The most striking thing for me was how engaging today’s activities were. Patient safety isn’t one of the “sexiest” topics in medicine, but I learned a ton about communication over the course of the day. One particularly beneficial thing for me was how well the physician-nurse relationship was discussed. My med school had two interprofessional workshops this past year, but the student reaction to them was negative. The format in which we had interprofessional discussions today was much better, and gave me a much better idea of nurses’ goals and skills. Obviously, this is a very important part of the working the healthcare field, and interprofessional communication skills are a major asset, one which is not adequately developed in my school’s curriculum (at least in the pre-clinical years).
I also got ten research project ideas today, eight of which are EMR-related (which is a big interest of mine). Hopefully I can turn some of these into actual projects once I get back to school, although I’m sure I’ll have plenty more ideas over the next few days.
Woohoo!