HOW TO BEHAVE ON THE WARDS

Be on Time. Most OB/GYN teams begin rounding between 6 and 7 A.M. If you are expected to ‘pre-round’, you should give yourself at least 10 minutes per patient that you are following to see the patient and learn about the event that occured overnight. Like all working professionals, you will face occasional obstacles to punctuality, but make sure this is occasional. When you first start a rotation, try to show up at least 15 minutes early until you get the routine figure out.

Dress in a Professional Manner. Even if the resident wears scrubs and the attending wears stiletto heals, you must dress in a professional, conservative manner. wear a short white, coat over your clothes unless discouraged.

Act in Pleasant Manner. The rotation is often difficult, stressful, and tiring. Smooth out your experience by being nice to be around. Smile a lot and learn everyone’s name. If you do not understand or disagree with a treatment plan or diagnosis, do not “challenge.” instead . say “ I’m sorry, I don’t quite understand, could you please explain …….”. Try to look interested to attending and residents. Sometimes this stuff is boring, or sometimes you are not in the mood, but when someoneis trying to teach you something, look grateful and not tortured. Always treat patients professionally and with respect. This is crucial to practicing good medicine, but on a less important level if a resident or attending spots you being impolite or unprofessional, it will damage your grade and evaluation quicker than any dumb answer on round ever coluld. And be nice to the nurses. Realy nice. Learn names : bring back pens and food from pharmaceutical lunches and give them out. If they like you, they can make your life a lot easier and you look good in front of the resident and attendings.

Be Aware of the Hierarchy

Address Patients and Staff in a Respectful Way. Adress patients as Sir or Ma’am, Mrs or Miss. Try mo to adress patients as ‘honey’, ‘sweetie’ and the like. Address all physician as ‘doctor’, unless told otherwise.

Be Helpful to Your Resident

Respect Patient's Rights

More Volunteering

Be a Team Player

Be Honest. If you don’t understand, don’t know or didn’t do it, make sure you always say that. Never say or document information that is false (for example, don’t say ‘ bowel sound normal’ when you did not listen )

Keep Patient Information Handy

Present Patient Information in an Organized Manner

Here is a template for the "bullet" presentation :

"This is a (age)-year-old (gender) with a history (major history such as abdominal surgery, pertinent OB/GYN history ) who presented on (date) with (major symptoms as pelvic pain, fever), and was found to have (working diagnosis). (Test done) showed (results) . Yesterday the patients (state important changes, new plan, new tests, new medications). This morning the patients feels (state the patient words) , and the physical exam is significant for (state major findings). Plan is (state plan).

The newly admitted patient generally deserves a longer presentation following the complete history and physical format

Some patients have extensive histories. The whole history can and probably should be present in the admision note, but in ward presentation it is often too much to absorb. In these cases, it will be very much apreciated by your team if you generate a good summary that maintains an accurate picture of the patient. This usually takes some thought, but it's worth it.

Document Information in an Organized Manner

The main advantage to doing the OB/GYN clerkship is that you get to see patients. The patients is the key to learning, and the source of most satisfaction and frustation on the wards.