3x5 Cards

In Samuel Shem's The House of God, one of the residents, the Fat Man, claims anything can fit on a 3x5 card. Every single patient is summarized neatly on an index card, incorporating all the pertinent findings, laboratory values, diagnoses, treatments, medications. As a medical student and intern, I quickly realized this did not work for me. I copiously scribbled every possible bit of information, needing full-sized sheets of paper.

Now on anesthesia where our scope is much more narrowly defined, I find that I am using 3x5 cards again. It's really quite satisfying to capture all the important details of all the patients for a day on index cards that fit neatly in my pocket.

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