Community Clinic Personal Statement

The 2017 community clinic has been a great opportunity for me as a student to experience what my future as a doctor is going to be like. This experience has helped me improve and develop my skills when treating patients. Also I have gained a lot of confidence from this clinic which will be truly supportive for my future clinical rotations. Interaction with the patient, observing my classmates, advice from professors and residents and feedback from my third year mentor has given me a tremendous amount of useful knowledge. Communication is one of my weakest skills and, therefore, I felt nervous prior to the community clinic experience. Since English is not my first language I do not feel as confident as other people when communicating and especially

As a student, I wish there was a guide to follow when a patient comes in but, as some of my professors say, ‘there is no black and white’, therefore. It is crucial to gather the information provided by the patient and make it useful for an accurate diagnosis. Once again, practice and knowledge combined are crucial for critical thinking skills. During my community clinic I made mistakes in terms of making critical decisions due to both lack of knowledge and practice. It is important to take into consideration the time management and the kind of patient in order to make decisions too since they both play a key role. I learnt a lot from this community clinic, especially from my mistakes and the feedback that my third year mentor gave me. It is substantially important to learn from what I did wrong in order to change it and improve it. I honestly expected a worst outcome prior to this experience, I had the feeling that I was going to panic and struggle with my communication and critical thinking skills due to the lack of knowledge but overall, the outcome was great since I realized I had more knowledge than I thought and controlled the situation