My 7throtation – family medicine was with Dr. Michael Richter in Rego Park. He works in a private practice with three rooms and navigates his busy days with a very efficient medical assistant. At this point I’ve already gone through 6 rotations and have grown comfortable in seeing patients and performing physical exams on my own however, every medical provider seeks out different things and has their own way of conducting physical exams so on the very first day I opted to just shadow Dr. Richter. From the second day moving on forward I saw patients on my own with various different complaints. Most of the patients came for follow up appointments for their diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia etc while another good chunk of patients came in for their annual examinations. Other patients came in for the common cold signs and symptoms as we approach fall and winter while others came in for anxiety/depression and opioid dependence.
I have performed several venipunctures prior to this rotations but definitely not to the extent as this rotation required. I was performing about 10 venipunctures a day since most patients came for follow ups and annuals. I got really comfortable with drawing blood and even enjoyed it. The practice uses eClinicalWorks as their EMR which I found to be the most challenging out of all the EMRs I have encountered. I often had to ask the medical assistant for help in navigating the system. I eventually got used to the EMR however it remains my least favorite.
One of the things I found that I could really improve on were medications for diabetes and hypertension along with certain side effects such as peripheral edema with amlodipine. I read up on several DM and HTN medications along with their mechanisms of action and side effects. Another challenging aspect of family medicine is having to go through patient history, questionnaires such as minimental exam and depression screening along with medications, review of systems and preventative measures questions in an efficient and timely manner. I found that my first annual patient took me about an hour to finish and during the end of my rotation I was able to go through annuals efficiently within 30 minutes.
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