OPEX 2014 Reflections

Due Monday January 13, 2014 at 5 pm     (2 page maximum)

Mid-year reflections

• Describe your site: The neighborhood, the office, the doctors and other staff, the patients
• Consider safety, barriers, and access to care issues -- including transportation, insurance, language, etc
• How did you feel on your first visit or two to the office?
  (A suggestion building on this part of the assignment: throughout the year keep your own journal/diary of the events and your reflections at each OPEX visit so that you can later recall this very special early experience in your Becoming a Doctor)
• Describe your most memorable patient seen during the first half of OPEX.  Why did you pick this patient as your most memorable?
• Share your thoughts about your practice and about yourself as you begin your transformation to Becoming a Doctor.

Due  Fri October 24, 2014 at 5 pm (2 pg maximum)

End of year reflections

• Was the experience what you expected? Was it what you wanted? What was good? What was lacking about it?
• Look back at what you wrote regarding your first few visits (30 Jan assignment) and compare/contrast your views/understanding/comfort level/approach during these early visits with your views/understanding/comfort level/approach in the visits near the end of your OPEX year.
• What kinds of emotions did you feel as you participated in your OPEX experience?
• Based on your small group discussions and the varied experiences of other students in your small group, describe what you have determined are the differences between community and university affiliated physicians? What are your thoughts/opinions about the various types of physicians?
• How has OPEX changed or reinforced your initial opinions about medicine, primary care; your career goals?

OPEX Journal

Students are requested to use this journal to reflect upon their OPEX experiences, positive, negative and perplexing.  By the end of every month, each student should write an entry for his/her journal.  Some suggestions about the types of subjects that might be included are:  perspectives about one of the patient encounters; a “difficult” patient; an interaction with the preceptor; comments on the observed interaction between patient and preceptor, a cultural or ethical issue. 

The minimum length of each entry is 3 paragraphs; the maximum length is 2 pages (unless there is a compelling problem requiring a longer entry.  If desired, an entry may be done in the form of a poem or some other form of creative writing.

These journal entries will not be graded, per se, but they will be available to, and will be read by Dr. Williams, Dr. Bussey-Jones, Dr. Bernstein and the small group leader.