Clinical Shadowing Experience

Overall, on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday has been quite experiential learning about the symptoms and diagnoses of the last 23 patients. Many of which have been through so much and experienced much pain and despair. But, Dr. Katzenberg bring these patients much relief and a sense of hope back in their life. Dr. Katzenberg illustrated much expertise during my clinical shadowing experience, one technique I noticed from the cardiologist was his effective speech craft toward his patients; he demonstrated excellent skills regarding meaningful patterns of information. He was able to ask questions in a certain pattern to gather information effectively. This helped facilitate my organizational learning as well because I was becoming accustomed to

I felt like I did not belong there at first due to many accomplished and mono-racial people I was surrounded by. Initially, I was afraid of how they think of me and the common generalizations crossing their minds. Especially, considering that 95% of the patients I encountered were elderly white people, my concern was hoping not to experience a negative repulsive reaction. This did not occur fortunately, however, as I enter some patients’ rooms I did observe surprised facial reactions and comments such as, “you are lucky to be here”, and “good luck with everything”. I felt there was much privilege here, concerning the majority of white patients and their educational and professional background. Many of the white patients I encountered were very old and are in a relatively healthy state. Many of these patients would converse with Dr. Katzenberg about their successful on-going marriage, aspiring children, and prestigious careers from which most have retired from. Dr. Katzenberg and I encountered patients who were once physicians themselves, we have encountered a retired Ortho-pediatrician, a chemical engineer, a care-physician, lawyer, and a professor. I find this observation to be remarkable because I never experienced or discussed amongst others their professions and academic pursuits. In relation to the clinical setting, being privilege within this environment allows the majority of white patients to generally receive the best healthcare providers and medical assistance. These individuals do not have to worry about facing discrimination and medical abandonment within the setting from insufficient care providers. Being privileged allows many individuals that are white to be more informed about their medical availability options