Pediatrics clerkship
- Fatimah Alsaeed
- Jan 16, 2018
- 5 min read
Hello
I hope that all of you are having a great week, free of work and full of fun. In this post I will share with you my experience with pediatrics clerkship. Keep in mind this just a view of one person and I might have a different opinion comparing to others.
The first thing that you need to know that they will choose your groups. So, you will work in teams with people you might feel uncomfortable with, but remember the aim for your groups and how being clear to each others will make things easier. After knowing your groups will know what are the topics that you will work on and at which week, and my tip would be to start working from the 1st few weeks to give yourself time later to study for your end-of-clerkship exam and slides OSCE.
During the 1st week you will have 16 lectures from 8 to 3 with the 6th year students, you have to work extra hard to finish them and you need to sleep well to focus throughout the day.
The rest of the weeks you will have tutorials only at Wednesdays "at uni" and Thursdays "at parking building" and Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays will be your rotation days.
The Mini-CEX is an MCR basically but the grades that you get aren't important to them and you have to submit 4 of them by the end of clerkship, you have to have 1 from ward and 1 from surgery and the rest do it anywhere.
Rotations overview
Ward weeks "2 weeks with 2 different units":
Attend the morning report at building 500 and 1st floor, then the resident round at 9 to 9:30 and after that the consultant round. You will finish at 12:00 p.m and from 1-3 will be bed side teaching with consultant "On Sunday and Monday" and Mini-CEX at Tuesday with senior resident at your unit.
The residents will give you a case that you will present at the round and write progress note for it. The residents and the medical interns will help you if you asked. It's new thing but was a good experience, I'm sure you will enjoy it.
Simulation week:
During this week you have to read material before coming because you will be asked and evaluated by the doctors, the material on the Black board and on Google drive. Each doctor have different way of approaching the topics, some of them will bring a scenario and other a presentation. IF you read well and then study the topics you will get the full benefit and the simulation will be at the clinical skills lap in 500. On Tuesday you will have Neurological examination teaching at the ward where you can do Mini-CEX as well.
ER week:
You will be divided into 2 sub-groups, half at morning and half at afternoon. The ER is so busy and small, you have to cope with it and ask the doctors about the interesting findings that you can see. Take cases at many as you can and do Mini-CEX, and discuss the cases with the doctors to learn more. You will have long waits so bring your study material with you.
There is an ER reflective journal about your experience, so at least write down the most important encounters at the time of your rotation to make it easier for you to write it later.
Clinics' week:
Also, You will be divided into 2 sub-groups, half at morning and half at afternoon. Each 2 or 3 of you will go into different clinics, some clinics are so interesting like the hematology clinic where will be able to see findings like spleenomegaly very clearly so many times at the same day. Also, the Diabetes clinic and endocrine are interesting and fun to attend.
This a chill week for you because you will be at the hospital for 3 hours each day, you will find the clinics' schedule at the department.
Surgery week:
Attend the surgery morning report, and later the round at the pediatrics surgical ward. Half of the group will go into the clinic and the other half will do the surgical task "usually a topic to read about and summarize it". At afternoon of Sunday and Monday you will have a Mini-CEX. Tuesday is for attending surgeries and then a teaching about different common surgical conditions.
Nursery week:
You start your day with the round "at the NICU" and teaching about history taking, and at afternoon there will be neonate's physical examination. On Monday you will have a round and some of you will prepare cases to discuss them at afternoon teaching, and finally on Tuesday will have round and Mini-CEX at the afternoon.
You can use your 15% of absence hours, but they will take some of your marks even if you bring a sick-leave, so use these hours if you really need them.
Make presentations for the tutorial up to the point without having too many slides, because they are source of studying for you.
STUDY EVERYDAY and don't repeat my mistake and write the most important points so you can go back to them.
The study resources:
1- the lectures / tutorials slides
You can find them in the google drive and also tafree3' for many lectures made by med214 and the older classes.
2- the Nelson Essentials of Pediatrics
Don't buy it and use the pdf version at the google drive, I didn't use this book at all while my friend used it and benefit from it.
3- First Aid USMLE Step 2 CK
This is the resource that I use to review and study from, specially at the end of the clerkship when I wanted the most important points in few lines. This source will help you a lot
here the link of the book:
4- Case files of pediatrics
This is the most important resouce for me because how it build the information around a real case and make you understand the topics in 2 to 3 pages. Also, I found the questions at the end of each topic so helpful.
here is the link for the book:
5- Online MedEd videos:
The videos of this website are so good at giving you the key points that you need for your exam, it's an easy way to study long lectures in less than hour.
Here the link to the videos :
Review the old exams because they are helpful, even though the exam questions change at the time you still can review some information from those questions.
For the slides OSCE you have the pictures in the lectures + 350 pages pdf file that you can use to study from.
Try to add useful pictures into your presentations and this will help you in the slides OSCE "a tip from one of my classmates"
For the real clinical OSCE you need your basic knowledge of history taking plus the "vaccinations, developmental milestones, antenatal care and delivery of the child / ICU admission, voiding. On the other hand, for physical examination, most commonly LL or UL neurological examination, abdominal examination and pericardium examination.
Here the OSCE file that I've made:
Hope you get something from it
and feel free to ask me any question
wish you the best of luck
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