Post by Stella on Dec 25, 2007 23:41:27 GMT -5
AMC-Morrow was ok for family med; a mix of pros and cons.
Dr. Campbell is the preceptor but he is not the grader. He will assign you an attending to be your mentor and that is who will be grading you. You are expected to prepare 1 research presentation on a topic of your choice and present it to the entire clinic (nurses, residents, attendings) at the end of the rotation. You are also expected to prepare a weekly clinical question to go over with your mentor attending.
You do 1wk of inpatient at AMC and 5wks of outpatient at the Morrow clinic:
- Inpatient - The residents start rounding at 6 or 6:30am so have your notes done by then. Table rounds with the attending start at 7:30am. You leave when the on-call resident shows up around 5 or 5:30pm, unless your resident is feeling nice and lets you go early.
- Outpatient - You will spend most of your time at the Morrow Clinic (9am - 5:30pm), but you will also have the opportunity to go to Clinica de la Mama (Hispanic OB clinic), GA State's student health center, AG Rhodes nursing home, and the Good Shepherd free clinic. Every Tues morning, you are expected to show up at AMC at 7am for rounds and then, attend grand rounds afterward. Every Thurs morning, you will work with Dr. Polson, the family therapist at Morrow clinic. On all other days, you will work with either a resident or an attending at the various clinics.
PROS
1. You get a wide variety of outpatient experience because you have the opportunity to go to so many different clinics.
2. The Morrow clinic has a good mix of patients. You see plenty of the usual, like hypertension and diabetes, but you may also see a couple of zebras (for example, I saw a patient with mycosis fungoides).
3. Dr. Kane and Dr. Don Diego are excellent teachers. Dr. Kane meets with students once a week for mini-lectures on topics requested by students. Dr. Don Diego is so enthusiastic about teaching, and he also has this ability to pimp without making you feel like an idiot.
4. You get to do several procedures. I did some cryo, knee aspirations, lots of paps, lots of flu shots, EKGs, etc.
5. All of the residents were nice, fun to work with, and always willing to answer questions and teach.
6. The clinic staff was amazing. The nurses and MA's were so helpful and friendly; they would always come find me if there was a procedure that I wanted to learn more about.
7. Grand rounds were always well-organized and informative. They had a suture lab for one of the grand rounds, and I got to practice suturing on pig legs.
CONS
1. The entire rotation was a little bit disorganized. I wasn't given a schedule until the 3rd week of rotation, so I basically had to bug Jackie, the clerkship coordinator, everyday to figure out where I was supposed to be the next day.
2. Too much driving! They make you drive all over. And sometimes, the traffic between Morrow Clinic and AMC is brutal.
3. Parking at AMC is provided but parking at GA State is not, so you have to pay $3 everytime you go there.
4. There is a locked Family Med conference room at AMC where the residents spend most of their time and where table rounds are held every morning, but students are not given a key to the room. I think I spent more time waiting outside that room for someone to let me in than doing anything productive.
5. You have absolutely no hospital access privileges. Your badge will not get you into the ER, the ICU, or L&D, and it can get pretty annoying.
6. They grade REALLY hard. During my final eval with my mentor attending, I was told that my research presentation was better than some residents' presentations and that I exceeded expectations in almost all categories, but the numerical score I received did not reflect that at all. I asked about areas that I needed to improve (to figure out what the heck went wrong with my grade!) and was told that I was doing great and to just continue what I was doing. I feel that they gave me an unjustifiably low grade in order to support their reputation for being hard graders and a "top 10" residency program.
Overall, I had a great experience in terms of learning and seeing a wide variety of patients (I felt it prepared me well for the shelf exam), but I would be cautious in choosing this site because of the grading. If you truly want to learn a lot, then this is the site for you. If you want an A, then don't go to AMC unless you're confident that you can exceed exceeding expectations, as it seems like they expect you to function at the level of a 2nd year resident to get an A.
Dr. Campbell is the preceptor but he is not the grader. He will assign you an attending to be your mentor and that is who will be grading you. You are expected to prepare 1 research presentation on a topic of your choice and present it to the entire clinic (nurses, residents, attendings) at the end of the rotation. You are also expected to prepare a weekly clinical question to go over with your mentor attending.
You do 1wk of inpatient at AMC and 5wks of outpatient at the Morrow clinic:
- Inpatient - The residents start rounding at 6 or 6:30am so have your notes done by then. Table rounds with the attending start at 7:30am. You leave when the on-call resident shows up around 5 or 5:30pm, unless your resident is feeling nice and lets you go early.
- Outpatient - You will spend most of your time at the Morrow Clinic (9am - 5:30pm), but you will also have the opportunity to go to Clinica de la Mama (Hispanic OB clinic), GA State's student health center, AG Rhodes nursing home, and the Good Shepherd free clinic. Every Tues morning, you are expected to show up at AMC at 7am for rounds and then, attend grand rounds afterward. Every Thurs morning, you will work with Dr. Polson, the family therapist at Morrow clinic. On all other days, you will work with either a resident or an attending at the various clinics.
PROS
1. You get a wide variety of outpatient experience because you have the opportunity to go to so many different clinics.
2. The Morrow clinic has a good mix of patients. You see plenty of the usual, like hypertension and diabetes, but you may also see a couple of zebras (for example, I saw a patient with mycosis fungoides).
3. Dr. Kane and Dr. Don Diego are excellent teachers. Dr. Kane meets with students once a week for mini-lectures on topics requested by students. Dr. Don Diego is so enthusiastic about teaching, and he also has this ability to pimp without making you feel like an idiot.
4. You get to do several procedures. I did some cryo, knee aspirations, lots of paps, lots of flu shots, EKGs, etc.
5. All of the residents were nice, fun to work with, and always willing to answer questions and teach.
6. The clinic staff was amazing. The nurses and MA's were so helpful and friendly; they would always come find me if there was a procedure that I wanted to learn more about.
7. Grand rounds were always well-organized and informative. They had a suture lab for one of the grand rounds, and I got to practice suturing on pig legs.
CONS
1. The entire rotation was a little bit disorganized. I wasn't given a schedule until the 3rd week of rotation, so I basically had to bug Jackie, the clerkship coordinator, everyday to figure out where I was supposed to be the next day.
2. Too much driving! They make you drive all over. And sometimes, the traffic between Morrow Clinic and AMC is brutal.
3. Parking at AMC is provided but parking at GA State is not, so you have to pay $3 everytime you go there.
4. There is a locked Family Med conference room at AMC where the residents spend most of their time and where table rounds are held every morning, but students are not given a key to the room. I think I spent more time waiting outside that room for someone to let me in than doing anything productive.
5. You have absolutely no hospital access privileges. Your badge will not get you into the ER, the ICU, or L&D, and it can get pretty annoying.
6. They grade REALLY hard. During my final eval with my mentor attending, I was told that my research presentation was better than some residents' presentations and that I exceeded expectations in almost all categories, but the numerical score I received did not reflect that at all. I asked about areas that I needed to improve (to figure out what the heck went wrong with my grade!) and was told that I was doing great and to just continue what I was doing. I feel that they gave me an unjustifiably low grade in order to support their reputation for being hard graders and a "top 10" residency program.
Overall, I had a great experience in terms of learning and seeing a wide variety of patients (I felt it prepared me well for the shelf exam), but I would be cautious in choosing this site because of the grading. If you truly want to learn a lot, then this is the site for you. If you want an A, then don't go to AMC unless you're confident that you can exceed exceeding expectations, as it seems like they expect you to function at the level of a 2nd year resident to get an A.