Hi I am a 4th year medical student interested in medicine. One of the things that I noticed during my rotations between medicine and peds is the general lightness of mood on the floor in peds. Maybe that is so b/c all the staff from the physicians to the nurses collectively act to make sure the children are happy which in my experience is not so dramatic on the gen medicine floors. In addition to that, obviously there is also an emphasis in decorating the floors and keeping the ambience more optimistic. Obviously, i've thought about going into peds but medicine from an academic perspective and from trying to affect an older patient population seems more attractive. therefore i wanted to ask, based on people's experiences, if they had found any medicne programs for residency that were able to maintain a "lighthearted peds type of attitude" . thanks

When I was a prelim intern, the only fun was resident-dependent (especially if we didn't have a student). I was at Elmhurst in Queens, and we (as prelims) got Mt. Sinai residents all the time (I'm not sure why, but, honestly, the prelims were stronger than the categoricals, hands-down, with only one exception). THE most fun resident was this Korean guy (which I mention because he always joked on about the Asian stereotypes) who went on to Pulm/CC. One day, HE was late, because he had been playing poker in Atlantic City late into the night. Another day, he had this mark on his face that I concluded was shoe polish, and that someone had dragged their boot across his face.

Our patient care NEVER suffered, but it was a good time. Attending rounds were sit-down rounds, and those were, likewise, attending dependent - there was one guy that was just OUT THERE, but others were much more business-like.

Conferences weren't especially fun. So, institutionally, I don't know if you'll find actual "fun" IM programs. I know what you mean about peds (and yet, I have had firsthand contact, believe it or don't, with obstructionist, ******* peds attendings; I can't get my mind around kid docs that don't like kids).

Must be the place i'm at, but in my experience the peds atmosphere was pretty uptight. Relationship with the kids was ok, since people seemed to want to show off that they were better with kids than the next resident, but (perhaps because of this), I sensed a lot of tension among residents, even though there would be superficial friendliness. My IM experience has been variable (MAJORLY team dependent) but for the most part very fun (though as you said, never at the expense of getting work done) and collegial. Actually even patients seem to respond better to a friendly team too (meaning team members friendly to each other), so that's always good.