The Rotation Files, Pt 1

Dear rising 4th year pharmacy students around the country,

You don't have to resort to feel-good posts written by idealistic fourth-years who are going to do a pharmacy residency and are afraid for their scholarly lives of ruining a reputation they have yet to make. You get the low-down g-style that you're used to and love.

Unfortunately, like Mystery and Mystery's Lounge, you'll only be privy to the deepest secrets if you're in the inner circle of friends, who are basically people I trust not to reveal my secrets to the unworthy. Most of my tips will be hum-drum stuff, but I will attempt to point out stuff that other people may not have noticed (but are within tasteful reason and don't seem manipulative).

Let me first start off by saying that, 'Impressing preceptors is a lot like picking up chicks, except it's much easier.'*

The reason why I'm drawing the parallel between how to impress preceptors and how to pick up girls is that the concepts are fairly similar (as I am figuring out reading all these PUA material). Though I'm not a natural pickup artist, I was decent on rotations and my preceptors all liked me (so I hope!). I think pickup artists would rock rotations given some pharmacy knowledge.

I'll also frame the teachings by progressing from beginnner to intermediate to advanced lessons. Let me make the disclaimer that these posts will be about how to interact with preceptors, not about what you should read for such and such rotation. Evidence and literature change every day, and I don't keep up with that stuff.

In a way, if I had done the residency route and became a preceptor myself, this is how I'd like my interns to act.

Part 1 - Newbie Lessons: Mostly common sense, but needs to be said.

Teachers and professors like me because I'm intelligent. I slept in Org Chem every time at 6PM (5:30-7PM, TTh classes), but Dr. X never called me out on it because I made 100s on his tests. Same thing happened in pharmacy school with my sleeping. Intelligence is like money and power; it is intrinsically attractive to most teachers as the dollar bill is intrinsically attractive to a majority of women**. But if you weren't a studious worker bee, no matter. Rotations are about interpersonal communication. Note that you will not get away with sleeping on rotations, no matter how good you are.

Lesson 1: Show up on time and properly dressed. This is how you make a good first impression. When you contact them ahead of time (email is fine but make sure your email address it's not something like vietballa27@gmail.com) to learn of the time and place to meet up on the first day, be very professional. Err on the side of being uptight. One of my mantras is you can always dress down when you're too professional (by taking off the coat, removing tie, etc).

A friend of mine got slammed for asking the, 'So what is the dress?' question. Here's how to phrase it: 'So, just to confirm, the dress is professional, is that correct?' It makes you sound somewhat intelligent while confirming the required apparel. If they say you can wear scrubs, then great. But don't buy scrubs beforehand, because some places restrict the colors.

For the gents, always wear a tie (and not of Playboy bunnies, go to Ross/Marshalls and get some conservative ones for $10) on the first day. After a week with a tie, you can calibrate your look to the rest of the men on the ward. Stick to solid blue or solid white button-downs. For the ladies, wear comfortable shoes and know that this is not the club; even if you want to attract the cute resident physicians, this is not the place nor time.

Lesson 2: Be enthusiastic and open to learn. And smile; that's important. Attitude matters a lot. You will undoubtedly suck during your first couple of weeks on rotations. Most preceptors know that, and they're usually okay with your not knowing much to start. But they're not okay if you seem uncooperative or unreceptive to their teaching (which you may feel is more criticism than lessons). If you need a confidence boost, think about the weakest student in your class (hopefully you're not that guy) and know that even he will make it through rotations.

Lesson 3: Write down everything and review it daily. Preceptors are a little like women in that they expect you to remember everything they said even if they didn't emphasize that it's important. Whereas a 'you should have known that fuchsia is my favorite color!' from a girl may mean a few minutes of tongue-lashing, a preceptor saying, 'I had told you to follow RG's potassium counts, and you didn't do it?' may mean a lower grade. Note: It's a bad sign when people use rhetorical questions.

On the flip-side, if you did something that they had mentioned, be sure to bring it up. To a girl, 'I know your favorite flower is a tulip***, so I got you some for no reason except to put them next to you and show you that you're vastly more beautiful than nature's best attempt at perfection.'**** To a preceptor, 'You had mentioned that when patients have DKA, I should monitor potassium when try try to correct it, since K + Glu go together. SY's potassium level is 4.0, which is normal.' Major brownie points!

Lesson 4: You will be overwhelmed. There is no doubt in my mind to this truism. When you feel lost, ask your preceptor nicely something like, 'I know this is all important, but what do you feel is most critical that I look up and follow?' If you don't put the first disclaimer, they will usually retort with, 'It's all important!' But when you take someone's argument away from them (by acknowledging it), they won't have it to use against you.

Whatever they say next is extremely important (because they themselves probably follow it), write it down and make sure you follow those on a daily basis. You can't ask, 'So Dr. XYZ, what's going to be on the test?' when you're in an auditorium, but you can certainly ask it when on rotations. Ask the 'what's really important' question during your first week.

So that's 4 quick lessons for today. I'll try to do these posts on a weekly basis, but just remember that preceptors are real people and you can get away with a lot of things while on rotations than you couldn't in a classroom.

--

*my response back to my friend who asked me on tips for rotations

**excuse the generalization, but I've never met a girl who said some guy she's dating made too much money.

***I think tulips are beautiful, especially the deep purple ones, so close to noir, that are full of foreboding wonderment and mystery

****Feel free to use this line, but don't be this cheesy