Archive
One for the medical students – on presenting
I have the pleasure of working with our resident GYN team for several weeks every few months, rounding on their patients and teaching each morning. One of the best parts of this is hearing our medical students present their cases.
Presenting patients is a skill that takes a great deal of time to master. Each student is taught the basic form of a medical presentation at an early ‘age’ – Subjective, Objective, Assessment, and Plan. Each of these bits can be broken down into many subareas, such a Past Medical History or Social History (part of the subjective usually), Chest Exam or Labs (parts of the objective), or individually listed problems (each parts of the assessment and plan.)
This sort of structure is both an aid to great presenting and a hinderance. It helps because it gives the presentation a structure that is easy to follow, and over the years of hearing such presentations the listener has created little boxes in their mind, and had developed the expectation that these boxes will be filled in a specific order. By following this structure, the student fills those boxes and thus creates a structured narrative that fits the listener’s expectations. This can be very functional and efficient. The downside is that if the student follows that structure too tightly, the presentation sounds stilted, like a person reading a spreadsheet. This creates a presentation that is technically correct, but lacks grace.
Academic OB/GYN 