My Long-Term Care rotation was completed at an outpatient Geriatric clinic. It was a great experience, and I felt more comfortable working with this population of patients. During my undergrad, I volunteered at a nursing home near my college for about a year, and it was a great learning and growing environment for me. I feel that my experience as a volunteer helped teach me some of the communication, care and professional skills needed when dealing with the elderly population.

The rotation itself was a great experience. The learning environment was good. The communication and teamwork between the staff were good. I had the opportunity to work closely with the doctors and residents at the clinic. I enjoyed being able to practice obtaining the full H&P on patients independently. I also liked that the time allotted for each patient visit here was much longer and comprehensive than at other specialties.

I appreciated the time and effort the doctors and nurses took to teach me during the interview. I enjoyed the lectures after all the patients were seen. The doctors challenged me to continue learning by encouraging me to research interesting topics and conditions that came up during our discussions. During this rotation, I felt more inquisitive and more curious to learn more about topics I did not know or were unclear to me. 

I enjoyed being able to do a more thorough physical exam on patients as I was able to continue to brush up on my physical exam skills. I also got to practice more other not-so-common aspects of the patient interviewing and physical exam such as obtaining information on ADLs and IADLS of patients, and being able to do more cognitive exams, gait exams etc.

The office had a good number of patients daily, so I had the opportunity to deal with a variety of patients with varying conditions. The patients were also great to work with. I had great interactions with all the patients, and it reminded me a bit of my time volunteering at the nursing home. Overall, this rotation was another great rotation that I have had so far, for many reasons. Some being the reasons mentioned earlier such as the work environment, the learning and educational opportunities, the ability to work on my procedural skills and more. I know I still have some things to work on such as being more thorough with my physical exams and interviews as I will discuss in my patient presentation summary, but I know my confidence in my skills and abilities have improved following this rotation.