EMRA and CDEM this week launched "Patient Presentations in Emergency Medicine," a new training video for medical students. Demonstrating how to tell a compelling story when presenting a patient's case, this brief video offers hand do's and don'ts on how to communicate efficiently and effectively in the ED. EMRA Education Committee members Michael Yip, MD, of Yale School of Medicine, and Aditi Mitra, MD, of William Beaumont - both of whom appear in the film - said the project grew from a simple discussion about how best to serve students.
"One area we identified was the patient presentation in the ED," Dr. Mitra said. "That's something I think is unique, but it's not really discussed much in the literature."
A 2008 paper from Academic Emergency Medicine, "The 3-Minute Emergency Medicine Medical Student Presentation: A Variation on a Theme," stood out, Dr. Mitra said. But it didn't translate into practice as easily as a video might.
"We wanted to demonstrate in a video, using a clinical scenario as an example, and show students how to present, taking them through the entire process," she said.
Dr. Yip said the goal is to serve patients better by improving communication.
"As medical students, we're taught by default to collect a laundry list of data about a patient and his/her history and exam before formulating an assessment and plan," he said. "In the wise words of 2012 viral video star Sweet Brown, 'Ain't nobody got time for that!' [in emergency medicine].