Clinical Correlations Final Reflection

Clinical Correlations has been one of the most challenging courses of the didactic year, by virtue of our interactions with the professors and our fellow students. Our professors played very convincing roles and drew from real cases in their years of experience, so I feel that it was nice to have more “patient” experience before actually being responsible for seeing patients. This is especially valuable for someone like me that didn’t have much one-on-one patient time before entering PA school. I’ve learned a lot about the way patients can present with very severe problems; like someone with a nearly gangrenous foot from uncontrolled diabetes that doesn’t seem to affect them at all, and I’ve learned much about how patients can be disagreeable and combative with the care providers. These scenarios taught me how to navigate through difficult patient interactions as well as pleasant and straightforward cases, while simultaneously building my list of differential diagnoses and care plan.

Clinical Correlations was also crucial for pointing out my flaws and weaknesses and highlighting my strengths. At the beginning of CC, I was overly shy and cautious about speaking up or participating out of fear of being wrong, even when I had a hunch that I was correct. By the end of CC, as my knowledge base deepened, I was more confident in my answers, and was able to articulate my reasoning even if I was wrong (but still aiming in the right direction). I also realized that pharmacology was something that I’d need to review more than other subjects, as I found memorization of some drugs to be quite difficult without having seen their usage in person. I think my strengths lied in my knowledge of pathophysiology and ability to contribute to the class discussion by narrowing down the potential disease processes. I will continue to pursue my interest in anatomy and physiology in depth for my surgical and internal medicine rotations, as well as make sure to understand that it’s okay to be wrong and look things up in detail afterwards. I will also definitely make sure that I know my pharmacology in order to form the best possible treatment plans for patients.