It was another long day today. Class, club management, errands, studying, and our first standardized patient encounter of the year. In case you don't remember from last year, a standardized patient is a paid actor and expert on being a patient. He or she can play any sort of patient with an amazingly detailed backstory, and then debrief the student (i.e. me) on what they can improve on from the patient's perspective. This includes both intangible things like showing empathy and having a proper presence in the room, to specific critiques like how to better phrase questions, to hands-on advice on how to better perform the physical exam. In later sessions we will also meet with specially trained standardized patients who specialize in teaching things like pelvic and breast exams (think: "Not quite... move your fingers slightly to the left... there's the cervix!").
It still absolutely amazes me how different the experience is from when I'm playing doctor and the standardized patient is playing the helpless ill person, to when the tables turn and the standardized patient becomes a confident instructor and I the hapless student. I need a lot of work on my physical exam and, for better or worse, I get to watch a video of my performance today and critique my methods going forward to prepare for the next encounter in about a month. I don't look forward to watching myself flail, but there's no better way to learn and grow.
I know I promised a plethora of facts today, but I am going to defer one more day, due to exhaustion. Apologies!
TIL: The cardinal signs of inflammation, unchanged for nearly a thousand years, are redness (rubor in Latin), heat (calor), swelling (tumor), and pain (dolor). Shortly thereafter, the great Greek physician Galen added the fifth and final sign, loss of function (functio laesa).
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