Basic clinical skills

I was partnered with James as we practiced through skills discussed earlier in the hour.

Like myself, James wishes to become an ER doctor and has a solid background in biomedical science as his undergrad, however, lacked clinical experience and application. This was the complete opposite to myself so we made a good team (I think).

So for the next twenty minutes, we practiced on each other:
* Taking a pulse on the radius, followed by brachical, carotid, popliteal (difficult!), medial malleolus (even more so) and dorsalis pedis pulses (very difficult for me to find on James, but he could find mine pretty easily).

* Using a handheld doppler device to listen for the pulses at the various sites respectively.
* Taking a respiratory rate.
* Taking a tympanic temperature.
* Taking an axillary temperature.

James was a great sport and was very fit (judging by his resting heart rate of 56!).

Whilst these were relatively easy skills from my paramedic days, I was still happy to refine rarely used ones like medial malleolus pulse, dorsalis pedis pulse and the use of a handheld doppler device.