Im in my second rotation now. I am currently doing family medicine at a FL health clinic in a rural area.

My patients are very sick, poor, and most of the time have no insurance, or very little money. I mostly see patients that have diabetes, hypertension (high blood pressure), hyperlipidemia (high cholesterol), depression, and other various diseases.

Many patients will come in suffering from many issues, it is my job to sort out the most important ones. I wish I could spend an hour with every patient I see, but sadly it is not realistic when you have a schedule of 30+ patients.

The walmart and publix drug lists are becoming my best friend. If I need to prescribe anything, I try to go off the list so patients get their meds for free, 4$ or 10$. For you future students on rotation, put a list of these in your pocket. They are very useful and they are not just for the patients that have no insurance, everyone should put them to use.

I also recommend that you download some applications for your droid or Iphone. Some good ones are medscape, epocrates, ICD9 codes. Make sure you ask your preceptor in advance to use your phone. Some dont mind, and some mind a lot. I use medscape mostly especially for drug dosages. I'm getting to the point though where I keep using the same drugs over and over and I don't need the dosages at all...thank goodness! :)

I hope everyone is enjoying the fall and everyone is counting their blessings. God is good...God is love, hope, and encouragement.