Residency

Medical residents and academic due process: Know your rights

Education

May 20, 2018

I recently received a call from a physician resident in the Northeast U.S. who had been notified that she would be terminated from her residency program for a “weak knowledge base.” There would be no contract offered to her for the coming academic year. She reports that her scores are no worse than several of her colleagues and that her accredited program has a history of arbitrarily dismissing residents. She …

A medical intern’s 3 greatest fears

Kirk Sidey, MD

Education

April 19, 2018

A 76-year-old gentleman with a history of kidney failure, myasthenia gravis and recently diagnosed with esophageal cancer presented for evaluation of melena and hypotension.

The patient was my first admission to the medicine team as an intern, and he was as near to an ICU admission without actually being admitted to the ICU as one could come. After examining the patient, I briefly staffed with the busy attending physician, placed the …

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A medical intern’s 3 greatest fears

How to have a life in residency

Angela Seabright, DO

Physician

March 16, 2018

Medical students and residents become accustomed to living life in year increments. Four years for medical school, three to five years for residency, a couple years for fellowship, research, and so on. While many of us like to think we are putting our life on “pause” as we complete our medical training this just isn’t possible. Life is happening all around us every day. Many physicians look back on their …

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How to have a life in residency

Influencing your resident evaluations for success

Todd Rice, MD, MBA

Education

February 21, 2018

Performance appraisals are an integral part of an organization’s assessment of employee and trainee standing. Management and human resource literature is full of analysis and debate regarding how to best rate subordinates. Regardless of evaluation system utilized, some of the common goals of individual appraisals are to monitor progress, identify areas for growth, set goals, guide development, provide and elicit feedback through open communication, and document issues that may require …

It’s important to proactively manage your resident progress. Here’s how.

Todd Rice, MD, MBA

Physician

January 31, 2018

Physician training is an extremely high stakes business, not only for the patients that will be under the care of the eventual independent, fully-trained, board-certified doctor, but for the trainee herself. The financial and time costs of the entire training process are enormous. To become derailed from the board certification path can have significant and permanent career consequences. With so much at stake, what does a resident do when she …

End the resident physician abuse now

Anonymous

Physician

December 21, 2017

Let’s talk about the cycle of abuse. No, I am not referring to the very serious issue of domestic violence. Instead, I am talking about the graduate medical education system. No one is a resident forever: the duration of each residency is predetermined with a wide range of three to nine years. The self-limited nature of this experience decreases the incentive for participants to advocate for changes. And the attitude …

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End the resident physician abuse now

Burnout during residency? Yep, and here’s what it taught me.

Saba Mann, MD

Physician

November 9, 2017

You’ve probably heard this story before: a young physician, who has spent all of his or her life succeeding and building goals, stumbles into a career without meaning or enthusiasm. Indeed, my story about burnout is much like the rest.

Like so many before me, I entered into a career in medicine motivated and eager to change the world through the care of my patients. I grew up in a family …

Want to stay in shape during residency? Here’s how.

Alex Robles, MD

Physician

September 28, 2017

How many times have you heard resident physicians say that they do not have time to exercise and get in shape? When looking at the numbers, it’s hard to blame them. An 80-hour work week is enough to make anyone realize that time is a precious commodity.

Take away six-to-eight hours for sleep each day, plus a couple of hours for eating, showering and studying, and you are left with approximately …

6 tips for medical students to get the perfect match

Bobbie Ann Adair White, MA, Vijay Rajput, MD, and Monica M. Garcia, MBA

Education

September 21, 2017

It’s that time of year again, the dreaded, yet exciting, residency application season. Year after year, we have learned that securing a residency position extends beyond competitive scores. It involves planning, networking and putting your best foot forward to prove you are the perfect “match” for a program. To avoid having shock and stress of an unexpected scramble, we wanted to share five tips, which extend beyond some of the …

How to find joy in practicing medicine

Pranay Sinha, MD

Physician

September 18, 2017

My intern gazed blankly at her notes from the day.

“You OK?” I asked.

Her face was quivering with restrained tears as she turned to me, “I don’t think I helped anyone today.” This was not the first time, nor would it be the last time, that I had heard those words from a resident physician.

