A few weeks ago I featured an inspiring speech about a young college track athlete named Kyle trying to break the 4:00 minute mile. Having been stuck at 4:05 for some time, he insightfully observed,
I dont think there is one single thing I can do to cut off five seconds, but I do think there are ten things I can do that can each cut off half a second and together will total five seconds and get me under four minutes.
Go check out my original post for the full story (spoiler alert: he breaks the 4 minute mile). I likened becoming a successful intern is like breaking the four minute mile. So often we try and try to become better, but we feel like we plateau. I observed how we (or at least I) often lose suffer from not sharing Kyles perspective I often focus on one thing at a time at the detriment of others that I need to work on. At the end of that post I promised to post my own list of 10 small things I could work on to break the successful intern barrier.
Realizing that we have both inpatient and outpatient months, which require different skill sets, I feel like it would be better if I split these lists into both outpatient and inpatient suggestions. After a few month of being on outpatient rotations, heres my list of 8 things to master to break the successful intern barrier in the outpatient world:
Type your note while in the roomthis takes some work, and some tact, but if you can master this it will help you get your work done so much faster. Personally Im only able to get the history and a skeleton version of the plan down (have to go back for the physical exam and other details), but it makes a world of a difference.Use GAMeLevers to prepare I posted on this earlier, but for a quick review GAMeLevers is a structured way to quickly prepare for an outpatient visit by reviewing the Goal, Active Issues, Medications, and Levers (tests, imaging, consults, therapy, time; see Dr Reids five levers for more detail)Redirect your patient to focus on the Goal of the visitAnyone who has done outpatient work knows this is a problem. Your patient may be coming to the clinic for their rheumatoid arthritis, but theyll want to tell you about the cold theyve had or the
