Friday Clinic, Day Three

On this day, I spent the day in the busy family practice clinic and found myself hanging on for dear life.  As family practice will most likely be my immediate home after completing school, I was really excited to see what goes on in a normal, general family medicine clinic... the answer is.... EVERYTHING!  I was blown away at not only the breakneck speed of the clinic in general, but the completely random nature of the patient complaints that rolled in.  Medical roulette is a good way to describe how it felt.  The fun, but ultimately scary thing about the day was the fact that there was absolutely no rhyme or reason to what was next on the schedule.  Here is a brief snapshot of some of the complaints that I can remember: back pain, diabetes, "weird bump on my nose", shoulder pain, bipolar disorder, high blood pressure, new onset stutter, cough, skin rash, depression, "can't loose my baby weight", neck pain, etc... and that was all before lunch!  Needless to say, there is never a boring day in family practice (to a student at least!).  Despite the fact that feelings of crushing inadequacy accompanied me for the majority of the day, I was able to see most of my patients on my own, which was a great experience.  I took four-times longer than my preceptor to do anything, and often had to have him recheck most of what I did, but I was doing it!  However, slow, sloppy, or uncoordinated it was... I was doing it, and it felt GREAT!  Every time I put on that white coat and get to work with patients, I am reminded of the fact that I am doing exactly what I have wanted to do for so many years.  The road has been long and fraught with innumerable challenges, but I am finally getting to do what I love... treat patients.  At the end of the day, I got in to my car dead tired, hungry, and without many functioning brain cells, but I did have a big smile on my face, and that was the best feeling of all...