On to the consult service.

My favorite month and the month I dread.
The most stimulating and just the most.

I have two medical students and one fellow. Which is a particularly difficult combination to teach. You have students at the beginning their education and a fellow almost done with her formal training.

My fellow has already told me that she wants to focus on fluids and electrolytes which suits my interests perfectly. It also dovetails nicely with what medical students typically want to get out of a fourth year nephro rotation (especially after rank lists have been submitted).

My plan for the syllabus is:

  • Mon: Ca, Phos, metabolic bone disease (PDF or Zip file for Pages), more acid-base problems
  • Tues: Collectively use mind maps to describe renal physiology Continue to teach ABGs: Anion gap metabolic acidosis with gap-gap (delta gap) and osmolar gap (PDF or Zip file for Pages)
  • Wed: Mind the gap…osmotic gap, anion gap, stool osmolar gap, urinary anion gap Busy clinic, no time for any teaching
  • Thurs: presentation of outlines/abstract of end-of-the-month presentation, non-anion gap metabolic acidosis PowerPoint presentation.
  • Fri: Vacation (for me not the students)
  • Mon: Alcohol and its protean effects on electrolytes Did this March 6th
  • Tues: first student/fellow presentation
  • Wed-Fri: NKF Spring Clinical Meeting
  • Mon: second student/fellow presentation
  • Tues: third student/fellow presentation

It’s an ambitious plan. We’ll see how it goes.

4 Replies to “On to the consult service.”

  1. Sounds like a great recipe of topics! I thoroughly understand the challenge of teaching at multiple levels. One thought is to ask the fellow to take one or more of the topics and teach to the students. That way she hones his/her teaching skills and you can observe for accuracy, organization, presentation etc.

    I need to figure out what the “mind maps” are; is this another term for “flow diagram”?

    Enjoying your site, as always. I was once very involved in teaching Nephrology (at all levels) and had the same thoughts….some exhilaration and some dread.

  2. Sounds like a good syllabus…as a 4th yr med student doing the nephrology rotation at Harper/Receiving, electrolytes and acid-base were the main things I wanted to get out of the month (between getting yelled at by the infamous Dr. Pravit Cadnaprapornchai.) Oddly enough, I remember becoming fascinated by CRRT during that month as well. Demystifying dialysis maybe another topic to discuss as well (rather you can encourage the fellows to educate the students about that).

Comments are closed.