Standardized Patient Encounter

Well, could have gone a lot worse, but I didn't leave feeling particularly confident. I practiced all day, had done 6 people in the past 24 hours, the last two times before I did the real thing I got under 15 minutes (the cutoff point). I did the exam exactly as I had practiced, maybe had a couple nervous pauses here and there that would have added about 45 seconds to my exam time had I been allowed to continue past 15 minutes. So, on the plus side - all the criticisms I got were things that I needed to incorporate into my already fine-tuned routine, rather than things that I simply "forgot" - except for one that I had asked another professor about earlier that he said was okay, but that my grader did not, so that was kind of annoying. The negative though, is that since I did everything exactly as I had planned, I thought I had done pretty well, so the amount of criticism I received was not expected.

On the plus side, if those fine-tuning things are the only thing I need to fix, that's reassuring. Also, the standardized patient and I got along quiet well, she seemed to think I was a nice student doctor and did not have any complaints about my examination. She reminded me a little of my aunt. A few of the other grading doctors gave students their scores, but people who had mine (one of the more in-charge doctors) and a couple others were not told. I am assuming it is because we are not supposed to know but a few docs bent the rules.

There was one thing I did that seemed to impress my grader - a lot of students are pretty nervous about approaching a patient's pelvis, so whenever we are told to find the femoral arteries everyone is very gingerly with their fingers. The correct method, as the teaching doctors demonstrated a few times, is to locate the ASIS and the pubis bone - around the middle of that diagonal is where the femoral should be - but almost no one does that. So I had a feeling they'd be pleasantly surprised if I located the femorals properly, which was the case (I was of course careful to explain to the patient before I did it, so she didn't think I was trying to grab her crotch, haha). I mentioned that to one or two other students before I did my exam, but with any luck they didn't incorporate it. Since it was pretty close to exam time, it's hard to add new techniques without messing up your routine, so hopefully I was one of the few students who did that and stood out a tad.

Tomorrow I have my followup with Dr. Auker about my eyes, which are still seeing nice and clear. Occasionally if they are dry it might be ever so slightly hazy, but it doesn't last long. Still using my eye drops all the time, too. Speaking of which, it's time already - now to get back to studying lymphomas, leukemias, tropical diseases, coagulopathies, anemias, and all the things that come with them.