Over the last two semesters, I have noticed improvement in my critical thinking, history taking and ability to piece together information to lead to a diagnosis. Clinical Correlations remains an invaluable part of my didactic year, as it provided me with the ability to work through cases similarly to how my clinical year will be and reflect on my thought processes.

An aspect of this course that stood out to me is the importance of the patient history, which is crucial in understanding a patient. There were many times where it was initially difficult to evaluate the patient’s concern because my colleagues and I did not ask questions that would lead us to the diagnosis. Not all patients will be forthright with their history and patients do not know what questions you need answered to aid in the diagnosis, so it is crucial to always think and ask all pertinent questions.

Bringing both the patient’s history, physical and any additional findings such as lab or radiology results has been another skill that I have adapted over the last two semesters. It has been especially useful, as sometimes the instructors would not provide the interpretations of the lab or radiology results, allowing me to take the time to interpret them for myself. While I have noticed I am more attune to what normal values are and what may be the abnormal lab or imaging, I plan to continue to work on how those results relate back to my patient and what steps must be taken next.

I continued to work on my differential diagnoses and expand on the differentials I include. I realize that I have improved on keeping my differentials broad instead of immediately pointing myself towards one diagnosis. This is a skill I did not have at the beginning of this course in the first semester of Clinical Correlations, as I often kept my diagnosis extremely narrow. While this is something I am still working on, as I do find myself still jumping to the first diagnosis I have in mind, I have seen improvement.

Lastly, I have found that my ability to put a plan in action after making a diagnosis still needs improvement. While it depends on the disease, I find that next steps and pharmacologic treatment are often a weakness for me. Additionally, I will need to start understanding more about dosing medications, which is an aspect I hope to learn during my clinical year.

As I now transition from didactic to clinical year, I plan on working on all of the aspects above in order to improve both my own knowledge and patient care. Although I have seen improvement between my two semesters of Clinical Correlations, I know I can still improve on all aspects, including my patient history, interpretation, differentials and treatment plans. With that said, I look forward to rotations to further learn, engage and apply the foundation of knowledge I have learned during both this course and my entire didactic year.