Learn, Review, Repeat (Medical Knowledge and Skills)

Learn, Review, Repeat (Medical Knowledge and Skills)

Competencies:

  • Demonstrate a broad working knowledge of the fundamental sciences, principles, and processes basic to the practice of medicine and apply this knowledge in a judicious and consistent manner to prevent common health problems and achieve effective and safe patient care.

Reflection:

Medical knowledge is fundamental to being able to take care of patients. A great portion of medical school is spent obtaining medical knowledge but it can be difficult to retain knowledge learned early on in your career as more and more time is spent learning new things without time to review. Review is not always built into the curriculum, so it is up to the medical student to balance their time in order to learn and retain while still being able to have time for other aspects of life. An added difficulty that arises in the third year of medical school is studying for shelf and board exams while on rotation. In addition to studying and reviewing you have to add in researching your patients, and learning higher-level topics within the subject of your rotation even if they won’t be on your tests. Once a student has managed to do all of these things they can look forward to the fourth year where they’ve gotten past the majority of these tests and can now spend time adequately preparing for their rotations are reviewing. A great example of that is the urology rotation that I’m currently on. One of the first rotations that I was able to truly focus on and it showed. My attending has been a urologist for over 20 years and received great training of his own but continually states to me how impressed he is with my medical knowledge and my basic science knowledge. I believe this is partially due to my ability to focus on this rotation while not studying for additional tests, however, I’m also surprised by the information I’m able to draw upon when asked about things I learned at the beginning of medical school. As I continue to train in medicine, I plan to continue my review of topics, especially ones that I use less often so that I am able to retain a broad knowledge of fundamental medicine.

 

Mid-Rotation Evaluation (Urology)

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