Primer to the Internal Medicine Subinternship
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Primer to the Internal Medicine Subinternship A Guide Produced by the Clerkship Directors in Internal Medicine EDITOR: Heather E. Harrell, MD University of Florida College of Medicine ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Meenakshy K. Aiyer, MD University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria Joel L. Appel, DO Peter Gliatto, MD Wayne State University School of Medicine Mount Sinai School of Medicine Gurpreet Dhaliwal, MD Michelle Sweet, MD University of California, San Francisco Rush Medical College School of Medicine of Rush University INTRODUCTION Welcome to your internal medicine subinternship. We are delighted that you have joined us for this short period when you will have your first taste of what internship will be like and will experience more of what internal medicine has to offer. Regardless of your future career path, we wish you the most stimulating, rewarding, and transforming experience possible over the coming weeks. The information in this booklet has been produced through the collaboration and consensus of internal medicine subinternship directors across the country, most of whom have spent many years teaching, evaluating, and advising students. It should help fill in some common gaps in the formal medical curriculum as you begin your internship. A complimentary resource for your subinternship is the CDIM Internal Medicine Subinternship Curriculum and CDIM Internal Medicine Subinternship Training Problems, which cover more traditional medical topics commonly encountered during the internal medicine subinternship. It is available free of charge online at: www.im.org/Resources/Education/Students/Learning/CDIMsubinternshipCurriculum/Pages/defa ult.aspx Please note information provided by your subinternship director should take precedence over these suggestions. Disclaimer – Any reference to a product in this book does not imply any endorsement of the product by CDIM or the editor and authors. Product references are only included to provide examples of resources and are not meant to be exhaustive lists of available material. 1 Table of Contents INTRODUCTION.........................................................................................................................1 SECTION 1: MAKING THE MOST OF YOUR SUBINTERNSHIP.....................................4 SECTION 2: WORKING IN HEALTH CARE TEAMS.........................................................5 Chapter 1- Consultations.............................................................................................................5 Chapter 2- Effective Use of an Interpreter................................................................................9 Chapter 3- Answering a Nurse Page.........................................................................................11 Chapter 4- Tips for Triaging Cross-Cover...............................................................................13 SECTION 3: ADVANCED COMMUNICATION SKILLS...................................................14 Chapter 5- Negotiating Conflict................................................................................................14 Chapter 6- Delivering Bad News...............................................................................................17 Chapter 7- Discussing Adverse Events with Patients..............................................................19 Chapter 8- Decisional Capacity and Informed Consent.........................................................20 Chapter 9- Obtaining Advanced Directives and Documenting DNR....................................23 SECTION 4: TRANSITIONS OF CARE................................................................................27 Chapter 10- Cross Coverage.....................................................................................................27 Chapter 11- Transfer and Off-Service Notes..........................................................................32 Chapter 12- Discharge Planning, Counseling, and Summary...............................................34 SECTION 5: PRACTICAL NUTS AND BOLTS...................................................................41 Chapter 13- Essential Time Management and Organizational Skills...................................41 Chapter 14- Tips for Work/Life Balance.................................................................................44 2 Chapter 15- A Dozen Pearls to Keep Your Patients Safe.......................................................46 Chapter 16- What to Do When a Patient Dies.........................................................................47 Chapter 17- Tips for Dictating..................................................................................................49 Chapter 18- Documenting Procedures.....................................................................................51 Bibliography...............................................................................................................................52 3 SECTION 1: MAKING THE MOST OF YOUR SUBINTERNSHIP “It is a daring and transforming experience to attempt to heal another person.” — Edmund Pellegrino, MD For many of you, the subinternship will be your first real taste of autonomous patient care. Although you will of course be supervised, you are expected to be the first person evaluating your patients and generating assessments and action plans. You will be an integral part of the team, working directly with nurses, therapists, consultants, and other health care providers. Patients’ post-hospital care will be determined largely by how well you anticipate and facilitate their discharge needs. You will also be actively involved in the kinds of difficult discussions you may have only observed up to this point. With these increased responsibilities, efficiency will now be of paramount importance to your success. You will feel the potentially competing pressures of patient care, proper documentation, early discharges, and conferences. The tips and resources in this guide were developed to prepare you for many of the practical, day-to-day issues you will face when caring for hospitalized patients. They are intended to direct you to strategies that improve both the efficiency and quality of patient care. 4 SECTION 2: WORKING IN HEALTH CARE TEAMS Given the diversity of backgrounds and complexity of patients in the 21st century, medicine has become a team sport and no one appreciates that more than a busy intern. Facilitating communication among the increasingly large health care team is a critical skill that will help you care for your patients. A new intern quickly learns that one of the best resources is the nurse. If you have not yet asked a nurse, “What do we usually do in this situation?” chances are you will. Even with nursing shortages and increased nurse to patient ratios, the nurses still have the greatest opportunity to pick up subtle changes in your patients while also ensuring that the orders are carried out. Consultants also play a key role in the care of most patients, whether it is the physical therapist helping the patient walk or the transplant nephrologist managing a complex cocktail of immunosuppressants. Conveying complex data to patients and their families in a way that they understand while encouraging their participation in decisions about care is an essential duty for a physician. This section will provide strategies to maximize your communication with both the health care team and the patient. CHAPTER 1: CONSULTATIONS T. Robert Vu, MD Indiana University School of Medicine Physicians commonly request consultations to: Get expert advice on diagnosis. Get expert advice on management. Get assistance in scheduling or performing a procedure or test. Arrange follow-up. If you and your team already understand what is going on with a patient and are able to provide the care with your attending, there is little use in calling for a consult. Before calling, consider how the consultant may change your management. If a consultant would add to the case, then make sure you are very clear on what it is you and your team are asking the consultant to do before calling. “Curbsiding,” or asking consultants for an opinion without formally seeing the patient, may seem convenient but is discouraged. HOW TO MAXIMIZE YOUR CONSULT Perform the initial work up and have test results ready For most stable patients, obtain and wait for the results of relevant diagnostic tests before contacting the consultant. For example, a stable female patient with a chief complaint of abdominal pain will typically have a urinalysis, serum amylase/lipase, and serum or urine 5 pregnancy test performed; these test results should be available prior to contacting the consultant. For unstable patients or those with suspected unstable conditions (e.g., bleeding varices, dissecting aortic aneurysm, etc.), it is certainly indicated to contact the appropriate consultants before any definitive diagnostic tests have been performed. As for all patients, be sure that your upper level supervisors (i.e., senior resident or attending) are in agreement with your clinical impression and plans and are actively helping you manage the patient until definitive specialty help arrives. Call consults early in the day Most consult services have a resident or fellow see new consults first, and then round with the attending in the mid to late afternoon unless the problem is urgent. Therefore, it is most effective for patient care to call your consults early (as soon as you decide with your team a consult is needed,