For my 7th rotation I was at Nao Urgent Care. I was excited for this rotation as it would allow me to practice certain procedures that were not available during my previous rotation. One would be suturing, which I have done in surgery but I had never done it for acute lacerations along with applying lidocaine to numb the area beforehand. I was able to do the entire procedure with the supervision of my preceptor which allowed me to be much more comfortable in future cases. It gave me enough confidence for which I totally feel comfortable doing it without any help.

Some patients I found challenging were patients with intellectual disability. This one patient that I actually had to present to my preceptor was difficult as the patient was not able to fully communicate why they were here. To handle this I was able to look at previous notes and see they were following up for a recent fall they had and an x-ray done to rule out any fractures. By looking at the previous note I was able to address this issue and began to have a conversation with my patient as they needed some help addressing their issue.

As a student I was very used to writing notes on the computer and filling ROS the same way. On this rotation the work was done differently as they introduced an AI software into the mix and started having to write and manage notes as well. My work style was different but adjusting to the AI was harder than I expected. As regardless, it was an AI generating your note and you still needed to read over it and make edits as needed. But with proper use it can definitely save time in future cases.

For my next rotations I want to be able to really work on my workup and plan when it comes to patients. For this rotation, especially being an outpatient setting, the workup was very limited as cases were very straightforward. Seeing that I have IM and EM left, I want to work on a workup for a wider variety of cases and think I can achieve this by being more proactive with my patient selection. Asking to see more patients and presenting them to my preceptors can really help me achieve this goal.