Week #8 Assessment: A wonderful end to a wonderful clerkship.

Professor Edelsack,

This one will be the shortest entry of all.

--Salina Lai

Week #8 Assessment: A wonderful end to a wonderful clerkship.

Today marks the end of what I think is a worthwhile and rewarding clerkship at Gouverneur. A majority of the week (starting from Sunday) consisted of finishing the community project, writing thank-you cards, and biding farewells to the staff on the 4^th floor. Many of the PCA’s Priya and I worked with were sad to see us leave, but were really excited for our moving on to the next level.

I promised the staff future visits and baked goods (a promise which I will definitely keep!). According to Lulu, Dr. Stevens invited us to join the staff luncheon this Friday. I think it will be fun.

Week #8 will get a ONE, finally.

Community Project

The results from our statistical analyses were simply amazing.

One might think that if knowledge and cholesterol diagnosis is related, then knowledge & cholesterol medication usage might be, also.

But wrong! Diagnosis and usage are not equal. It was the single most confusing result we got from SPSS. Think about it: assuming usage logically following diagnosis (we didn’t take into account misdiagnoses, blotched prescriptions, or any mistakes in the process), and that patient education takes place with the physician after diagnosis, then won’t both groups be equally educated and hence receive similar median scores?

Anyways, my reasoning is somewhat biased on its own. We dealt with a random study population, so we really cannot cast any solid predictions in the first place. That is something to work on in the near future, if I have time, that is.

I am considering working with Dr. Stevens for a short while so we can plan an intervention based on the project. Now that Priya and I identified the patient population’s misconceptions and weaknesses in cholesterol knowledge, I am very excited and more confident about one actually taking place! It’s interesting how besides trying to plan new programs for the hospital, we also saw that the diabetes posters that had been hanging on the drab walls of the ward are not working too well. During data collection, shocked expressions among patients ensue when Priya and I pointed out to them that the answers were already in front of them.

Subjective

I spent lunch time with Priya compiling a list of doctors and PCAs whom we should give thank-you cards to. We had a 10-card limit (because there was so many in one pack), so we had to try to narrow it down to people who are the most memorable and made the biggest difference in our experiences.

For me, I selected Drs. Stevens and Song, and Lulu. Priya selected Drs. Hanley and Goldman. In conjunction, we wrote cards to Dr. Coun, the PCAs who helped us immensely (this includes Eddie and Irene), and Carmen, who spent hours helping us correct our Spanish translations. Priya is planning on buying more cards, because 10 simply weren’t enough!

Today was a quiet clinic day, so I didn’t have a chance to do any patient intakes. Lulu and I had a conversation about our plans in the future. Basically, she’s yearning for sleep, while I’m yearning more work. I suggested her to take a long vacation, and she agreed with me.

Turns out, we’re both Aquariuses. I was born on the 28^th, and her the 29^th. When she let me off at 3, we exchanged tight hugs.

I will miss her the most. Hopefully, I’ll get to see her again when I visit in the future.