First week thoughts

Hi Everyone,
I hope you all are doing well. I am in my first clinical week at the UNC Oncology Clinic. I thought I might as well start sharing some thoughts and ideas from this week. First off, and maybe most importantly, if anyone other than me is at all prone to passing out under certain circumstances in hospitals, I highly recommend eating a small snack between breakfast and lunch. :-) No, I did not pass out but had a close call; and I think it was exacerbated by the fact that I ate breakfast very early in the morning, lunch was relatively late, and thus had an empty stomach. Just FYI!

My preceptor meets with most of her patients while they are receiving chemotherapy or waiting to see the doctor. As a result, she carries around a very large and very well organized binder of all of her best handouts. It is fantastic! She also carries a highlighter with her, so she is able to quickly pull out handouts for her patients and highlight the important parts as she discusses the handout with the patient. This was something I had not thought of before (not really thinking through the fact that one might not be meeting with patients in an office) and thought was very useful and could be easily applied to many situations.

Overall, the week has been a really great and challenging experience so far.
- Amy