Residency

How do you define success after residency?

Physician

June 27, 2016

Residency is a time of immense learning. You learn from your attendings, your patients, and your colleagues. Of all the teaching moments during my residency, one that frequently stands out in my mind now is the day when one of my co-residents told me about the “post-training phenomenon.” He had previously completed a different residency and practiced in that field for a decade prior to switching to our specialty.

“Once you …

Foreign medical graduates get a raw deal. Here’s why.

Eric Beam, MD

Education

May 23, 2016

On my recent tour of residency programs, I had the pleasure of meeting many foreign medical graduates (a.k.a. FMGs; not to be confused with international medical graduates, who are U.S. citizens who go abroad for medical school).

Almost uniformly, they struck me as confident, mature and articulate. Many were older than me, some by as much as 10 or 15 years. Most had extensive research experience, and a few had even …

How duty hour restrictions are hurting residency training

Anonymous

Education

April 10, 2016

As I get near the completion of an intense 5-year orthopedic surgery residency program, I had an interesting interaction with our hospitals sub-committee specifically tasked to address duty hour and resident fatigue issues.

As they gave examples from other departments about changes made to their programs regarding duty hours, a clear-as-mud connection was continually made. They spoke of “improvements” made as the result of residents stepping up to serve as whistleblowers …

A medical resident commits suicide. Here’s how one colleague mourns.

Anonymous

Physician

March 23, 2016

In the hour after I heard the news, I experienced the full spectrum of typical reactions to a physician suicide.

One end of the spectrum came from the attending in a clinic, who when asked if the residents could go home and mourn their friend who just committed suicide, proceeded to tell me a story of how when her grandpa died before a final exam in medical school. She decided to …

The heartbreak of dating an exhausted medical resident

Ruth Diaz, PsyD

Physician

March 8, 2016

When I was finishing my fifth year of studies as clinical psychology doctoral student, I fell in love with a second-year medical resident; a wanderer at heart with the softest smile and a way of listening that made me feel like the whole world stopped when I spoke. Whenever possible, we found ourselves in the forest exploring the world on foot or, if the weather was bad, on long drives …

A physician aces his USMLE and ABIM board exams. Here are his tips for success.

Farokh Jamalyaria, MD

Education

February 21, 2016

In this article, I’ll discuss a medicine-specific strategy that many of my physician colleagues and I have used over the years to learn dense, complicated information quickly and effectively, and to do well on board exams.

These are the two most important tenets of studying for a medical board examination:

1. Find the highest-yield information and memorize it cold. With active methods such as mnemonics, teaching others, lecturing “to the wall,” writing notes …

The questionable competency of today’s medical and surgical residents

Gary B. Nackman, MD

Education

February 21, 2016

What does it mean to be competent at something? Competency may be defined as the ability to do something successfully or efficiently. When it comes to determining if a physician is competent in his profession, no one, board, no organization, no government, no residency training program or hospital actually will state that an individual is competent. There are significant legal ramifications to declaring someone as competent to practice medicine, and …

A quantitative analysis of the first year of internal medicine residency

Peggy Bui, MD, MBA

Education

February 11, 2016

In a few weeks, thousands of medical students find out where they have matched for residency. I still remember the excitement and anxiety of peeling back that envelope and hoping I would see my top choice. My medical school had a tradition of putting each 4th year’s name in an old doctor’s bag. One by one, our dean would pull out a name, the student would contribute $1 to the …

Listen to this doctor’s advice to medical students

Susan Hecker, MD

Education

February 9, 2016

It’s been six years since I graduated from internal medicine residency. Enough time to give me some perspective, but short enough to still remember the highs and lows vividly. I recently had the opportunity to talk with a bright and energetic group of medical students. (Really, though, is there any other kind?)

The conversation turned to any advice that I had or maybe I felt obligated to give some as part …

5 simple strategies to get the residency you want

Scott P. Stringer, MD

Education

February 7, 2016

All medical students start out as the best of the best: You had to be to get into medical school. So now that you’re in, what are some of the things you can do to attain the specialty you really want? How do you set yourself apart from your peers?

