Overall, I really enjoyed my family medicine rotation with Dr. Richter at Rego Park. He is a very knowledgeable physician who knows and cares for his patients well and gives students enough autonomy to learn as well. One of the situations that was sometimes challenging for me was eliciting abnormal findings on the physical exam, because I don’t have enough experience yet to know with confidence what the normal is. One of the ways that helped me get better at it was to note what I thought was concerning, which Dr. Richter assessed as well, and then gave me advice on to improve my skills in the future.

This rotation also gave me the opportunity to manage new type of patients who were on suboxone for maintenance for their opioid addiction and dependence disorder. The suboxone training that we completed in school was perfect timing! Dr. Richter knew all of his patients well and would use humor to ease any type of anxiety they might have had during the visit. It was challenging for me to assure patients the trust I had in them, and then ask them to perform a urine drug test and to bring empty packets of medication for me to count. However, it is something that must be done as documentation is very important and the process has to be accurate.

During this rotation I was also exposed to a new EMR, EClinicalWorks, which I did not encounter at my prior rotations. I was a little familiar with it from my old job as a medical scribe at CityMD, and even though it has been a while, I remembered the general concepts. I had to figure out how to use ECW quickly, how to efficiently write an HPI, consult past medical documents/reports, and which ICD 10 codes to assign, which were checked by Dr. Richter. In the end, this was a very good opportunity to not only interview and examine the patients, but to also record all of my findings.

The most memorable experience that I will carry with me are the patients that I have seen several times and remembered as they came back for another follow-up. One of those experiences was an elderly female patient who came in for a follow-up on her hypertension and anxiety. While her HTN was controlled at the time, she did disclose that she was extremely stressed out due to her grandson’s health. We talked about it for a while and I would like to think that that conversation was somewhat helpful to her. The next time she saw me, she hugged me after the visit which I thought was very sweet and I hope her situation is resolving into a positive way.

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