It’s easy to imagine medical students in their white coats with a stethoscope around their necks. However, the reality of the day-to-day life of medical school is vastly different.
When students go to medical school, they spend most of their first two years in classes or labs. They go to lectures and reviews. They practice clinical skills on each other. They learn osteopathic medical techniques in the classroom and then go to the lab to practice the skills on each other. They dissect a donor cadaver. Actors challenge them to diagnose health scenarios. They even do their first pelvic and prostate exams on professional patients who teach them the gentle skills they will need in actual practice.
Then the first day of the third year comes and the student shows up at the physician’s office they have been assigned to shadow for the next month. As the physician turns to them that first day and instructs them to go see the patient in room three and take an assessment, palms start sweating and for just a moment, the student wonders “what in the world am I doing here?”
In the Touro University Nevada Health Center, Michael Mondheim, a third-year medical student at Touro University Nevada, is on a primary care rotation. He is working with Dr. Teresa Steckler today. He has also worked with Dr. Matthew Carlson and Dr. Matthew Martin during this rotation which gives him perspective on different styles.
Steckler sends him in to the room with the patient first where he takes a patient history, does a physical exam and then gives his assessment and plan to the attending physician. Today, Steckler reviews the assessment and plan he suggests for the latest patient, helping him consider several other options on the treatment plan.
“There is a lot I still need to learn and remember, but I really like this rotation as it is so hands-on,” stated Mondheim. “I get to see all different kinds of issues, from flu to lung problems to osteopathic issues.”
“I can now see how the osteopathic medical treatment can immediately resolve neck pain just by using a simple technique on the back of the head,” Mondheim added.
Mondheim has had two months in internal medicine, one in psychiatry, one in ICU, and one in pediatrics prior to this month at the Touro Health Center. While on the pediatrics clinical, he got sick from the “biological warfare” that kids carry around, but loved seeing the two week old twin girls and other sweet kids.
While Mondheim isn’t completely sure about his specialty after completing medical school, he is leaning to a surgical field. He does know he wants to incorporate osteopathic manipulative treatment in any specialty he chooses. “Surgery is so invasive and can really throw a system out of sorts. Studies have shown that OMM can help speed up recovery and decrease complications after surgery.”
Mondheim has 13 more months of clinical rotations ahead before he graduates in May 2017. During his final year of the month-long rotations, he will audition and interview at hospitals in Nevada andthroughout the U.S. for residency positions. These audition rotations will help as he applies to be matched to a residency position. While medical school provides the doctorate degree, it is residency that is the next step in his career before he can actually practice medicine on his own.
Jonathan Oishi, a fourth-year student at Touro University Nevada, is in his 16th month of clinical rotations and will be graduating this May. This month, he is with Dr. Mark Turner, and OB/GYN specializing in gynecologic cancer and surgery. Turner has been a preceptor for Touro students since 2005. He patiently allows students to shadow him at his busy practice and teaches them skills they will need to know in their own medical practice.
It’s a hectic schedule for Oishi this month as Turner has long days in surgery. Typically, every Monday is surgery day. Oishi gets the next week’s schedule on Friday so he can review and research the types of surgeries he will be viewing.
On Monday, Oishi gets to the hospital at 7 a.m. and scrubs in to watch the first surgery next to Turner. It’s a full day of surgeries with few breaks. The last surgery ends at 6 p.m. that night, but the day isn’t over as there is a complication on the floor and they have to go check on the patient. Jonathan finally leaves for the night after 7 p.m.
The rest of the week is typically patient office visits and some surgeries that can’t wait. Turner was rushing to the office on Wednesday and didn’t have time to stop and talk. He would be going back in to surgery that evening so he had to get to his office visits.
The long hours don’t scare Oishi. “For me, I like being in the operating room and working long hours,” he said. “I want orthopedic surgery for my specialty, so this is good experience seeing the hours and dedication.”
Oishi will graduate in May. He just finished spending five months on orthopedic audition rotations for residency positions. He will find out where he has matched for a residency position later this spring. And although the end of medical school is in sight, it isn’t the end of his medical education. He will have a minimum of five years ahead for residency and fellowship for surgical specialties.
But for now, as the month draws to a close, both students — and many others — will be heading off to the next month’s assignment with a physician who is giving back to a medical student just as they once followed a physician during their own time in medical school.