Archive for the ‘Communication’ Category

Many of you know that I collect hundreds (maybe thousands, now) of pieces of advice for medical students, interns, residents, and really, anyone in healthcare. Most often, the best source of advice is the patient and/or a caregiver of a patient… a family member or a loved one.

Short, but quite needed post today:

I received this piece today from a resident who happened to also be the loved one of a patient. I would like to share this piece of advice with you since (a) it is so true, (b) it needs to be elevated from being “a tip” to being ingrained in every human being entering healthcare, and (c) if you heed this advice you will stand out in a big, big way.

Here is what he/she submitted for you today:

1. Try to approach your patients as if they are, in fact, people…as opposed to “a case”. Far too often people are treated as interesting cases rather than a individuals who need help.

2. Don’t forget to educate your patients. Some physicians get caught up in rounds and teaching residents that they forget to teach their patients! Helping them medically involves educating them as well (Why do you think show’s like Dr. Oz and the Doctors are popular?…people want to know!!!)

Are you a patient, a caregiver, a nurse? Give some advice to young doctors here.

Where you can find more information about Last Wish and Dr. Van Scoy:

• Last Wish: Stories to Inspire a Peaceful Passing – get the book here (& get it now )
• KnowYourWishes.com
• About Dr. Van Scoy
• Follow Dr. Van Scoy on Twitter

Lauren Van Scoy, MD currently serves as the Chief Fellow for Pulmonary and Critical Care in Philadelphia. She wrote Last Wish: Stories to Inspire a Peaceful Passing independent of her work at Drexel University College of Medicine and Hahnemann University Hospital. The opinions expressed in her book are her own and not the opinions of her employer or her training institutions.

Several times a month, I receive emails from patients and nurses thanking me for some of the videos I post with tips for medical students, interns, and residents. Well, recently, I received a moving message from a patient via my YouTube inbox. And she gave me a direct call-to-action to create a means for patients to offer advice from their perspective.

Well, this is the first step in that process. If you are a nurse, a patient, a caregiver, or really anyone who comes in contact with physicians, this is your opportunity to offer some advice. Over time, depending on the response, I will make this into a more robust, far-reaching project. I will select the best of them and redistribute them.

A word of caution… This is for sincere advice only. This is not a mouthpiece for attacking specific individuals, the healthcare industry or for lumping people into groups and labeling them. (There’s plenty of that in the news media) This is for sincere advice from one human to another.

Now that everyone has switched over… 2nd year med students have started their clinical rotations, 3rd year medical students have become 4th years and are beginning the countdown to graduation, and new interns have started their stress-year…

I thought it appropriate to cover something you will never be taught about your pager… at least not formally, anyway. So here it is:

It’s really quite simple. When wearing scrubs, you only have this semi-thin drawstring that doesn’t really hold a pager too well.

SCRUBS: If you wear your pager on your scrubs, it will flop around and sometimes unclip itself depending on your position.

WHITE COAT (side pocket): If you put it in your white coat side pocket, you will leave it on during conferences or you will not feel it vibrate. You also run the risk of it slamming into a door or wall as you walk.

WHITE COAT (top pocket): If you put your pager in your top pocket of your white coat or of your scrubs, well, that’s just inexcusable… it will fall out when you bend over & it will be impossible to reach if you wear a gown.

So here’s what you do (see the video at http://youtube.com/RookieDoc):

1. Tuck in your shirt – all the way – even in your underwear
2. Face your pager in towards you (not outward like you would if you were using a belt)
3. Clip the pager around your scrub bottoms drawstring AND your underwear

That’s it. I hope it helps

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:

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.

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

Interview season is upon us and I’m preparing myself to sift through a bunch of residency applications. The problem is… many of them start to blend together and look the same. So, I look for the nuggets… the hidden gems… And most of the time, these gems are not what you think.

Anyway, in an effort to help some of the people out there stressing about interviewing for internship and residency, I jumped onto several forums and began answering some questions.

Most of the concerns and fears centered around actually getting interviews or how to answer the interview questions.

However, there were several threads where people were whining and complaining about their contacts at various residency programs “not coming through”, “leaving [people] high and dry”, “forgetting where they came from”, etc. Basically, several forum goers were complaining that they weren’t getting the favors they thought they were entitled to and were easy to give.

So, I posted the following response. I hope it helps you on your interviews for internship, residency, fellowship, and jobs…

Question: Hey guys do contacts help? One of my friends got an interview through some contacts, problem is i don’t have any!!lolzz

Answer: Contacts do help. I have done it for some and not for others, so you might want to understand why… what goes through someone’s head when you ask them?

Here’s the thing… Your contacts are being asked every year by tons of people to do this same favor. And while you might think it’s because they “don’t deliver”, or “they forgot where they came from”, or whatever… it’s actually not that.

If they recommend everyone who asks, it dilutes the power of their favor. And, if they don’t really know the person, they run the risk of being blamed for having lobbied for bringing that person in (if that person sucks).

So here’s the difference between which of your contacts will make a curbside reference for you and which ones won’t…

… ready?

… it’s not “contacts” at all… so, stop looking for contacts.

It’s RELATIONSHIPS. Just knowing someone’s name or having met them once or twice is irrelevant… However, if you stood out in some way (not just answering questions on rounds)… if you just focus on answering questions right, then you run the risk of not showing the real you… people don’t just care about your medical knowledge… they care about how you fit in as well. What other things will you contribute to the Program, besides medical knowledge?

Let me give you an example… one time in my training, I was taking a break leaning on a wall talking to the janitors and maintenance guys about football (American football – Go Eagles!). While I was leaning there, the Chief of Medicine walked by with a huge glob of white coats behind him. (Inside I was like O my God! My chances here are done.) He stopped in his tracks… stood right in front of me… and just looked at me. The other med students and interns looked at me like, “You’re toast”. While the Chief was looking at me, I shrugged and said, “What?… Football rounds.” and I smiled.

He cracked up laughing and kept walking. Later he struck up a conversation with me about football and later about some other stuff we had in common… cities we’ve lived in, universities attended, etc. When I interviewed at that program and other programs in that city, people said that he mentioned me.

Now, I never asked him to mention me, but he did. The reason… it’s easier to remember a relationship than it is to remember a contact.

So, when you’re on your clinical rotations of 3rd and 4th year, or when you’re on observerships, etc, don’t just concern yourself with answering medical questions. It’s the relationships that will be noticed… relationships with docs, nurses, administrators, secretaries, and patients.

And one last HUGE tip… Focus on what you can do for them, not what they can do for you. If you provide value wherever you go, people will notice in a good way. If the first question in your head is how can this guy help me, people will notice in a bad way.

I hope that helps.

If you have a question for me, Just Ask.

If you could sit down with me and ask me any question about being successful in your internship or residency interviews, what would it be? I’ll answer some questions on upcoming RookieDoc FAQs – these are occasional phone conferences for RookieDoc fans and members where I discuss a hot topic or answer questions.

==> 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.

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 .