This rotation is split between time in the office, OR and in the ambulatory care clinic. You will get your schedule for this at the beginning of the rotation from the DSSL. During this rotation, the hours are pretty good and there is often study-time scheduled in during the week.
There are currently 4 urologists in Prince George. The day before you are to be in clinic with any of them, text and ask what time they want you there at- this is often variable so make sure you check in beforehand. The preceptors like to ask a lot of questions during this rotation, so make sure you have done your pre-reading and are prepared.
Office: What you do in office will depend on the preceptor. If there are new consults, you will have the opportunity to do the full history/physical and come up with a ddx and management plan. For follow-up patients, you often just accompany the preceptor during the appointment. This is a good opportunity to see patients with common urological problems, such as prostate cancer, BPH and hematuria.
OR: During the OR days, due to the nature of the procedures, there is more observation in urology than some of the other specialties. However, if there is an opportunity for you to scrub in and get some hands-on practice, the preceptors are really good at getting you in there. Make sure to review the OR slate ahead of time and come well prepared for each case with the anatomy, risk factors, clinical presentation, and medical and surgical management. Again, they like to ask a lot of questions. It is usually a good idea to be in the OR area by 7:30 at the latest so you have time to review the patient chart and introduce yourself to the patient before the case starts.
Ambulatory Care: You may or may not spend time in the ambulatory care clinic doing cystoscopy with the urologist. These are the main procedures performed here.
Rounding: You are responsible for rounding on all urology patients admitted to the hospital each day, even if you weren’t scrubbed in on their case. It is a good idea to touch base with the student that was on the rotation before you to get a hand-over list of patients that you should be rounding on. If you are in the OR or in the clinic in the morning, make sure you have done your rounding before OR/clinic starts.
During this rotation, you are on call Monday-Thursday until 11pm and Friday until 5pm. This seems like a lot, but generally during the rotation, students will only end up spending 1-2 evenings in the hospital seeing cases. The urologist usually only calls you in if it is going to be an interesting case that you can get some learning from or if there is a new consult to see. If you want to get a sense if there could be anything happening, check the OR pink slip board to see if there are any emergent urology cases scheduled to be happening.
Come prepared! The amount of questioning compared to other rotations is greater, but all of the preceptors are all really nice and just use question asking as their way of teaching.
This rotation is a really good place to develop approaches to common urological problems that you will see in a variety of other specialties (particularly family medicine).