1. Get out of your head. Telling yourself you can’t achieve a competitive residency is your first barrier. If you can’t even …

The unintended consequences of the night float rotation

Elaine Khoong, MD

Education

January 24, 2016

This past month has been a particularly difficult one for me because I’ve been on our float rotation. I have worked only night and swing shifts throughout our hospitals; this means my work hours are primarily from 8 p.m. to 10 a.m.

There are certainly other rotations during which I worked longer hours and had more emotionally draining conversations, but I have never felt as burned out as I have this …

Doctors grieve too: A lesson I did not learn in medical school

Lauren Gambill, MD

Education

January 14, 2016

“She is not yours to grieve.”

That statement, from another physician, hours after Ava died and as pent up tears rolled down my face, left me embarrassed and ashamed.

The message: She was my patient, not my child.

Never mind the amount of time and tenderness I had poured into her care during the month she spent in the pediatric ICU. I had no right to mourn her death. I am a doctor.

As …

10 tips to make residency more enjoyable

Jessica Deslauriers, MD

Education

January 3, 2016

As a second year resident, I often do not feel like an expert in anything. Every day I learn more about medicine and realize how much more I still want to learn. In spite of the emotional, physical and mental challenges that being a young doctor entails, I have remained positive and have grown stronger throughout residency. As I reflect on the past year and a half, I appreciate the …

When “healing” loses its meaning: A cynical medical resident meets Patch Adams

David Zacharias, MD, MPH

Physician

December 26, 2015

The afternoon began like any other day in medical school. Students arrived at the lecture hall and took their seats. An individual with long blue-and-white hair and handlebar mustache entered the room wearing oversized fish-print pants, a loose-fitting clown shirt, and a single earing fashioned out of a bent fork. He casually strolled up to the front, introduced himself as Dr. Patch Adams, and told us …

This doctor quit residency. And now she’s truly happy.

Anonymous

Physician

November 19, 2015

“I quit residency.”

Three words that many physicians couldn’t ever imagine coming out of their mouth, but for me, I say it all the time, usually with a smile on my face. I was a year and a half into my family medicine residency and decided it was enough. My decision mostly revolved around the birth of my son. My husband (a resident in the same program) and I planned to …

Medical Jeopardy is a terrible way to learn. Here’s why.

Jennifer Middleton, MD

Education

September 28, 2015

Confession time: I despise presentations that involve the use of a PowerPoint Jeopardy! game. To be clear, I get uncomfortable when any game-like activity appears in a medical teaching presentation.

Not that I don’t think games can have an important role in education — far from it. Heck, I once worked on a presentation that turned our residency conference room into a giant Game of Life board with …

How call rooms reflect the personality of residency programs

Katie Lockwood, MD

Physician

September 27, 2015

An intern pushed open the call room door so that twelve medical students could crowd their eager faces together to see where we might sleep for the next three years. Only a few months away from medical school herself, the intern acted as if sleeping in such quarters were second nature. She gestured to the fluffy quilts the residents had brought from home to adorn their beds and giggled about …

Superhero doctors are what we aspire to be

Ahmad Yousaf, MD

Education

August 3, 2015

shutterstock_84235930

We live in a time of great cynicism and skepticism. We seem to see only the mundane and boring in even the most interesting and spectacular things. The electrical rhythm of the heart that pulses through cardiac tissue and results in a coordinated muscle contraction that effectively ejects blood to the rest of the body for appropriate oxygen delivery is just … a …

Med students: 10 essential tips to choose the right residency

Dr. Daniel

Education

June 19, 2015

shutterstock_253531033

I have received many questions on this topic from medical students so I thought I would share my thoughts on choosing the right medical specialty for you. I hope you find this helpful.

1. Relax. The medical degree offers more flexibility than any other graduate degree. Even if you realize your selected specialty no longer fits you there are multiple areas your degree …

The challenge of evidence-based medicine to the new physician

Brian J. Secemsky, MD

Education

May 31, 2015

Evidence-based medicine (EBM) has been classically described as “the conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients.” At first look, this well-accepted approach to clinical medicine appears not only completely reasonable, but also somewhat obvious given the immense amount of research available for academic consumption.

EBM has been repeatedly preached as the gold standard of clinical care across all medical …