I did an observership under the kind stewardship of Dr.Usman Khan for a duration of four weeks at HCA North West and epic vascular and heart center in Houston. It is my pleasure to recommend to all this comprehensive, elite quality US clinical experience. From the very beginning of this rotation Dr.Khan makes you feel special, instead of him illustrating his expectations and demands from any typical observer. He asks for your goals and aspirations from this acquaintance. This leads to the formation of a very strong bond between Dr.Khan and his observers which is immensely important for any good clinical observership. Dr. Khan makes sure from the first day that the observers familiarize themselves with the EMR and get involved in patient management by asking possible differential diagnosis and management plan for every patient seen stimulating an observer’s medical knowledge and cognition. There is plenty of opportunity to observe and learn stress testing, Echocardiography, carotid doppler, arterial and venous duplex scans. I also observed different techniques for treatment for chronic venous insufficiency like radiofrequency thermal ablation, venoseal and sclerosing therapy.
At the Hospital observers follow Dr.Khan for patient rounds, view multiple procedures like cardiac catheterization, TEE and percutaneous intervention (PCI), he also made sure that I learned the EMR used at the hospital as well. Dr.Khan takes a keen interest not just in answering your queries and clearing your concepts but he also gives invaluable tips for your residency application, interview skills and life as a practicing physician in general. I also got the opportunity to deliver a presentation on “2019 AHA/ACC/AACVPR/AAPA/ABC/ACPM/ADA/AGS/APhA/ASPC/NLA/PCNA Guideline on the management of Blood Cholesterol: A Report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Clinical Practice Guidelines.” Dr.Khan has the most unique way of conducting a presentation as he helps you understand each and every point, making sure the audience and the presenter both can gauge the presented concept. He was extremely appreciative of my effort and applauded my communication skills, knowledge of the topic and language fluency.
I also had the privilege to attend a presentation given by Dr.Khan himself at HCA Kingwood on Anticoagulants and Anti platelet in front of the whole Medicine department. This presentation not only enhance my medical knowledge but also allowed me to communicate with medicine residents, multiple attending doctors and hospital staff members. After the presentation Dr.Khan also introduced me to the assistant program director of Internal Medicine at HCA kingwood, who welcomed us at the hospital and provided incredible words of encouragement and advice for the NRMP match process. Everyone at the clinic and the hospital works together as a team and has great respect for each other. Dr. Khan, nurse practitioners and the MAs provided me with constructive criticism on how to improve as a practicing physician. The amount of experience and work I did overall was comparable to the responsibilities of an intern in a residency program. A typical day was seeing patients back to back and then working on EMR which made me aware of my shortcomings and helped me enhance my qualities. Dr.Khan also gives weekly assignments to be done at home and verbally presented later. He was extremely impressed with my assignment verbal presentation on “Aortic Dissection and its management”. Dr.Khan gave critics on my performance at the clinic and the hospital on daily and weekly basis which helped me tremendously to improve my performance. He was really appreciative of my dedication, knowledge, compassion, consistency, ability to learn, my team player ability. He was happy to see my energy and eagerness to learn and improve not just as a doctor but also as a person.
In conclusion I can proudly say that this observership was my best US clinical experience. As it provided me with the opportunity to not just interact with the patients, the staff and work with two different EMR system but it enhanced my knowledge, communication skills, mannerisms and English language proficiency. At the end of the rotation Dr.Khan conducts an exit interview with all observers providing them with positive and negative feedback as appropriate. To anyone looking for a US clinical experience I with the bottom of my heart recommend this clinical observership to become better physicians and better human beings.