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Prior to returning to classes in January five Hamilton pre-med seniors spent a week shadowing residents at Saint Elizabeth Medical Center in Utica. Participants were Emily Gaudet, Rebecca Williams, Caitlin Burzynski, Meghan Carter and Emina Memisevic.

 

The students’ days began at 7 a.m. with morning meeting, during which residents and medical students gathered for presentations on a variety of medical conditions and case studies. From 8 a.m. until late afternoon they shadowed residents in Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, Surgery, OB/GYN, and Pediatrics at St. E’s, St. Luke’s, or one of several satellite clinics nearby.


Gaudet noted, “For all of us, it was invaluable to gain exposure to so many areas of medicine. We experienced specialties that we had not previously considered, and learned what ‘a day in the life of a resident’ is really like.”


Residency is a critical 3-7 year period (depending on the specialty) of medical education during which recent medical school graduates begin to officially practice medicine on their own. “We saw that residents have a mix of responsibility and freedom – at times given complete autonomy when caring for patients, and at others standing by and observing a more experienced doctor,” Gaudet said.


“We saw a wide range of patients in the family medicine clinics – from babies to geriatric patients, and one of us was lucky enough to see a pregnant mother in the OB ward one day, and her baby in the nursery days later. It was also eye-opening to spend time in a community hospital and to appreciate just how diverse Utica’s population is,” she concluded.

 

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