Throughout the Fall semester and Spring, I learned how to be a more efficient historian with my patients’ H&Ps. I believe that the practice of writing out each H&P helped in remembering important questions to ask each one of my patients. I think this will be an important skill in the future, especially during my clinical rotations where I will be presenting patients to my preceptors as well as my site evaluators. I think the experience of writing H&Ps has also helped me to understand what a normal write up for a patient’s physical exam looks like as opposed to an abnormal write up. I believe that this will help me in understanding the H&Ps written by other clinicians in my clinical rotations. I’ll be able to understand what objective symptoms patients may have and it can help me to focus my treatment or to help me practice in writing an assessment and plan. I also think that I have a better grasp now on how important a proper H&P can be when treating a patient. It encompasses their entire medical profile and I now value and understand how this helps more than one clinician, from either the same team or a different service, treat a patient effectively. A proper H&P will be invaluable in practice, I believe and is definitely an important tool for team-based practice.

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