Silly Med students

[rpames]

Last night I went over to a friends house who is a first year medical student at DMU. As most of you know this is the DO school I have been doing research at for a while. Anyway, she needed to practice her manipulation on 10 people so a friend and I went over and she adjusted and aligned us. Then she needed to practice the basic doctor exam stuff. After all the BP, heart rate, reflex, and that stuff, she pulled out an ophthalmoscope. The school has only shown them how to uses them once, so she was terrible at it. I tried to show her how it all worked but she still could not visualize the optic disk, and has never seen the fovea, except in a book. I felt pretty good that I, an undergrad (only for 6 more days!) knew how to do something a medical student could not. I can't wait until NEXT year!

Ryan

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[mdinpa]

uhhhh, same thing could be said about optometrists using/wearing stethoscopes around their neck-see it at the local mall.

 

[cpw]

I've NEVER seen an OD wearing a stethoscope. I use mine only to do BP on patients and then I take it off. I'd have no idea how to use it to do anything else. I was never trained to.

Although, I do think rpames has a point. My friend in med school had me reteach him how to use his ophthalmoscope because they only had a ONE HOUR lab on it in class. He said they never even saw the optic nerve. So, I taught him how. He practices on me whenever he comes home from school.

 

[rpames]

mdinpa-

This was not meant to be a another forum to bash each other's professions. It is more of a fun post. I was just saying that I enjoyed the fact that I was able to teach a friend something.

The funny thing is that she was my inorganic chem lab instructor. Although she is more of a friend, it was neat to teach my former teacher something. She was saying the school had only showed the student how to use their equipment once so she need a lot more practice. I was her first non-med student exam.

P.S. I have never seen an OD wearing a stethoscope around the office. I use it to take the BP and then put it back down on the table.

 

[paramed2premed]

Oops, stumled into the wrong forum. But while I'm here...

Medicine is funny, because a person's skill with any given task may be poorly reflected in their status and paycheck. Whether it is the med student who can't tell their tympanic membrane from the fovea, or the pysch nurse who freaks out when her patient has an asthma attack.

I am a paramedic who has, on occasion, bailed out a doctor with an intubation. I get paid about a tenth as much. Sigh.

Medicine is funny.

 

[MacGyver]

of course you're better at intubations than some docs, you do them all day long.

you're probably better at IVs than some docs too.

doctors dont get paid based on those skills, otherwise they'd just be nurses. they get paid to do diagnoses and treatment plans.

 

[paramed2premed]

Yeah, I know, I'm down with that. Doesn't bother me.

It's just the way medicine works. It's funny.

 

[Werry]

Paramed, being that you have less than 1/10th of the training and knowledge of a physician, consider yourself well paid.

 

[TAL]

Paramed, being that you have less than 1/10th of the God-complex and narcissism of this specific wannabe physician, consider yourself socially well-adjusted.

 

[rpames]

Go TAL, go TAL.

 

[paramed2premed]

WTF?

Actually, what I was trying to say was that our talents and skills vary across the medical spectrum. Of course the medical student has troble finding the fovea; she is also trying to learn 37 other diagnostic skills that night. By the same token, we hardly expect the OD to find a pleural rub.

I was not bragging in my post, I actually intended it to be self-deprecating. I know my role, and I know that of the physician, and it works out well. It is important to understand and respect other's roles and perspectives in medicine. This does not happen all too often.

 

[Andrew_Doan]

Originally posted by rpames
Last night I went over to a friends house who is a first year medical student at DMU. As most of you know this is the DO school I have been doing research at for a while. Anyway, she needed to practice her manipulation on 10 people so a friend and I went over and she adjusted and aligned us. Then she needed to practice the basic doctor exam stuff. After all the BP, heart rate, reflex, and that stuff, she pulled out an ophthalmoscope. The school has only shown them how to uses them once, so she was terrible at it. I tried to show her how it all worked but she still could not visualize the optic disk, and has never seen the fovea, except in a book. I felt pretty good that I, an undergrad (only for 6 more days!) knew how to do something a medical student could not. I can't wait until NEXT year!

Ryan

Using the direct ophthalmoscope is difficult. Using it on an undilated pupil to look at the fovea is almost impossible. While medical students may have trouble using the ophthalmoscope during medical school, they have plenty of time during residency to learn how to use it in the situation that is most important to them: to see optic nerve edema in the setting of increased intracranial pressure and hypertension.

I learned how to use the ophthalmoscope during my 2-week ophthalmology rotation in medical school. I was horrible with it at first, but I could use it during internship to look at the optic nerve.

As a physician, he/she should be able to see the optic nerve; however, it may be difficult through extremely small pupils (i.e. 2-3 mm). If there is any more badness than optic nerve swelling, then a dilated fundus exam and ophthalmology consult is needed.