Archive for the ‘Rookie Doc Recommends (or not)’ Category

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.

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.

Now that people are in the thick of the internship interview season, the stress of getting prepared for internship is starting. Because of that, I thought it would be a good idea to reference a blog post that I saw a while back. The original post comes from Mother Jones, RN and is entitled Revisiting the Intern’s Survival Guide. It’s basically some sage advice (mixed in with some humor) from a nurse to new interns.

Here’s the link:

Revisiting the Intern’s Survival Guide

And here’s what I posted in the comments section back in June:

Great post.

For many, the appearance of arrogance actually comes from an intense fear of failure and fear of being exposed as someone who somehow slipped through the medical education cracks.

Unfortunately, some people try to cover or hide the fear, rather than saying, “You know what? I’m nervous. This is new to me. What has been your experience?”

“Smart interns forge alliances with the nursing staff” – great quote. If interns and nurses don’t see their missions as the same, they’re missing the boat. There’s a difference between a mission and a role. Both play different roles in the same mission.

And yes, there are too many new docs who start internship with an air of arrogance and, at times, downright rudeness. But, there is also a large pool of nurses that start off assuming there’s a turf battle. And both of these continue the cycle.

This probably sounds a little fluffy, but it would all be a lot smoother if we assumed the best in others.

For interns:
– Don’t assume you have to know everything.
– Don’t be afraid to ask for help
– Nurses know their job better than your attendings
– Social workers know their job better than your attendings
– The more you understand others’ jobs, the better off you’ll be
– Ask
– And when you ask, be polite about it.
– Communication is everything… more than words said, communication is an exchange.

For nurses:
– Interns are nervous, & everyone expresses it differently
– Be patient with the new folks
– Be especially patient with new interns from other cultures
– Don’t start off assuming a turf battle… sure defend that last piece of pizza
– The more you understand about others’ jobs, the better off you’ll be
– Ask
– And when you ask, be polite about it.
– Communication is everything… more than words said, communication is an exchange.

Also, be on the look out for an awesome freebie coming from RookieDoctor.com… very soon. The quantities will be limited because I can only ship out so many (before I go broke :).

Medical school, internship, and residency are particularly busy times. If you’re a doctor in training or someone who cares about one, you can send a quick eCard to let them know you care.

They’re easy… they’re fast… and they’re free…

I just posted several ecards and this video tutorial showing you how to send them. Check it out.

OK… Today’s a very special day for me. (Actually yesterday, but the idea came to me when I was way to tired to carry it out.)

Yesterday afternoon, my wife gave birth to my 5th child… yes, 5th… that’s not a typo. Many of you know from my stories of raising kids during internship and residency, that (a) I have 4 girls, and (b) my wife was pregnant with #5.

Well, it turns out that #5 was an 8lb 12oz baby boy

Now… with all of these kids, what’s a guy to do, but hold a baby sale? Check out this video for details.

Click here right now to see what your RookieDoc Membership will do for you.

I just saw one of my friends who happens to be one of the four main developers of YottaLook.com - a radiology search engine. Seeing him reminded me of the site, which I tend to jump to when I need a quick radiographic image to teach a resident or a nurse practitioner.

But it hadn’t occurred to me until today that I should share this site with the RookieDoc community.

Anyway, YottaLook is pretty cool and it is starting to gain some steam. It was recently listed as one of the Top 100 Alternative Search Engines… #16, in fact.

If you need to look up a serious radiology question, but you don’t want to wade through a yotta junk search results, then RookieDoc recommends YottaLook.

Links to YottaLook sites:

• YottaLook (home)
• About YottaLook - learn about the name, the developers, & why it’s so powerful
• YottaLook Blog - stay up-to-date with their latest developments
• YottaLook Image Search
• YottaLook Journal Search

There are several aspects of receiving feedback that are ultra-important during your training. The first is recognizing completely useless feedback. Unfortunately, most residency programs do nothing more than get your attending preceptors to fill out evaluation forms. And like a lot of things in healthcare, a number is assigned… something measurable, sort of. The problem with this approach is that these attendings are never given instruction or guidance on exactly HOW to evaluate or exactly HOW to give good feedback. So, it is important for you to recognize useless feedback.

Once recognized as useless, you should be able to turn it around and extract something useful… something you can build on. (I give you the exact scripts to use to accomplish this - in the members area).

Now those two are about getting feedback… the next thing you have to do is receive that feedback…

And finally, know what to do with it.

Well, I found an article that is nice a short and does a good job of providing an overview for accepting feedback. Here it is. It is used with permission from EzineArticles.com:

Workplace Communication - Accepting Feedback
By Ken Okel

Receiving feedback or criticism is a funny thing. When it’s good, we accept it and when it’s bad, we doubt its accuracy. Lost in all the emotions could be some good information that could help your career. Here are some suggestions for getting the most out of someone’s comments.

