. This will further prepare you for attending rounds.

Be sure you have each patient’s vital signs for the morning. This is critical. A missed tachycardia or fever is more important than a normal chemistry panel. All of the lab work in the world pales in significance beside the patient’s physical signs and symptoms.

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