Alhasan Alzubi

Hello doctors  

I would like to share my experience with the two clinical observerships I did recently in the United States.  

Just before my step 2ck exam, I decided to find an observership opportunity, so I can do it right after the exam. First, I contacted Dr Aimen Smer after hearing good things about him and his love for helping people, asking him if it is possible to do an observership with him. He replied with very beautifully detailed message with many tips and recommendation on what to do and he explained that his hospital does not provide observerships but he will try to make it happen and at the same time he recommended that I contact Dr Mansour Khaddr. I contacted Dr Mansour, and he immediately asked me to come at any time. 

Additionally, Dr. Mansour advised me to contact Dr. Mohammed Sultan and request an observership from him as well. Dr. Sultan gave his immediate approval and invited me to visit whenever I liked, so I responded that I would do so right away after my observership with Dr. Mansour.  

Dr Mansour was kind that he offered I stay at his apartment and informed me about another Libyan doctor that will be joining us, Dr Radwan Mashina. We were supposed to travel by bus so we can arrive in Wyoming at night and start with Dr Mansour on Monday. Unfortunately, the bus was cancelled at the last minute, and we did not want to miss our first day of observership so we decided to rent a car and luckily, I had my international license, so we drove about 5 hours to Rock Springs, Wyoming and we arrived at 10pm. 

At the clinic we were asked to take history from patients and present it later to Dr Mansour, we learned a lot of things like how to approach patients and how to take a good history, and of course we learned a significant amount of information about cardiology. Every day, we see echo and cardiac stress testing. I have also seen a rare condition called subclavian steal syndrome and asked Dr Mansour for his permission to do a case report about it and he happily approved. Overall, it was a wonderful experience. 

After getting done with my observership with Dr Mansour I went back to New York and from there I took the train to Virginia. Dr Sultan was a nice and kind person. I was shadowing him all the time while he was doing colonoscopies, endoscopies and endoscopic ultrasound and I learned so much about the GI anatomy and pathology and I saw many cases that I have never seen before, and that was remarkably interesting. Dr Sultan asked me to do two presentations about two topics and I learned how to do an evidence-based medicine presentation supported by all the research and data. It was a wonderful experience too. 

Finally, both observerships taught me a lot, and as a result now I have a greater understanding of the US healthcare system and how to navigate my way through it. Additionally, I also gained valuable experience on how to best interact with the hospital staff in a friendly and professional manner. 

Now that I've completed two observerships, I'll be concentrating on completing the OET and step 3. Hopefully, after that, I'll do additional observerships, and I'll be able to share more, inshallah.