Blink

My first couple days in the ambulatory internal medicine clinic have offered excellent opportunities to review diseases and concepts.  However, what was painfully made clear to me is that even through continuous medical education, I have lost practice in some areas.  Core and elective rotations in Pediatrics, Obstetrics & Gynecology, Radiology, Physiatry, Family Medicine, and Psychiatry presented few occasions to practice and review the diseases and conditions I once knew so well in Internal Medicine about a year ago.  For instance, clinical cases involving monoclonal gammopathy and dermatomyositis simply never came up since then.  I was reminded of the phrase, “use it or lose it.”

Apart from revealing some gaps in knowledge, these first couple days have allowed me to reflect on some of the challenges I’ve faced while learning how to learn through medical school.  Our preceptor brought up Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Blink. It is a book about rapid cognition. Our preceptor used the concept to refer to the rapid decision making that occurs to arrive at a diagnosis in the first few seconds after being presented with a clinical case with a classic textbook presentation.   The only problem is I felt that while many of my colleagues were learning to how to “blink” their way through clerkship, I was trying to catch up.  I would often arrive at the correct answer, but I felt that I needed slightly more time to think about a problem.  These insights led me to begin thinking about the way I think, and how I interpret the volumes of medical information that we are taught in medical school. I am continuously trying to learn new ways to learn and make connections between pieces of information so that I can access them more quickly.  It’s still a work in progress.

By: Nishani