Central Lines for Medical Students, Interns, & Residents

Placing central lines can be a pretty stressful part of medical school, internship, and residency… especially early on. Well, I’ve collected a bunch of videos and PDF files that you might find useful as you prepare for putting lines in yourself.

Let me know what you think of it.

Here’s another one of those internship tips videos for medical students, interns, and residents. Check it out… This one’s about the doctor-patient relationship:

One of my close friends objected to the term “rookie” in the name for this site. Here’s a short video about how taking the perspective of a rookie could help you in your medical school, internship and residency training. Check it out:

I’ve received several questions from IMGs about when the Internship Survival Skills Audio CD will be made available for international orders. Well, first of all, I do NOT recommend that you get it unless you are already in the states or are getting ready to start soon. Can this audio CD help you get into a residency program?

The answer is a big “YES, BUT…” It will only help if you are doing an observership in the US, if you are in an offshore med school and now doing 3rd/4th year clinical rotations in the US, or if you’ve been accepted to an internship coming up and you want to get ready. If you are an international grad and you fall into one of these categories, I think the Survival Skills Audio CD has the potential to help you immensely.

So, I’ve done a couple of things…

I have made the Survival Skills CD available for direct purchase - $27 (US and international orders).

And, I have re-opened the digital-only RookieDoc Membership portion (US and international orders).

Here’s a short intro video to show you some of the things that are part of membership. If it sounds interesting or useful, click the link below the video to find out more.

The images of CDs, books, and DVDs in this video correspond to downloadable products.

I was going to use today’s post to provide links for useful gifts for medical students, interns, and residents. Instead there’s a far more important gift that I’ll explore here…

You see, I have 5 kids - 4 girls and a boy. A few minutes ago my wife forwarded me a link to this YouTube video. I’ve heard this song a thousand times… but it’s like I was hearing it for the first time.

Why am I posting this here? Why now?

Well, many of you are on rotations right now where you might be reluctant to ask for time to spend with your family at this time of year. I’m putting this here as a reminder… 20 years from now your chief resident won’t matter… 20 years from now the attending on the rotation you’re on right now will be an afterthought.

Now, of course, you do have responsibilities to your patients, so fulfill them. But it doesn’t hurt to ask or to suggest a different schedule to afford your family some important time with you.

It’s going to happen from time to time, that you miss important family events, sure. That goes with the territory. But there’s a difference between missing something and neglecting someone.

The key is balance.

And too many of us in the health professions are missing it. Don’t be one of them.

Need a crazy holiday gift idea for a medical student, a stressed-out intern, a resident, or a practicing physician? Check out these funny medical humor gifts from GiggleMed.com. (These are the same guys that hooked me up with the RookieDoc logo)…

I could earn a piddly commission if you buy something through this link. If you don’t want me to earn a commission, just go to GiggleMed.com and browse the GiggleMed Store (there’s a link in their sidebar). This stuff is worth it… especially as gag gifts for colleagues and friends. Med students can be pretty hard to shop for.

You can get other medical humor gifts like mugs, shirts, hats, bags, etc at GiggleMed’s Store.

In the next post, I’ll try to cover some practical gifts for med students, residents, and interns.

If you are a medical student or an IMG preparing for your residency interview, don’t waste your time on forums and blogs that give you a huge list of questions people were asked. Sometimes too much information is worse than not enough. Long lists of rare questions can distract you from the highest-yield interview questions you should focus on.

Are there times where you will be asked a medical question? Sure… some residency programs ask medical questions during the interview… Some surgical residency programs ask about specific surgical techniques. But what are you going to do? Read Harrison’s before the interview?! Read Sabiston’s?! Of course not.

Relax… be yourself… and be familiar with the highest-yield interview questions like the ones covered in this video:

If you could sit down with me and ask me any question about your residency interviews, what would it be?

==> Ask Me About Your Residency Interview

Wondering what to bring to your residency interview? I just posted this video on YouTube as the first in a series of video tips that just centers around your residency interview, questions you’ll be asked during your interview, etc. Check it out:

If you could sit down with me and ask me any question about your residency interviews, what would it be?

==> Ask Me About Your Residency Interview

I may not get to every question directly, but may be able to post important answers here, in special RookieDoc reports (PDF), on the RookieDoc Squidoo lens, etc.

I have received several questions about how to respond after getting an interview for a residency program. And although most people are aware that thank you letters should be sent, many seem confused about what comes next.

In particular, I saw a question on a forum that seems pretty typical of some of the questions I’ve received lately. You can see the question below and how I responded to it:

Question (unedited): I was wondering if you get replies from the ppl you send a thank you note to , cuz somehow they never write back to me . Is that normal ? or does that mean they hate me ?

My Reply: Don’t expect them to reply.

There are several reasons why I have never replied to thank you letters written to me after I interviewed someone.

1 - There are so many
2 - Because there are so many, my reply would not be very specific for each individual (think form letter)
3 - There’s room for misinterpretation of what is written or for me to misrepresent the opinion of the Program as a whole
4 - I never thought anyone expected a reply

Email… different story. I have replied to some emails with generic things like “Wish you the best”, but I’ve regretted it, because I thought that person might be sitting at home saying, “What does that mean?!… Wish you the best? Is that like ‘have a nice life’ or is it like ‘I really thought highly of you and I wish you the best’?”

So, it’s not about being polite or not.

By the way… I really do wish you the best

Dr. Tori
RookieDoctor.com

I just started posting a whole bunch of video pearls and tips for your training on various video sites (YouTube, DailyMotion, etc). Here’s the first tip. It’s under 2 minutes… check it out.