After 6 weeks of clinical rotations, taking me to a teaching hospital and private hospital facilities in Nigeria, i have finally seen what it seems like to be a working doctor.It has been quite an adventure, and I feel I have grown much not only as a physician-in-training but as a person. I've seen the start of life when we delivered newborn patient during OB/Gyn, and the end of another when I took turns performing CPR,but thank God she woke up. I’ve been amazed at how adaptable the human body can be,, but I’ve also been perplexed at how vulnerable our bodies can be at the same time, with a fine line between life and death.
It’s easy to get emotional with cases like these, as we are all human beings with feelings, but we learn to set emotions and biases aside for the time being and focus on treating the patient to the best of our abilities, no matter if the patient is the victim or the criminal. While we strive to understand the mechanisms behind disease and how to manage them, much of medicine still remains mysterious and beyond control of even the most trained of physicians. It’s been a pleasure and honor to be able to experience the world of medicine.
1. Writing H&Ps
During your clinical years, residency, and beyond, you’ll be writing a lot of notes on the patients you see. The most common types of notes you’ll write are H&Ps (aka History & Physical or the similarly related Consult Notes) and SOAP notes (aka Progress Notes). The H&P is the note you write when you see a patient for the first time, in which you record the patient’s initial complaints, findings, and background history. Naturally, knowing how to write H&Ps requires knowing how to do a thorough interview and physical examination. There is no one single way to write the H&P, Consult, or SOAP notes, and you’ll notice that different doctors may write them slightly differently. Regardless, here are the basic components of the H&P:
- CC — Chief Complaint (or Reason for Consult if you’re writing a consult note)
- HPI — History of Present Illness
- ROS — Review of Systems (N/V, Diarrhea/Constipation, HA, CP, SOB, etc.)
- PMH — Past Medical History
- PSH — Past Surgical History
- Medications
- Allergies
- SH — Social History (smoking/EtOH/drugs, occupation)
- FH — Family History
- VS — Vital Signs (temperature, blood pressure, pulse rate, respiratory rate, oxygen saturation)
- PE — Physical Exam Findings (General, HEENT, Neck, CV, Pulm, Abd, Ext, Neuro. Psych)
- Lab Results (CBC, CMP and other labs when applicable)
- Assessment and Plan
2. Writing SOAP Notes
As I stated above, the first note you write of a patient will be the H&P note. Every subsequent time you visit the patient, you’ll write a Progress Note (aka SOAP Note), to update on the progress of your patient’s hospital stay and make updated plans. The Progress Note is often called the SOAP note because of the acronym of its four components: Subjective, Objective, Assessment, and Plan. Often, you’ll see that the assessment and plan written together as one section with the listing of the assessed diagnoses, and the plans written under each diagnosis. Here are the basic components of the SOAP note:
- S — Subjective is what the patient says. It could be quotes, or it could be information that the patient tells you. You also write the symptoms the patient denies having here. i.e. “Pt c/o mild lower abd pain but says otherwise ‘doing well’. Denies N/V/HA/CP/SOB…” etc.
- O — Objective is what you find out about the patient, from physical examination, vitals, or lab values that you looked up about the patient. i.e. “NAD, HRRR, lungs clear, Abd soft/NT, no edema. Vitals: 97°-80-12-110/70. Labs: WBC 5.0, Hb 9.1….” etc.
- A — Assessment is a brief statement summarizing the big picture of how the patient is doing. i.e. “28 yo G1P1 EDC 9/2/12 s/p ND day #2 doing well…” etc.
- P — Plan is what you plan to do for this patient, like which medication you will prescribe, what the patient should do, what further test you want to order for the patient, or when the patient should follow up. i.e. ” continue post-partum care, repeat complete blood count in the morning, control pain with motrin…” etc.
3. Reading Radiographs
You’ll also encounter many situations during your rotations in which you’ll need to read X-rays, ultrasounds, CTs, and MRIs, whether it’s a chest X-ray during your internal medicine rotation, pelvic ultrasound during your OB/Gyn rotation, or CT of the abdomen during your surgery rotation prior to an abdominal aortic aneurysm repair.
4. Knowing Lab Values and Vital Sign Values
Knowing the normal reference values for vital signs and lab results will save you time and headache . Know what the lab values mean, and what their relationships are to each other (i.e. Increased BUN and Creatinine with a BUN/Cr ratio >20 usually means renal failure due to pre-renal cause, AST > ALT in alcoholic liver damage, etc.). Know important formulas like the Winter’s Formula and the calcium correction formula for hypoalbuminemia. Know the cut-offs for normal blood pressure, pre-hypertension, and hypertension. Know cut-off values for BMI. Know cut-off values for pre-diabetes and diabetes at fasting and 2-hour post-prandial.
5. Learn Abbreviations
You will find that in practice, abbreviations are extensively used, and you will need to know them to understand patient charts and doctors notes, as well as to write your own notes. Here are some common abbreviations you’ll see during your rotations:
- Pt — Patient
- c/o — complains of
- s/p — status post, meaning a procedure is completed (i.e. s/p appendectomy in 2006, meaning the patient had an appendectomy in 2006).
- c (with a dash over it) — with
- Ø — no
- HA — headache
- MMM — moist, mucosal membranes
- PERRLA — pupils equal, round, and reactive to light and accomodation
- EOMI — extraocular movements intact
- RRR — regular rate and rhythm
- CTAB — clear to auscultation bilaterally (referring to the lungs)
- SOB — shortness of breath
- CP — chest pain
- ND/NT — non-distended/non-tender
- RUQ, LUQ, RLQ, LLQ — right upper quadrant, left upper quadrant, right lower quadrant, left lower quadrant.
- N/V — nausea and vomiting
- AAOx3 — alert and oriented to person, place, and time (the patient knows who he/she is, where they are, and what day it is)
- AAOx2 — alert and oriented to person and place, but not time (the patient knows who he/she is, where they are, but not what day it is)
- AAOx1 — alert and oriented only to person (the patient knows who he/she is, but not where they are or what day it is)
- NKA, NKDA — no known allergies, no known drug allergies
- NC — non-contributory
- BID — twice per day
- TID — three times per day
- PO/IV/IM — by mouth, intravenous, intramuscular
- DNR/DNI — do not resuscitate/do not intubate
6. Performing a Focused Patient Encounter
While during Basic Sciences we learn how to do a full exam and interview, which can take up to an hour to do. But in the clinical setting, we will need to learn how to do a much shorter, more focused patient encounter, meaning completing both the interview and physical exam within 15 minutes or less.
7. Knowing Trade Names
While you won’t be tested on trade names on any of the licensing exams, you will quickly pick up the trade names of drugs as you go through your clinical rotations. The trade names are used as frequently as the generic names in practice, and everyone in the medical teams you will work with will know both, so try to make the effort to remember them.
PEACE.
