Second Year Check-ins!

The curriculum at Michigan State (College of Human Medicine which is the MD program, not the osteopathic, DO program) is an alien in the world of medical school education. We get introduced to the clinical side of medicine from the third month of our first year. During the first year, you are placed in a primary care office where you get to do medical assistant (MA) work like rooming patients, taking endless blood pressures, administering flu shots and immunizations to squirming babies, etc. The experience is great because you become more comfortable with patient interaction ESPECIALLY if you don’t have much clinical experience. During the second year, we get to move around a lot more. We have rotations in palliative care, pharmacy, nursing, women’s health, adult wards, newborn, pediatrics, emergency, nutrition, social work, respiratory therapy, and more. All of these rotations give us a better grasp of the multifaceted nature of medicine and allow us to see the other important players that are working to improve one’s health and wellbeing.

I want to share my reflections of each rotation as a way to check-in with myself. It is so important to be intentional with these experiences. Boards are less than a year away, and it is very easy to forget how important each rotation is as I fight not to worry about what I should be studying. Each rotation will also be helpful for me to figure out what specialty I am suited for. Right now, I don’t know where the heck I am supposed to be. LOL. Actually, I’m leaning towards emergency medicine, but we will see! My palliative care rotation ends tomorrow so I will be sharing my reflection on that one first!

If there are other questions you have about second year (first year too!), comment below! Trying to share the parts of my life that might help someone else along their journey :)