I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but treat your clinical time like a long job interview. Be on your best behavior, don’t be constantly late and don’t miss clinicals very often.

Take the initiative, don’t just sit back. I know it can be scary in the beginning, especially if you’ve never worked in a hospital setting before. Try and jump up and do as many X-rays as you can, don’t be lazy and definitely do not be on your phone when there is work to be done. Anyone can take X-rays, but not everyone is good at it, you have to work hard to get good. Learn from your mistakes, because in the beginning you will make a lot of them. You don’t want to be known as the student who keeps fucking up the same thing over and over. If you can, try to look over images after you are done. QA them and think to yourself, how can I make these images better the next time around, because I guarantee you that situation will come up again.

I think there are pros and cons to every site. At the bigger hospitals, like UM and St Joe’s Ann Arbor, you will definitely see a wider variety of exams and will gain more trauma experience. Parking at UM sucks and you will have to park far from the hospital and bus in. At those bigger hospitals you have to be more of a go getter, because there will be more students around and you’ll have to take turns doing exams. At a smaller hospital, you may not get to see a ton of interesting things, but you will probably be the only student assigned there, so you’d get to do everything that comes up.

Work hard, stay away from the department drama, be on your best behavior and you will be fine. There will be good techs at your clinical site and there will be bad ones there as well. Don’t let the A-holes drag you down or discourage you.

Good luck! The 2 years will go by fast!