Taylor Freeman (first year PA student, class of 2020) shares her experience at the Pediatric and Newborn Medical clinic.
What LP did you do? I did an LP in the Pediatric and Newborn Medical Clinic with Dr. Rick MacDonald, North Oakville Medical Center. How did you go about contacting and arranging the LP? I received his contact information from my student advisor. I’m not sure if he prefers to have his information shared so contact me first ([email protected]). What did you learn from the LP? I learned that children can present very differently than adults for certain illnesses. Dr. MacDonald was great at explaining approaches to management for each child during their visit. During this placement, you get a lot of hands on experience. He will send you in to do the initial history and physical exam on your own right away and then have you present the case and discuss potential diagnoses in front of the patient/family. This can be a bit overwhelming at first, but it gave me an opportunity to experience what clerkship might be like and allowed me to practice skills learned in IER. What do you wish you would have known beforehand to help in your LP? I would have liked to have saved this placement for the second half of first year when I had more experiences/practice with taking a history and performing physical exams (especially in pediatric context) as this placement will give you solo experience with patients right away. How has this experience helped you clinically, in class and/or in career decision-making? This placement allowed me to see patients on my own and case-present to the supervising physicians in front of the patient and their family. I learned to take the feedback (positive or negative) provided to me to either change my approach for the next patient or brush-up on readings for the next time I went. This placement also taught me things to consider when working on pediatric cases (Ex. Common symptoms and diseases in children, red-flag symptoms in kids, how to address concerns with parents). Comments are closed.
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May 2019
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