Surgery
What Goes In Your Pockets:
Note cards or scutsheets to keep track of your patients, cheap pens you don’t mind losing or loaning to your resident, PDA/phone with drug reference, Maxwell’s, stethoscope, alcohol wipes, snacks, The DoctorsInTraining.com Resident Handbook, an extra pair of gloves in your size, +/- wound dressing supplies, +/- Surgical Recall.
What to Study:
- Surgical Recall - Read Sections I and II twice during the rotation. Determine on DAY ONE of the rotation how many pages you need to read every day in order to read through these sections twice. The Subspecialty Section is less high- yield, but worth reading through once. This book is really all you need for surgery and is great for reading 5 minutes at a time between cases.
- Blueprints Surgery - If you are going to read this short text, do so in the first week of rotation to get a good basic understanding of surgery.
- Case Files: Surgery or Surgery Pretest - Both are commonly used question and answer style review books. Pick one and work your way through it to help prepare for the shelf exam.
Other Advice:
- If you plan on taking an active role in patient care, you need The DoctorsInTraining.com Resident Handbook.
- Keep note cards on your patients and update them every day. There are some really great scutsheets ready-to-print at medfools.com.
- Power down snacks between cases. You don’t want to be in on a long case with an empty stomach and pass out!
- Wear comfortable shoes, as you will be on your feet all day.
- Make nice with the scrub nurses. Go in before each case and introduce yourself. Ask if you should go get the gloves you’ll need in your size.
