Part of the reason it's rough is that you have to get to know your interviewer and they have to get to know you in a very short amount of time, sometimes as little as seven minutes. Therefore, their questions and your answers become extremely (and stressfully) important. Some questions are pretty straightforward, and some really throw you for a loop. The next few blog posts will be a series on some of the questions I was asked during interviews and how I responded to them (or should have responded to them).
Today's question: "Tell me about a time you went above and beyond for a patient."
I felt like this was a pretty tricky question. As a medical student, it's hard to determine from rotation to rotation what level of performance is expected. On one rotation, the perception may be that if you're not following five patients, why are you even here. On another rotation, that same number of patients may be seen as exceptional work, and wow this student is really together to manage so many patients! This can even vary on the same service, depending on who your attending, or head doctor, is.
So what would this interviewer consider "above and beyond"? At first I thought about when I had spent hours of my own time researching what could possibly be wrong with a confusing patient. But what amount of time would have met the criteria of going above and beyond without making it seem like I was inefficient at developing a differential diagnosis? I quickly scrapped that idea. The time I called three different hospitals to obtain medical records on one of our patients? Or would he think that is simply the medical student's job, and view me as a complainer for thinking that was a big deal?
Ultimately I settled on the time that I wrote out every single one of my patient's 22 medications, what they were for, and common side effects or pitfalls to watch for when taking those medications. I then spent an hour going through the list with her and just talking about what she had been going through. My interviewer seemed satisfied with that (though is it really possible to know?) and we moved on.
But it got me thinking. All these examples that I thought of were only possible because I was the medical student. I had the time to spend hours reading outside of the hospital because I wasn't stuck doing paperwork. I had the time to call three different hospitals because I wasn't trying to schedule two CT scans and an MRI. I had the time to write out my patient's medications because I didn't have six other patients to take care of.
If I ever end up in the hospital, I totally want a medical student involved in my care. They are the ones with the time to read up on what's wrong with you, they are the ones who are taking care of fewer patients and can give more time to each of them, they are the ones who aren't yet jaded by years in medicine and might care a little more about the humanity of their patients. It's something I hope I'll never lose, but at the same time I know next year that can't be me spending hours to go through a patient's medications with them. I simply won't have the time.
There are plenty of things I will not miss about being a medical student: all of my work being completely redundant, arbitrary grading processes, impromptu evidence-based medicine presentations, waiting for someone to sign my order for IV fluids, twiddling your thumbs for three hours at the hospital because there's nothing to do but no one has let you go. But I will miss having so much time to spend with my patients. I've learned a lot about building patient relationships during my time as a student. Now all I have to do is learn how to build that same relationship in a tenth of the time.
For those medical students out there, what will you miss (or not!) about being a student? For non-medical students, what would you consider "going above and beyond" for your care if you were in the hospital? For everyone, would you want a medical student involved in your care?
