How to prepare for A&E placement (medicine,4th year)

Help me please ge ready for my placement.

Thank you. I am looking forward to it as I really struggle with clerking and presenting patients to senior and it's something I want to improve on. I think this is due to my lack of history knowledge and knowing what key questions to ask for each system. I only have one week in A&E unfortunately.

Would you advise me to stick with one junior dr for the whole shift or tag alone with different staff members?

Yeah, A&E is a very good placement for practising all of that. The more you do it, the more you'll improve. It's a shame you only get a week.



It will probably depend on what your shifts are like (and theirs).

The best thing to do is to make yourself known to the consultant in charge at the start of each shift* so they can allocate you to an area or one of the junior doctors. At some point, whoever you're with may need to go home so s/he can hopefully introduce you to someone else.

*Or whatever your med school tell you to do - hopefully you'll get some sort of guidance or induction

Yeah, A&E is a very good placement for practising all of that. The more you do it, the more you'll improve. It's a shame you only get a week.



It will probably depend on what your shifts are like (and theirs).

The best thing to do is to make yourself known to the consultant in charge at the start of each shift* so they can allocate you to an area or one of the junior doctors. At some point, whoever you're with may need to go home so s/he can hopefully introduce you to someone else.

*Or whatever your med school tell you to do - hopefully you'll get some sort of guidance or induction

hey great advice so far.

i'm an fy1 and my next rotation is A&E, i've forgotten so much medicine and other systems history-taking skills, do you have any advice for my rotation?

I think the first thing to say is that FY1 jobs in A&E are pretty rare so you should be well supported. At the very least you should be discussing all your patients with a senior as you won't be expected to discharge patients independently. Have a low threshold for seeking help.

In terms of the actual work, I think it'll probably feel a bit intense for the first few weeks until you settle in. After a few weeks you'll have seen the majority of presentations and after a few months I think you'll have seen most of the common conditions.

I wrote a more detailed post here: https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showpost.php?p=80876288&postcount=7240

One thing I would add to that post is be extra careful about patients who are handed over to you as some doctors seem to be forever jinxed by the hospital gods to handover complex/difficult patients and it's easy to get caught out. Similarly, make sure you handover appropriate jobs and not things like referrals or discharge summaries as you're the one who's properly seen the patient.

If you admit patients, hold onto their record numbers and follow them up as they make their way through the hospital or outpatients - this is a good way of seeing what eventually happens to them as many times you won't arrive at a final diagnosis when you clerk them.

In terms of refreshing your knowledge - GeekyMedics is good for videos and quick recaps, so it might be worth taking some time to look through the neuro and MSK examinations before you change over. Search youtube for videos on ABCDE assessment e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLuC0T7RsKI

Final thing is to try and enjoy it (despite the tough rota) - I saw some interesting stuff when I did the job: TB, first presentation of sarcoidosis, encephalitis, erythema nodosum, some truly wacky malunions etc. Definitely getting nostalgic now

Hope that helps.