I wrote this blog post for our NYU Admissions blog a couple weeks back, during the week of our first bedside physical exam session. I remember being so nervous… we had a new preceptor who was a little scary; I really, really wanted to make a good impression. As I made my way through the encounter those nerves dissipated as I let myself have some fun. For the first time, I felt like a doctor. From then on, I’ve really looked forward to these biweekly sessions. “Is it okay if I unbutton your gown to listen to your heart?” I nervously asked the frail, 68-year-old man lying on the hospital bed, waiting for a heart transplant.
He laughed and nodded. So many thoughts rushed into my mind as I touched his shoulder: were my hands too cold? Was I pressing too hard? What if I accidentally unstuck one of the patches on his chest, would he get electrocuted? “I can tell you’re a newbie,” he looked up and smiled. I laughed nervously while I struggled to figure out the direction of my stethoscope, “Sorry, sir.” “No one else in the hospital ever asks to take off my gown or listen to my heart; they just push me around and get what they need to get. It’s good that they are teaching you how to ask and listen. I like that you’re gentle.” The next 45 minutes were a blur; I fumbled my way through my first physical exam; tried my best to hear the murmurs that my preceptor did, to be comfortable touching someone else’s feet and feeling for their pulses. The patient told me about his symptoms, and I thought back on the lecture we had just that morning about heart failure. He listed the medications he was on – I was pleasantly surprised to recognize them from what we talked about in class a few days ago. We talked about his previous life as a horse trainer, his symptoms and what could possibly make them better, and he told me his goals for the next few years of his life. As a first year, I never thought that I would be seeing patients so soon into medical school, but it’s something that is really emphasized in NYU’s curriculum with built in bedside sessions every other week. It’s especially rewarding to be able to see our efforts in the classroom pay off at the bedside in the care of real patients. We make mistakes and sometimes we are pretty clueless. Just yesterday, I tried to shake a patient’s hand after using soap instead of hand sanitizer. But that’s what our preceptors are there for: to save us from a sudsy situation, to step in when we whisper, “I really can’t feel a pulse” and to teach us to treat patients long before we need to do so on our own.
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