What you will do:

This is an inpatient and outpatient experience during which you will be under the supervision of a  board-certified internal medicine physician. The doctor has hospital appointments at multiple hospitals, including Methodist Sugar Land Hospital, CHI St. Luke's Sugar Land Hospital, and OakBend Medical Center. The preceptor has been involved in teaching international medical students for years. The doctor's interest in teaching stems from time spent as a trainee when the physician served as chief medical resident.

In this practice, you will see adult patients with a wide variety of acute and chronic conditions. The doctor is also committed to practicing preventive medicine and spends time with patients to ensure that they are well informed of the steps that they need to take to prevent disease.

The doctor is also involved in patient care outside of the outpatient practice, and sees patients in the hospital, in nursing homes, and in skilled nursing facilities. Please note that hospital rounds with this attending are very busy given that there is a high patient census. While the volume of patients will limit the amount of time that can be spent on teaching per patient, the preceptor will spend more time teaching on the particularly interesting cases that come to the hospital. Rotators are also encouraged to ask the preceptor questions to expand their knowledge of these cases.

Another aspect of this rotation is the opportunity to evaluate and manage wounds. Research across the world has shown that relatively few hours are devoted in medical school to wound-care education. As a result, many physicians enter practice with knowledge gaps in this area. In the wound clinic, you will encounter patients with a variety of wound types, and learn how to evaluate and manage these wounds.

During your experience, you will learn the following U.S. medical practices under the preceptor’s supervision:

• Taking patient histories.

• Performing physical exams under the physician's supervision.

• Presenting patients.

• Writing or entering notes in the EMR (Practice Fusion)

• Have opportunities to research the literature to answer clinical questions at the point of care.

• Being involved in patient education.

• Giving talks.

As a result of hospital policies, inpatient activities will be more observational. The hands-on component of this rotation will mostly take place in the outpatient setting.