MedEx Day 3 - June 30, 2021

Today was the third day of MedEx, and a lot of the focus today was on Graduate test prep. To start this morning, Tier III of MedEx had its first Kaplan class day! The focus of the class today was on the Chemistry and Physics section of the MCAT, the design/ format of the MCAT, and stress management strategies. During the class session, rather than just focus on reviewing lots of questions and material, the class was focused on giving the participants methods/ strategies to attack and conquer the MCAT. I felt that I gained a lot from this session, since I was able to see that in a lot of MCAT questions multiple answers can be eliminated before reading the passage or actually reading the question for various reasons. I thought that the core competencies of critical thinking, quantitative reasoning, and the capacity for improvement (through the baseline assessment of skills/ continuous testing of those skills) were achieved during this Kaplan course. I feel that this Kaplan test prep will be a great opportunity to enhance my preparation for my upcoming MCAT exam.

Later in the day we had a presentation from Dr. Lawson and Dr. Sherrill from Clemson University discussing communication skills of doctors and Bibliotherapy. Dr. Sherrill shared a quote that stood out to me, "Communication is the one skill a leader can never delegate." This quote comes from the Emory Business School and to me it represented a very true statement. As someone who has experienced doctor's leadership/ their communication skills many times throughout my life because of my father's kidney transplant, I can certainly attest to the importance of communication. When physicians don't communicate well patients may not know what to do, may feel powerless and out of control, and will likely have a worse experience. Communication is of the utmost import within healthcare, since it is central to teamwork and a core part of almost everything a physician does. Dr. Sherill and Dr. Windsor then discussed bibliotherapy which is the act of using literature as a medical technique to help patients calm their minds during a stressful experience of being in the hospital. Later on in the internship MedEx Tier III will act as bibliotherapists with a standardized patient.

Lastly, MedEx Tier III had a talk from a Prisma dietician focusing on how to buy/ eat healthily from the grocery store. She focused on avoiding trans fat, limiting sugars, carbs, and other less desirable macromolecules. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed today and learned a great deal.