Just Listen: When you’re being told something that you didn’t do well, it’s very tempting to immediately interrupt and start defending yourself. Resist the urge. Listen to the comments and think about them for a moment before you say anything. When you do speak, say something neutral like, “Thanks for telling me that.” Remember, you’re on a quest for information that can help improve your skills. You may want to follow up with a question designed to let you know what you should do the next time you’re in a similar situation. “How would you handle the situation?” is a good one in that it gives you an example to follow.

Analyze Your Successes: When you receive positive feedback, it’s easy to start congratulating yourself but not think about what you did right. Here the ego takes over. But sometimes, it’s possible to stumble into success with no idea of what you did well. To get the full story, ask some questions like, “What could I do better?” which can keep the discussion going.

Don’t Carry Around Comments Like Luggage: It’s easy to hold on to feedback long after it can be useful. Listen to the information, consider how you can improve or continue a good practice, and then, move on.

Consider the Source: Most advice comes from a well meaning place but that doesn’t mean it’s always right. Upon listening to it, you may know immediately that it’s worthless (make sure you’re certain of this) but it’s still important to listen and then thank the person for the feedback. Just the act of listening shows respect to the other person. Sure, their advice may be bogus but if you overreact, then they’ll likely never again give you feedback, which could hurt you later on if their observations improve.

In his presentation, “Stop Crying in Your Cubicle” Ken Okel helps companies communicate better, become more efficient, and smile a whole lot more.

For his free newsletter and special report, 7 Communication Mistakes that are Costing You Money, go to his website at http://www.kenokel.com

You’ll also be able to see a video of Ken’s famous police dog attack story.

See Ken’s tips invade YouTube at: http://www.youtube.com/user/KenOkel

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ken_Okel

OK. This might seem a little out of place. To some of you, it might even seem like one big load of crap. But it’s neither.

The early parts of your training (medical school, internship and residency especially) can feel very forced and directed at times. Go here. Do this. Get that. Well, you can actually take back control of your experience with this one touchy-feely brainstorm exercise.

This is an exercise that a friend of mine who is into psychology and marketing sent to me. And after trying it myself, I initially thought, wow… let me share this with my blog readers and members. Then a little naysayer voice in my head conjured up thoughts of what everyone’s reactions would be. So, I sort of left it for a while. It’s touchy-feely, in a way. It deals with your wants and your fears.

Well, things have come up lately that required me to look back at the results of my previous exercise/brainstorm. And, wow… it’s right on target… providing clarity. So, I decided to share it with you after all. This is the type of thing that would be immensely beneficial if done early in training. But it has to be done sincerely and honestly.

If you know what you want, you can work on the right things. If you’re at all like me, when you’re in the thick of things, sometimes you get caught up in the task at hand and forget the “why”. At some point you stop and say, “Wait a minute. This just isn’t worth my time, my energy, my attention, and certainly not worth me worrying over it.” So you re-evaluate. Not necessarily in some formal sort of way, like this exercise, but you re-think it. Stopping and re-thinking is great… But what if you could “pre-think it”? That would be infinitely better.

Anyway, enough rambling. You’ll either thank me for this or just think I’m a tad weird.

It’s a little long (67 minute video), but if you do the steps, it’s well worth the time spent watching the video and doing the exercise. It takes a minute to load… Here it is:

I know you could just as easily search for surgical knot tying tutorials yourself, I just wanted to provide you with a list of references for it. Tying knots is the sort of thing that can be a huge stress if you’re not as up-to-speed as some of your colleagues. Now, I’m not telling you to worry night and day if you are not as proficient as you think you should be… instead, I’m telling you that you do have to practice. There’s no question about that.

Actually, it’s kind of interesting… in Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers, he explores several success stories - the likes of Bill Gates, the Beatles, etc. Gladwell charts the course of the successful. And you might be shocked at some of his findings… like the fact that birth month has a huge impact on success in Canadian hockey leagues. It makes sense. These young boys that are born after the cut off date for starting end up starting the league a little older (albeit only 11 months). They have had time to refine their skills, mature a tad more, etc.

Upon entering the league a slight cut above the other players, they are then shunted into better instruction, all-star teams, and more positive attention. Better coaching and playing against better players means getting better and better. The cycle continues.

In a way, this is not unlike medical and surgical training. If you enter your internship (perceived to be) ahead of the others, the attendings begin to talk about you in a favorable way… they give you more responsibility… they pay a little more attention to you… they expect a little more out of you… and you respond in a way that is expected… You get better and better.

Why did I just blab on about all of that? Well, I am Wordy Boy and I want to tell you to practice. Practice, practice, practice. Tying knots will be mundane by the time your training is over, but in the beginning it can be pretty stressful… especially when anesthesia is huffing and puffing, the OR nurses are tapping their feet, and the surgeon just started rounds without you. Trust me on this. Click the video link below and you’ll be taken to a surgery knot tying page full of goodies.