Medical training is no joy ride. How could it be? First, there is the intellectual challenge of …

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How to find joy in practicing medicine

A resident deals with being a wife, mother, and doctor

Dawn Browne, MD

Physician

September 14, 2017

As a second-year family medicine resident, wife of a nurse and mother of an almost-two-year-old, the feeling of just not being enough has a suffocating hold on me some days. Non satis. Sounds like a pretty good gig when I talk with others outside the medical profession and friends from home. Training to be a doctor? Great. Happily married to an amazing man who’s taking time off work to raise …

Stop exploiting medical students and residents

Samer W. Cabbabe, MD

Physician

September 13, 2017

Approximately 300-400 physicians commit suicide annually. Given that a typical doctor has about 2,300 patients under his or her care, that means more than a million Americans will lose a physician to suicide this year.

In a study of six medical schools, almost seven percent of students said they had thought of ending their lives in the last two weeks. In another recent study, 29 percent of residents …

Patients and doctors should give each other the benefit of the doubt

Weisheng Mao, MD

Physician

September 1, 2017

In my first year in the hospital, as a third-year medical student, there was one refrain I often heard from physicians and staff alike: This is a hospital, not a hotel. It was an expression of the frustration engendered by “needy patients,” those who were upset that their breakfast was late or that the room was too hot or that they couldn’t speak with the physician just this second. Often, …

A day in the life of an OB/GYN chief resident

Danielle Jones, MD

Physician

August 30, 2017

It’s 5:50 a.m. and my alarm is buzzing. It’s been going off intermittently since 5:30 a.m. Even though I really don’t need to be out of bed until 6:00 a.m., I’ve lived with myself long enough to know my biggest vice is the snooze button.

I roll out of bed and get ready for the day — blue scrubs, messy bun, enough makeup to feel like I tried, freshly clean teeth …

Residents need to learn medicine, not how to pass a test

Eric W. Toth, DO

Education

August 14, 2017

In his famous novel, Moneyball, Michael Lewis illustrates the phenomenon of professional baseball scouts focusing on all the wrong characteristics when looking at players. He describes how scouts focus on fastball velocity as a way to compare pitchers, despite the lack of correlation between fastball speed and the quality of a pitcher. As it turns out, the most important factor in a pitcher is deception, not a high-velocity fastball. The …

As a physician, you will fail at your job in these different ways. Learn from them.

Binh Phung, DO

Physician

August 11, 2017

To me, five years ago:

Right now you are 28, seated at the top of everything: chief resident of the entire pediatric department. You are in charge of 19 other interns and residents. You are resilient, kind, funny and determined. You seem to have the solution for everything, yet you don’t actually have the answer to anything. At least that’s how you’ll feel on most days in your new leadership role. …

3 reasons why July 1st should be a day to celebrate

N. Bande Virgil, MD

Education

August 4, 2017

Fireworks, champagne toasts, sparkly hats, and the ball drop are all items that we conger up in our minds as we think of the New Year. For the majority of the world, January 1st represents the transition from one year to another on the calendar. New resolutions are made, and there is a global fresh start. However, for those of us in the medical field, there is another new year …

4 tips for finding a work-life balance during intern year

Matthew Steele, DO

Education

July 25, 2017

My wife and I were in a unique situation after graduating medical school. We had met in the first year of medical school in and became friends. During our second year we started dating, and by end of third year, we were married. By the beginning of fourth year, we were proudly expecting. By June 1st, 2016 we were fortunate enough to share our graduation from medical school with our …

11 tips medical interns need to hear before they start

Canting Guo, MD

Education

July 10, 2017

When I started my intern year, I was told that I was going to be sleep deprived and it was going to be the worst years of my life.

Yes, there were times I racked up a sleep debt, but it was for patient care. And because of the camaraderie and relationships I formed (both inside and outside the hospital), I will forever remember residency with a smile.

Rather than the words …

10 ways for doctors to think outside of the box

Danish Siddiqui, MD

Physician

July 5, 2017

Thinking outside the box is a somewhat cliché way to illustrate thinking beyond the norm and imagining what “could be” with an innovative mindset. This imagery of being stuck in a box rings true for many physicians, given how many of us are quite literally surrounded by the four white walls of an exam room most of our lives.

Physicians work hard to treat each patient individually, but this feeling of …