Residents, attendings, and the physicians who remember training writing on KevinMD about residency: intern year, duty hours, supervision and autonomy, pay and unions, having a family during training, mistreatment, the Match for international medical graduates, and what physicians say should change about how residents are trained. Many contributors write anonymously, and many write while still in training. For a maintained record of what residents and attendings have said about residency itself on KevinMD since 2004, from intern year through the end of training, attributed by author and date and organized by question, see Residency: what residents and attendings say, in their own words. For what international medical graduates have said about the Match, visas, and being foreign in American medicine, see Immigration and medicine: what physicians say about immigrant doctors and immigrant patients, in their own words. Medical school itself is a separate record.
Mentorship is a common topic in medicine. We, as a profession, spend significant time discussing, attending workshops about, and researching the role of mentorship. Mentorship is key to personal development, career choice, and improved academic productivity.
Yet, it wasn’t until recently that my understanding of mentorship was challenged. I have always viewed mentorship as someone more senior than myself helping me to achieve my goals. I have always been the mentee in such …
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What should you consider when establishing a peer-mentoring relationship?
I want to write a book about the modern intern experience, a successor to The House of God, if you will. I’m going to call my book Seaport General. It’s about a young intern named Troy, who is starting his internal medicine training at a fictional university-affiliated community hospital in Boston’s posh Seaport district. In this book, set against the backdrop of a rapidly changing would, Troy learns what it …
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Would this be what a modern-day House of God would look like?
In medical school, I’m having a hard time choosing among extracurricular activities. Some of the difficulty comes from the fact that our mandatory classes are hard enough for me to manage. On top of managing coursework, I feel an enormous pressure to question what I should and shouldn’t do to best plan for my future. A little voice inside my head always asks, “How will this look on my resume?”
I …
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A love-hate relationship with the resume-guided voice
To reach my current position as a general cardiologist, I have taken nine board exams. I have also been teaching medical students for over ten years with several colleagues who write questions for the USMLE Step 1 exam. Through this experience, I have observed a number of themes about what works and does not work for board preparation. I share these with you now in the hopes they may help …
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How to study smarter for USMLE Step 1: 5 tips for success
Ours is a chaotic and overburdened medical system. As a senior resident, there is every temptation to seek in our incoming classes more obedient interns and junior residents who would obey my orders as their senior without question. I challenge that we must do the harder thing.
The explosive growth in the health care industry has seen a shift in priorities to traumatic, urgent and emergent care. And we see profits …
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This residency interview season: Be the rebel
Exhausted. Aching. Hungry. Slightly delirious.
Mile twenty-four of a marathon? Or hour twenty-four of a twenty-eight-hour shift?
I am a resident. I am a runner. I am also a rather tired human since, as I type these words, I’m both post-call and post-run. However, this post-call/run state of body and mind is one I have learned to love and embrace during this residency whirlwind.
I’m not myself unless I’m wearing scrubs or running clothes. …
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Residency training, and training in residency
Even though physicians do not talk about transferring residencies, it is more common than is often believed. According to the AAMC website, about 30 percent of residents do not finish the initial program they started. Quantifying that number further, the ACGME recently reported 1,044 residents transferring from their program.
There are a variety of reasons for transferring residencies: A spouse being accepted for a …
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How to transfer residency programs
“A moment’s insight is sometimes worth a life’s experience.”
— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Several years ago, an anxious senior medical student was preparing his application for The Match, the clearinghouse through which 37,000 candidates hope to secure one of the 33,000 available residency positions. It is a nerve-wracking time. Each student compiles documents, assembles records, creates lists of activities, summarizes research, catalogs volunteer projects, selects the perfect photo and solicits faculty …
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What this physician learned by helping a medical student write a personal statement
I woke this morning at 3:30 a.m. My mouth was dry. I tried to urinate, but something roughly the color of quinoa came out in small quantities. So I assumed I was dehydrated. It could have been the bourbon and scotch before dinner — or the two IPAs at dinner. Or the four IPAs after dinner at trivia. Or the scotch after trivia. But something told me I was dehydrated.
