Hello, My name is ____ and I'm a first year medical student."

I've always wondered if physicians are ever explicitly taught how to introduce themselves to a patient... Unfortunately, I've visited a few in my life that I'd argue have never thought twice about it...

Until recently, I wasn't entirely sure how to do it. That is why, a few days back, while volunteering at the free student-run clinic, I made sure to ask the second-year med student that I was shadowing, what to say when we walked in to see the patient. Just steps outside the patient's "room" (I'll explain why I put "room" in quotes) she told me, "Don't worry, just say, 'Hello, my name is ____ and I'm a first year Medical Student."
(I put "room" in quotes because this clinic is assembled and taken down in a community church gymnasium once a week. It's put together with moveable walls no taller that 7 feet high that we velcro together. Each room has an exam table, a few chairs, and a stash of necessary supplies. Totaling about 14 rooms, it's split into the general clinic, the STI/HIV clinic, and has one room with a social worker to help patients sign up for healthcare and find other social services.)

Done. That was easy enough. First step, introduction, out of the way...

The second step: "What brings you in here today?" Time for us to hear the patient's story.

We were seeing patients in the STI/HIV clinic, so probably something related to sexual health... Her response was "pregnancy". This seemed simple enough, that is, until you ask the next question, which opens the door to sexual history, which opens the door to lifestyle, which is when you find out the concern of Hepatitis C from sharing needles. This is when we discovered the stress she has been experiencing from unemployment, lacking health insurance, and missing her period for the past two cycles. Was pregnancy really the chief concern in my eyes? Not really. She had lost 5 pounds in the last month, and had been pregnant before, but was not experiencing any of the same symptoms as last time... After 45 minutes of working with the patient, collecting samples, blood draws, and discussing her lifestyle and personal health, I felt much more comfortable in the clinical setting. I was also excited for more. The experience was eye-opening, humbling, and an amazing introduction to being on the practitioner-side of healthcare delivery.

My role was minute during that first visit. I asked a couple questions and didn't provide much to the interaction. Luckily the patient was comfortable enough to allow me to be there, to learn from her and the other med student. I realize that at this point, I'm simply taking from my experiences. I'm learning and walking away to reflect on what I did. I look forward to when I'll be able to contribute, so that it is not only the patient giving me insight into their life and beliefs, but also my chance to be a part of helping them improve their health. I remember, during the visit, looking at the second-year and thinking, "Wow, this is where I'll be in a year. I'll have a deeper knowledge of clinical work, and I'll probably have a new first-year shadowing me."

After the clinic shut down, we went out to get some food/drinks, which was when I was reminded that his next year is going to be very socially active, which is fantastic, however it will potentially be like high school because each class is roughly 200 students, something I'm not terribly excited about...

The next day I started reviewing what we've learned about patient interviewing. Awesome.

My goal now is improving my patient interviewing skills through deliberate practice:

1. Set specific goals (To improve my patient interviewing skills)
2. Obtain immediate feedback (Utilize self-reflection and other med students and clinicians to see how I did)
3. Concentrate on both technique and outcome (How did the interaction go? what skills do I perform well and what needs to improve?)

In the mean time, if you hear about/want to know about/want me to learn about a disease/illness/symptom/treatment/drug/whatever, ask me about it, not because I know the answer, but so I can use the library resources they provide us to learn about it. It's really amazing what we can access, seriously, its hella cool (I get made fun of sometimes for using hella being a West Coast term).

I have a lot more to share, but I really need to eat some food before I go to pharmacology lecture.