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Preclerk Observerships - Tips and Advice?


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Hi everyone! I just finished first year of medical school and reached out to a few physicians whose specialty I am interested in asking them if I can shadow them this summer. They mostly all got back to me agreeing to let me join their team for a few days to a week and get some hands-on experience. I am a tiny bit nervous and wondering what expectations generally are for pre-clerks (if any). How can I attempt to make myself useful when I know so little? Or should I not worry about that at all and just focus on learning as much as possible? During an observership I did last year I carried around a notebook to take notes, but looking back that was pretty useless (and idk if people judged me for it lol). If it's relevant, all of my shadowing will be with IM docs, nothing surgical, and I will be joining the physicians' teams so there'll also be residents and clerks present.
 
Thanks in advance! :)
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Lowkey jelly of you since we're not allowed to anything here in Ottawa lol.

That said, I think preclerks are not really expected to do or know much at all since we're not really evaluated for anything. But would be good to be keen and interested + find out about their specialties to see if it's a good fit for you (like ask about stuff that you may not be observing but may be relevant :D)

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For observer-ships the goal is to be pleasant and to disrupt things as little as possible. At the start the priority will be to stay out of the way and just understand how things work. Once that's done, if appropriate, you can offer to assist with non-clinical tasks (cleaning, grabbing papers, items, etc., relaying a message). Gauge the person you're working with in terms of asking questions. Don't ask questions in the presence of patients, but if walking somewhere or there is any downtime (ie the staff is not focusing on something) feel free to ask questions. It doesn't seem like the case here, but for others who do pre-clerkship things that are evaluated, consider asking questions that are more opinion based than can be answered with google. (ie. don't ask what the recommended dose of ibuprofen is, but ask why your staff chose to give ibuprofen vs acetominophen in this circumstance), as a) it makes you seem smarter and b) in my experience staff love talking about why they do things the way they do :P. Honestly, just don't actively do things to make the staff's day worse and you will be fine.

Also, if you’re with your staff while seeing patients ask them at the start if you should introduce yourself or they will. Nothing is more awkward when in clinic than an unexplained random person standing in the corner during the visit lol

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2 hours ago, redbeanbun said:
Hi everyone! I just finished first year of medical school and reached out to a few physicians whose specialty I am interested in asking them if I can shadow them this summer. They mostly all got back to me agreeing to let me join their team for a few days to a week and get some hands-on experience. I am a tiny bit nervous and wondering what expectations generally are for pre-clerks (if any). How can I attempt to make myself useful when I know so little? Or should I not worry about that at all and just focus on learning as much as possible? During an observership I did last year I carried around a notebook to take notes, but looking back that was pretty useless (and idk if people judged me for it lol). If it's relevant, all of my shadowing will be with IM docs, nothing surgical, and I will be joining the physicians' teams so there'll also be residents and clerks present.
 
Thanks in advance! :)

Just FYI - depending on your Med school, there may be fairly strict requirements around what you’re allowed to ‘do’ when you’re an observer, and some may require you to register with them in order to have liability coverage. Preceptors don’t always understand the difference between what pre clinical and clinical students are covered to do. And as Dr. Otter mentioned, lots of schools aren’t actually even allowing students to do observerships, so you may want to check what’s technically ok. Doesn’t usually matter because it’s hard for a pre-clerk to get into much trouble - but there’s a lot of extra scrutiny these days and you’d hate to, for example, infect someone with covid/get covid yourself and then get in trouble because you weren’t supposed to be there in the first place. 

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2 hours ago, DrOtter said:

Lowkey jelly of you since we're not allowed to anything here in Ottawa lol.

That said, I think preclerks are not really expected to do or know much at all since we're not really evaluated for anything. But would be good to be keen and interested + find out about their specialties to see if it's a good fit for you (like ask about stuff that you may not be observing but may be relevant :D)

Thanks for your reply and good point! I will look into some general questions that I will want to ask! My school offers a program that allows preclerks to do summer observerships so I am registered through that and have insurance coverage that way. I definitely feel very lucky to have these opportunities as I don't think "random" observerships are allowed for us right now either! I hope that you'll be allowed to do things soon in Ottawa! Starting med school last year was definitely rough. 

 

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50 minutes ago, bearded frog said:

For observer-ships the goal is to be pleasant and to disrupt things as little as possible. At the start the priority will be to stay out of the way and just understand how things work. Once that's done, if appropriate, you can offer to assist with non-clinical tasks (cleaning, grabbing papers, items, etc., relaying a message). Gauge the person you're working with in terms of asking questions. Don't ask questions in the presence of patients, but if walking somewhere or there is any downtime (ie the staff is not focusing on something) feel free to ask questions. It doesn't seem like the case here, but for others who do pre-clerkship things that are evaluated, consider asking questions that are more opinion based than can be answered with google. (ie. don't ask what the recommended dose of ibuprofen is, but ask why your staff chose to give ibuprofen vs acetominophen in this circumstance), as a) it makes you seem smarter and b) in my experience staff love talking about why they do things the way they do :P. Honestly, just don't actively do things to make the staff's day worse and you will be fine.

Also, if you’re with your staff while seeing patients ask them at the start if you should introduce yourself or they will. Nothing is more awkward when in clinic than an unexplained random person standing in the corner during the visit lol

Thanks so much for this super informative reply! That was really helpful and I'm for sure going to be following all your tips here! :)

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9 minutes ago, frenchpress said:

Just FYI - depending on your Med school, there may be fairly strict requirements around what you’re allowed to ‘do’ when you’re an observer, and some may require you to register with them in order to have liability coverage. Preceptors don’t always understand the difference between what pre clinical and clinical students are covered to do. And as Dr. Otter mentioned, lots of schools aren’t actually even allowing students to do observerships, so you may want to check what’s technically ok. Doesn’t usually matter because it’s hard for a pre-clerk to get into much trouble - but there’s a lot of extra scrutiny these days and you’d hate to, for example, infect someone with covid/get covid yourself and then get in trouble because you weren’t supposed to be there in the first place. 

Yep that's true! Completely agree with you here. My school offers a summer program that allows preclerks to do summer observerships so I am registered through that and have insurance coverage that way. All my preceptors are aware because they had to sign off on a bunch of relevant forms too. Sorry if my post is badly worded and made it seem like I was just randomly doing shadowing on my own haha, it's actually a very formal process registered entirely through my school even though I contacted the individual physicians myself. 

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  • 5 months later...

There are no expectations from you.

Just watch and learn. Make sure people know your role in the sense that you aren't a clerkship student. Don't be in the way and don't be disruptive. Don't ask too many questions when the person is very busy (like don't ask questions in the middle of a resuscitation or when the physician is talking and examining the patient for example), but when they have some downtime, do ask your questions.

Have fun!

 

edit: wow I revived an old thread

Edited by Arztin
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