Overall, I found Family Medicine to be “a lot”: a lot of patients, a lot of disease conditions and comorbidities, a lot of labs and imaging that needed follow up, a lot of reminders about screenings, a lot of medications, and a lot of learning. Chronic disease management felt like a side of medicine that I simply couldn’t learn in didactic year because tests and flashcards are not real people whose real lives challenge what you know and what decisions you make. I often felt that this rotation – compared to Ambulatory Care at an urgent care facility – was more about managing “people” than managing their disease. The concept of “the whole patient” really came to life throughout my 5 weeks here. I learned and appreciated a lot about the skills it takes to navigate between the reason for a patient’s appointment and the acute complaints they have now. Or navigating a conversation about the importance of scheduling that colonoscopy despite a hectic work schedule, or the importance of statin adherence as well as the home glucose log that we gave. And with the limited time to see patients, there was a lot of prioritizing what could be done now versus what could be done at a later date. I also really enjoyed educating patients and I can definitely see how gratifying it is to provide continuous care that helps someone make long-term, beneficial health decisions. And although I did know already that patient education is something I’m going to really enjoy about being a clinician, I didn’t consider how consistent and honestly, repetitive, it will be! I did find it difficult to find my flow with physical examinations. In Ambulatory Care, examinations were much more focused in that I was looking for positive and negative signs for “something”. But in Family Medicine, the comprehensiveness of the physical examinations without a “something” is more difficult for me to get a handle on. Over my next few rotations when I have multiple providers, I’m going to take note of how they work and see how I can apply it to myself to build up my own systematic approach to more comprehensive examinations.