Mentoring Information

General Description and Objectives

This clinical experience occurs in a general pediatrics setting, focusing on both preventive care and developing relationships with patients and families. Although this may be difficult in a short five week rotation, we expect that you will keep some contact with at least one or two families by phone or through follow-up visits over the weeks of the clerkship while you are in the clinic or the ED. Try to make yourself available by phone on a 24 hour a day, 7 day a week basis for at least some of your patients. In addition, these sessions provide another forum for practicing histories, physicals and presentations with your preceptor's guidance. In some cases, students may shadow attending in private offices. Try to perform at least part of the history or physical exam with your mentor.

You have been assigned an attending who will act as your mentor for the rotation and will be available for advice regarding any issues you have. On the first day of the clerkship block, contact your mentor and schedule yourself to be with him or her for three1/2 day per week while you are on outpatient. See the attached sheets for your assignments and information about contacting your mentor. (If your mentor is not available that day, find out when he or she will return and call at the first opportunity; if you are having problems reaching your mentor let Jakki know immediately - 305-8504.)

Objectives

• Assess the developmental stage of the patient (Erikson, Piaget)
• Use developmental principles to perform smooth PE's and histories. The goal here is to make the patient and family comfortable with you.
• Describe the principles of vaccination
• Teach parents to assess illness in their children and properly access the medical system
• Identify common behavioral problems
• Practice principles of preventive care for:

Adolescents:

Children:

Infants:

You should be able to approach patients with the following issues (core knowledge):

In addition, use your mentoring sessions to develop your clinical knowledge.

Consider:

• Developing a hypothetical case with your preceptor, picking a diagnosis from one of the above and describing how that patient might present. For example, choose a patient with iron deficiency anemia and make up the patient's presentation, history, work up over time and management over time.
• Ask your mentor to present a hypothetical or real case from his or her file that covers one of the issues mentioned above.
• Present one of these topics to the staff in the clinic. Arrange this with your mentor.
• Choose one of the topics above and write up a a hypothetical case (or a real case from your mentor) and discuss the problem and its management. One copy goes to your mentor and one to Dr. Miller. It is due on Friday of your second outpatient/ER week. The case should be 2 page; the discussion pages (include references).

Other Required Work: (This should be one side of a page in length)

ED/Evidence Based Medicine Project: (Details are on the assignments sheet)

1. Choose a focused clinical question (i.e. - Inpatients with moderate croup, do steroids decrease the hospitalization rate?) Don't choose a broad topic (i.e., Asthma, Head Trauma, etc.)
2. Do a literature search. Describe your search strategy (why you did it a certain way) and choose 2 articles (to be toic and handed in).
3. Write a brief critique of articles and your conclusion about the above question.
   

A final, important point: Attempt to develop a real bond with these patients. Building trust and confidence should be your top priority. Try to find the hidden agendas of your patients. By the end of each visit, you should be able to describe a typical day in the life of your patient and his or her most pressing emotional issues. I know this may sound like the psychiatry clerkship, but getting good at finding your patient's core anxieties and issues is the foundation for a successful therapeutic relationship for any physician. Ask your mentor to assess how well you developed therapeutic relationships.