In the beginning of my career I thought I had more than enough to do with handling ONE patient. Having relatives around seemed to me like having additional “opponents”.  They appeared like someone who has additional demands and wishes. Turns out I was wrong.  The truth is  that the patient’s relatives are our allies.

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Ever since I started studying medicine I get several medical questions during every party.

Many people have a bad conscience, questioning me, because they think I don’t like to talk about medical  issues  in my free time.

But the truth is, it never bothered me to listen to their experiences. I can also profit from these conversations, because I get an unfiltered view of a patient and she can tell me what she liked and disliked about her doctor.

But what I`ve learned – mostly by trial and error – is that you have to obey certain rules. Otherwise you can get into big time trouble…

Sooner or later you will find yourself in a position to prepare a presentation about a clinical topic. You can either kill your audience’s curiosity or you can excite them, it’s up to you. Here is my approach to how to excite your audience:

Your time with the boss -the attending physician- will always be very limited. Often you will only have two minutes to present a patient, discuss the results and make a treatment plan.
This is difficult, but it is possible.

The other day I had an important matter to discuss with the attending. He had to be at another meeting, so I walked him to the meeting, which took two minutes and we managed to solve the problem during that time.

But to get this done preparation and a plan is necessary.