Eric Bressman is an internal medicine chief resident who blogs at Insights on Residency Training, a part of NEJM Journal Watch.

Empower residents: It’s important now more than ever

Physician
July 15, 2020

On March 20th, as the chaos of the unfolding pandemic enveloped New York City, Governor Cuomo issued Executive Order 202.10, which, among other directives, suspended work hour restrictions for residents in New York. These regulations, which had been enacted 30 years prior, were the consequence of the journalist Sidney Zion’s well-publicized crusade to investigate the death of his daughter Libby at New York Hospital in 1984, …

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Empower residents: It’s important now more than ever

Reflecting on Elmhurst Hospital: past, present, and future

Physician
May 25, 2020

Elmhurst 2014

I first arrived at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, NY, in the summer of 2014 as a medical student on my surgery rotation. We would take occasional night shifts as part of the trauma team. It was the first time I held a pager. Code yellow meant hurry; code red meant run. One of our first patients was a code red, a young man, not much older than I am now, …

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Reflecting on Elmhurst Hospital: past, present, and future

Ventilators are only part of the story: We need critical care trained practitioners

Conditions
April 16, 2020

The media and policymakers have spent a lot of time focusing on the shortage of ventilators in the country. Elmhurst Hospital in Queens – one of the hardest-hit locations in the country, and where I work – received a donation of 40 desperately needed machines from Tesla a couple of weeks ago. There was a brief moment to rejoice before putting these to use.

Healthcare workers and the …

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Ventilators are only part of the story: We need critical care trained practitioners

Should we avoid exposing residents to coronavirus?

Conditions
March 10, 2020

The arrival of the novel COVID-19 to the U.S., and the inevitability of its eventual spread, raises an interesting question: Should we avoid exposing residents to the virus?

Before we try to answer this question, we should start with some important qualifiers. While a good deal about this novel virus remains unknown, the majority of cases appear to be low risk, particularly for the …

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Should we avoid exposing residents to coronavirus?

Medical residents need parental leave

Physician
February 10, 2020

My wife and I had a baby a few months ago. Or, more accurately, she birthed a child while I sat in the corner, contemplating the miracle of reproductive physiology in a vasovagal fugue. In the months leading up to and following that wondrous moment, we found ourselves navigating the labyrinthine complexity of parental leave in graduate medical education.

To start with the positive, we are both residents in the same …

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Medical residents need parental leave

The tension between hospital administrators and medical residents

Physician
December 12, 2019

One of the least motivating requests I received routinely as a new intern was something like, “… and can we make sure this is a discharge before noon?” I recall a particularly eager nursing manager surveying the resident teams on her unit to gauge our interest in arriving even earlier each morning (5 a.m., perhaps?) in order to prepare potential discharges before pre-rounding. We shared a nice laugh.

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The tension between hospital administrators and medical residents