Working with a sub-i on inpatient this month. Med students aren’t allowed to see patients solo here, so she shares a couple patients with me.
This sub-i is good. Her notes are good, her assessments are good, her presentations are good. She’s thorough, she knows her shit. Really she’s just working on being concise and time management, which is lightyears ahead of where I was at the start of my fourth year.
So, since she has shown herself to be capable, the past week I’ve let her manage the patients. Do the notes, put in the orders, make all the phone calls and little floorwork things. I still see the patients and supervise her because she is putting things in under my name, of course. Sometimes I put things in if they need to be done right then, but mostly I am trying to let her do it because I think that is the best way to learn. It takes three times as long but I can already see an improvement.
At the end of all her notes I make sure she writes, “Written by Sub-i MS4, supervised by AspDocs, MD”. The other day she said “You know none of the other residents I’ve written notes for have me sign my name on my notes.”
That always annoyed me as a student too, something I vowed as a MS3 that I would never do. As I go into my next two years of residency and start having more and more supervisory role with med students and interns, I hope to take the best and worst of my experiences and be the best senior resident I can be.