The Medical Notebook Every Med Student Needs For Clinical Rotations

From ungodly hours to vending machine dinners, the life of a medical student in his or her final years of school is not an easy one.

That’s why Dr. Mary Asal created the proRound Medical Notebook—the tool that propelled her through clinical rotations with raving evaluations top marks and now helps her mentees do the same.

Whether you’re a med student who forgets stethoscopes on the reg or a nurse practitioner-in-training who carries two just in case, the proRound is sure to help you impress preceptors—and save lives in the process.

Handbuilt For Success

By the time she got to clinical rotations, Mary Asal knew she was in for it.

She needed a system that would help her confidently present patients on rounds in front of fellow medical students, residents, and the rotating attendings whose intimidating reputations preceded them.

Being an organized sort, Mary (now Dr. Asal) crafted an outline of items she needed to present, in the order she needed to present them. Once she discovered which patients she would be working with each day, she recreated her outline before writing down their information.

The outline made information collection easy; as she learned about patients, she simply filled in the blanks in the outline. She adjusted the template as she discovered tricks of the trade, such as which items residents or attendings were particularly impressed with or liked to challenge her with.

By the time rounds rolled around, she was ready to impress her team by knowing her patients inside and out, and presenting the pertinent information about each patient in a logical order.

Her outline took a long, long time to create each morning and evening, so she made copies and crafted them into small, handmade notepads. Once she was a resident who didn’t need the help of outlines anymore, she handed out leftover notepads to students who needed help with their presentation skills and watched them thrive.

Fast-forward to now. Though she is a successful doctor, Dr. Asal wants to simplify the process and alleviate anxiety for even more medical students—which led her to create the proRound Medical Notebook with Portage Notebooks.

Your Personal Trainer 

Every single detail in the proRound Medical Notebook was included for a reason.

At first glance, the notebook’s main qualities are a pre-filled template that allows you to fill in a patient's information quickly and correctly. By organizing pre-rounding information, you can be presentation-ready on the drop of a hat.

But the notebook does much more than that. The proRound:

• Trains your brain to think in SOAP (subjective, objective, assessment, plan) format, and to present and accept information in a standardized way
• Requires you to rewrite one-liners daily, so you learn to constantly update your one-line informative sentence, crafting thorough and attention-grabbing versions to win over preceptors
• Encourages you to rewrite and update medications and relevant medical conditions daily, keeping you up to date on changes
• Empowers you to evaluate commonly missed pieces of critical information, like oxygen intake and foley status, in the subjective and objective sections
• Teaches you shorthands of writing labs in a grid format and how to record past values for comparisons
• Enables daily consult tracking and imaging or culture updates
• Allows you to restate your assessment concisely, develop a plan with numbered steps, and review changes made to the plan by the resident or attending doctor

In other words, the proRound is a lean, mean, rotation-mastering machine.

The Extra Mile

The teaching capabilities of the proRound are the main attraction, of course, but there are a few perks that make it stand apart even more.

Fake it til you make it. A small section located within the front cover reveals common abbreviations, shorthand lab trees, and calculations. With this vital information in hand, you can easily interpret and use these terms, looking like a pro before your training is complete.

Enjoy the perfect fit. The proRound’s medical-specific sizing of 4.5" x 7" slides into every standard white coat pocket. No more stuffing too-large notebooks into your clothes.

Add a bit of style. You may not have a choice in your scrubs, but you can still have a bit of style. The cover of the notebook is sleek, so you can elevate your look. And the cover isn’t all style; it’s sturdy enough to help you write on-the-go during rounds or at bedside.

Inspire yourself every day. With such a busy schedule and demanding job, you’re guaranteed to feel a bit discouraged some days. Dr. Asal selected a back-cover quote to inspire positive confidence vibes—just as she was inspired when she was in med school herself. As Steve Martin said, “Be so good they can’t ignore you.”

Ready to ace your clinical rotations? Check out the proRound Medical Notebook today.