Chronicles of a Med Student: Flexibility in Practice

Chronicles of a Med Student

For a typical medical student shadowing in a clinic for a day, it looks a little something like this: we enter the familiar setting of an outpatient clinic and help as the attending physician sees patient after patient in quick fifteen minute intervals. We also get to see things that patients are not privy to—the virtual stacks of paperwork that wait at the end of each visit, the phone calls for consults, the appropriate orders for the workup of a certain condition in a certain patient. It all seems like a blur. Then we think about the clinical world before we even get to practice as a physician: the years of clinical rotations and especially residency are much more daunting, with their own strict rules, long work hours, and meager pay. Do I have to end up in an office or hospital setting? This is a thought that crept into my mind after hours of clinic observation. What I saw as a pre-medical student is somewhat different than what I experience as a medical student which makes this question far more relevant.

Read more