My last full day in Family Medicine (as a medical student). And I was with a new doc. From what she told me, sounds like she’s relatively new out of residency and still building her practice. Her schedule did have a lot of Ob, peds, and new patients. I really enjoyed her style though. She was very autonomy oriented, as I hope to be, always trying to get a sense of what the patient had in mind as far as plan/ treatment/ what they would be open to before making her own suggestions. It’s not that the other docs ignored patient autonomy, but some encounters did seem like they were very much centered around numbers and lab values vs centered around the patient (not to detract from any of the docs I worked with, they were all amazing and showed their compassion and demonstrated patient-centered care in other ways).
Now I’m not sure if that is a product of her maybe being a little younger than the other docs, have to do with the fact that she had a more contemporary medical education relative to the others, or due to the fact that she may not be quite as far along on the jaded/ burnt-out scale compared to the others. Definitely wish I could have worked with her more.
I saw 2 fresh patients who were establishing with her. I thought I had done a good job of eliciting their health goals with their new doctor without injecting my own agenda. They both had a primary goal of weight loss. And I went through kinda the different options and approaches and seeing which they would be interested in pursuing and patted myself on the back for being so patient centered. But then my attending basically wrecked me after I presented the first of those 2 patients and was like, well did you ask to see if she had already done her own research and have a specific plan in mind as far as her weight loss? How could I be so dumb? The patient didn’t have a specific plan in mind, but I thought it was a good things to ask, and so I did with the second patient. She also had no idea. BUT STILL I think it’s good to recognize patient’s ideas and expectations regarding their healthcare and be able to address it even if you think whatever it is they have in mind is no recommended and you have to tell them that, because at least they will know that you considered it and care about what they have to say.
TTITF:
Fast internet, old keyboards, sticky notes
nANIMOv 