I …
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An ode to residency interview season
After countless hours of hard work and three demanding years of medical school, it’s now time to face the spotlight! If your interview invites have started rolling in and you are feeling intimidated by the thought, follow these tips to land your first choice of clinical residency.
1. Be prompt with your responses to interview invites
Be sure to set your inbox to automatically refresh every hour during the interview season so you …
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8 tips to land the residency of your dreams
While riding shotgun in the family minivan on the way home from a fall break water park trip, I received the following text message:
I thought of you today! One of the residents here had done a great job with a complex (and really sad) labor and delivery patient, and the nurse was telling me how awesome she was … so I thought to myself that I should do what you …
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This attending learned so much from her residents
Recently, I saw a photo of a slide from the American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress: “The Program Directors Guide to Implementation of Well-being Programs.” While I applaud the ongoing focus in medicine on wellness for both trainees and faculty, I am troubled by the perceived need to standardize and program wellness, creating a “checkbox” that may not improve actual well-being. As a recent graduate now living my best life …
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Are physician wellness programs just another checkbox?
I still remember the warm, fuzzy feeling of receiving my first few interview invitations. Unlike medical school, I received much more “love” from residency programs. Since I was part of the inaugural class of a new medical school, I interviewed for a lot of programs: 16 anesthesiology, six transitional years, and three preliminary medicine programs. After my first few interviews, it became apparent that most residency interviews tend to be …
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What I wish I knew on the residency interview trail
I had the fascinating experience of interviewing for residency at 20+ weeks’ pregnant. Although a number of people told me that I was doomed, I found the experience to be quite enlightening. Since I couldn’t hide the fact that life outside medicine was going to be important to me during residency, I felt empowered to ask the “don’t ask” questions during my interviews. What did I have to lose? The …
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If you are ready to become a parent, don’t let residency stop you
The glorious season is upon us. Yes, it is finally autumn. But it is also the season of ERAS with all of its letters of recommendation, USMLE scores, medical school transcripts, and personal statements.
I have dutifully reviewed dozens of applicants whose last names begin with the letters “T” through “Z.” I have noted the test scores and grades. I have considered the caliber of medical school and whether the LORs …
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5 tips to medical resident success
As a teaching clinician in an internal medicine residency program, it is safe to say that September is one of the more exciting and busier times of the academic year. Walking through the hallways of our department, we encounter bright-eyed fourth-year medical students scurrying about in a frenzy as they make some big decisions about what field of medicine to pursue, where to apply and whom to ask for letters …
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A change of clothes might do the residency interview process some good
Each year, thousands of newly minted MDs are elevated from mere medical students to — drumroll, please — interns. If that’s you, congratulations and welcome to the world of residency.
Welcome to the world of motivation, inspiration and altruism — where you wake up every day knowing this was what you were meant to do.
And welcome to the world of the hungry, the tired, the poor. …
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12 tips to help you survive residency
As a physician in training, you’re in the first quarter of your new position as an intern or resident. If you are an early career physician, you are adjusting to life as an attending.
What exactly does that mean for you? Are you moving from rotation to rotation, hopeful that someone will show you the ropes? In the midst of change, that’s usually what we do. We look at the schedule, …
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3 steps to gain expertise early in your medical career
I woke up to the sound of a faint “ding” from my bedside table. It was 5:24 a.m. Shaking off my lethargy, I scrambled over to my phone because the ding meant one thing: my first residency interview invitation.
Looking back on that moment, as I responded in the dim light of the morning, I realize that I knew very little about what was to come over the next few months. …
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The rewarding and grueling process of residency application
This one’s for the new interns.
You’re excited, you’re about to start residency. You’re a doctor. No more short white coat. You’ve got the long white coat that you’ve been waiting for. You’ve arrived.
But actually, there’s one more thing you need before you really feel like you look like a doctor. It might be a few months. There’s going to be a long process. Someone in your program, maybe the chief …
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New interns: Get ready to be fleeced
