Going back to primary care after a year of being a hospitalist, ways to get back in the game?

[medstudentguy]

So, I graduated residency last year, and got a job as a hospitalist. However, after my 1 year contract is up, I would like to go back to the outpatient world and work at a primary care clinic. My fear is that because I haven't done outpatient in a year, I may be rusty in certain area. My residency had a major focus in clinic work, and I felt like a got a good foundation, and did well on boards. However, I am a little worried that there are tidbits of primary care I may not have used in some time.

Is there anything that you guys may recommend I might do to help get me back up to speed. I've had some people tell me that being out for a year shouldn't be too bad, especially since I was still involved in clinical medicine in the hospital...but I want to excel at my job, and concerned about my rustiness in outpatient medicine. Thanks!

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[JustPlainBill]

You should be fine -- I think I would go over the screening rules and review the big ones -- DM, CHF, HTN, thyroid -- go over knee/shoulder/back complaints, office procedures (injections, suturing, biopsies), WWE and common female complaints and any peds you plan on doing (usually physicals, GI, cough/ear infections, asthma) -- with only being out a year, I'd say you should probably do a cursory review --- hope it helps --

 

[VA Hopeful Dr]

Yeah only being year out I wouldn't worry too much about it. If you must do something, there are bunches of good primary care update conferences scattered about. Mayo has a great one in Florida in like 2 weeks. I also really like the AAFP annual meeting (now called FMX for some reason) that has lectures on pretty much every topic you'll likely see in primary care.