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.
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.
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.
As most of you know, RookieDoc Radiology Rounds usually focuses on actual radiographic studies – like reading chest x-rays, abdominal films, head CTs, chest CTs, and other bread-and-butter studies that are ultra-important for your training.
Well, this time, rather than focusing on reading studies, I made a quick video (a little over 5 minutes) that goes through choosing the right studies. Click on the video image below to get started. (And I apologize ahead of time, I was pretty sick when I was making the video… my hair is schlepped, my eyes have bags under them, and I wasn’t my cheery self. Anyway, hope you like it.)
If you found this video useful, you should see the RookieDoc Radiology Rounds videos available to members.
I’m re-opening the doors to accept new members starting Tuesday 1/27/09 at 12 noon EST. If you’re on the Priority Notification List, you will be notified 24 hours before everyone else. Put your name and email below.
I’ve mentioned before that you should not wear shirts with logos on them at work. Your hospital probably has a policy against it, plus you could offend someone or just appear unprofessional. Anyway, in light of the holidays and the fact that GiggleMed.com hooked me up with the RookieDoc logo, I thought I’d share with you a shirt that might be a pretty funny gift for your medical student, intern, and resident friends and colleagues.
Even though a blog is often the writer’s soap box… that’s not what I’m going to do with this particular subject. I’m just pointing it out for med students, interns, and residents… just to be aware that there are even more changes being discussed in resident work-hour reform. I want to suggest that you reserve judgment. Here’s why…
It’s easy to think about yourself in the short-term and think, “Heck yeah! I want to limit my work hours!” But be careful, there are definite pros and cons. And we are talking about a dynamic system here.
Part of being remarkable in your profession is your ability to “see systems”. You should know that one tweak in one part of the system may have profound implications in other parts of the system. And in this “me world” you might miss the effects on other parts. And in this “right now world” you might miss, even, the longer-term implications for yourself.
But I’m not going to go there right now. (RookieDoc members – I’ll teach you how to overcome the cons with a whole separate bonus module…) Just keeping you informed here by linking to an interesting article and an interesting blog post. Check them out.
Although RookieDoctor.com focuses mainly on what happens after you’ve already been accepted, I cannot ignore all of the requests and concerns about actually getting in. So, I debated with myself… Do I start a whole line of things dedicated to getting into residency programs and potentially lose focus on RookieDoctor.com’s mission? Or, should I seek out services to recommend? Well, I don’t want to lose focus, so I chose to try out a bunch of services and come back with recommendations. And here’s the first of them… Accepted.com. The following, is an article by one of their writers… good stuff.
To get into medical school, you explained why you wanted to be a physician. Now that you’re an M.D./D.O., you need to show them you’ve got what it takes to be a valuable addition to a medical team. To that end, your personal statement should give the residency committee a taste of what you’re all about, and make them want more.
Easier said than done? Here are four critical pieces of a residency personal statement to get you started.
You don’t want to just survive your internship and residency, do you?
Of course not. You want to excel.
But most of the books…
most of the websites…
and nearly everyone you talk to out there…
They all seem to warn you about what a disaster your internship and residency can be. They speak of grueling nights on-call; rarely, if ever, seeing your family and friends; and getting utterly embarrassed by attendings in front of everyone. They worry you with talk of malpractice, needle sticks, medical errors, and boards preparation.
Well, it doesn’t have to be this way. In fact, it isn’t this way. I should know… I’ve been there…
And I’ve posted some videos to help you to have success in your internship and residency. Just go to this tips and pearls for residency video to start.
, 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.
