Practice-Based & Lifelong Learning means identifying one’s own strengths and weaknesses in a never-ending mission to practice medicine to the highest standard. I struggled here and there throughout medical school but my only failure came in third year. I had been studying intently for the Family medicine and Pediatrics shelfs. I decided to prepare for the OSCE the day before, believing that I would pass based on past experiences. I was wrong; the OSCE went so poorly that at one point I forgot to look in a patient’s throat who had come in with a complaint of a sore throat. I was deeply upset with myself afterwards, knowing that I did not perform up to my potential.
I got the failing grade a few weeks later, and it was not a surprise. I remediated with an assignment where I had to watch the video of myself, self-critique, and then come up with improvements and the differential for each standardized patient. By systematically, although painfully, evaluating myself it allowed me to be brutally honest with myself about improvements I needed to make.
First was that I needed more practice with my history taking for basic complaints. I could easily decipher the type of headache or chest pain that a patient was having but had neglected to practice for other common complaints such as sleep problems, sore throat, and back pain. I learned that lack of preparation leads me to be brief, I didn’t know which questions to ask and so missed possible diagnoses.
Second, I learned that I need to be systematic about my physical exam. This is an extremely important lesson for a future neurologist to learn. My physical exam became much more standardized after that failed OSCE. By doing the same thing for each patient, you don’t miss critical findings that can lead to a diagnosis.
The third and final lesson that I learned was that students always get a second chance so take advantage of that while I can. As a resident I will be both a doctor and a learner. While I am still in training, it is ok to make mistakes and to learn from those mistakes because that is how we grow. Moving forward with the lessons I’ve learned will make me a better doctor. I never performed so poorly on an OSCE again and passed Step 2 CS with flying colors.
