I had the pleasure of having Professor Andrea Pizzaro as my site evaluator for my Obstetrics and Gynecology Rotation at Woodhull Medical Center. Professor Andrea had kindly sent specific instructions beforehand that should be included in our history and physicals, which included differentials after our history of present illness or differentials after our exam. We also needed to include patient information, which, I believe should be incorporated more often in history and physicals because many patients have questions about their treatment, even if it is simple dosage of medication, so I really appreciated taking the extra time to write up that information, so future patients can understand.

For our first site evaluation, my classmates and I were scheduled to meet Professor Andrea at New York Presbyterian with one history and physical and five pharmacology cards. My site evaluation, for the most part, I believe, went smoothly. I pretty much read off the paper, which is not ideal for me, but it prevents me from becoming completely nervous. Professor Andrea was very nice and I don’t believe I received much feedback on the first site evaluation. She then tested all three students on each other’s pharmacology cards, which was a little unexpected. Though we all knew our own cards, we did not know each other’s. Our professor informed us that we should all be at a point where we should know each other’s pharmacology cards, even if we have not studied them. Andrea also gave us a very good lesson on the usage of Vancomycin and its titers and what to do with the results.

For my second site evaluation, things were a little different. I had just finished an overnight, 16-hour shift, for GYN on call and I was extremely tired. I also had to bring my son to the evaluation because the baby sitter could not make it. So, before I started presenting my case, Professor Andrea asked if I did the entire physical, that I stated that I did. And I said, “of course not”. And she nicely explained that it is not appropriate for this to happen, especially when you start practicing real medicine. So, back tracking a little bit, I actually had no idea that you could write a focused physical with a full history. I had no idea that it was even an option. One of my classmates actually told me that as long as I document an entire history, I can have a focused exam, and that would count as a full history and physical. I guess when the term full history and physical is used, I thought that everything needed to be done to these patients. In the past, I normally did have enough time with patients to do an entire physical, but for Ob/GYN, either students were not allowed to touch the patients or we did not have enough time because patients were in clinic. Anyways, I learned a lot from Andrea and her feedback about my documentation. I understand that documenting something that was not preformed is a huge liability to the hospital or office I will work for. I learned a lot from Professor Andrea and feel truly grateful to have her as a site evaluator.

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