Not to be an ass, but why do you think that you can offer any advice on things that you've never done or have yet to encounter? Rather presumtuous of you to advise about switching residencies when you have yet to enter medical school.
why do people find it so important to bring something up like this IF my advice wasn't far off - AT ALL - from what a fellow attending of yours (sevo85288) suggested after I posted? But let's shine some light considering you've "called me out," on an anonymous forum.
Why do I think I can help if I haven't encountered the match and residency yet? First off, I'm not a typical premed, I'm 38. I've been around the block. Life's block. A lot of life's problems can be handled with common sense, yes? In that case, I applied some. That's the simple answer. I'm not sure you'll be happy with that though, so, not to be an ass, but let's continue on with this exercise in complete and total mental masturbation.
My post really should end here. But it doesn't.
There are only a few "obvious" ways to go here...a) stay put in Rads, like Periop said, and remain in crappy program, or switch into other Gen Rads program, and, though I was going to post it I forgot, b) go Intvl so you can do some procedures and touch a body part now and then. For example, as an Intvl Radiologist, he would put in a port now an then, yes? How, IN THE WORLD could I possibly know something so "unknowable" if I'm not a friggin' Intvl Radiologist Fellow, and encountered putting in a port, myself? Is the world really that black and white to you? c) get out of dodge, being Rads. Each require an obvious pathway.
One of my best friends on this planet, is the PD of an anesthesia program. I sit in his office, and work, and talk, a lot. I see residents come and go and they ask him hundreds of questions. Residency Life questions. Work questions. Help me questions. What to do questions. As a matter of fact, gasp, because, I assume, I'm in scrubs and have some gray hair (damn genetics), certainly not because I sit there with swagger, they'll sometimes - gasp again, turn to me, thinking I know SOMETHING and ask my opinion about something, in their resident life!!! Yikers!!!! And - oh my gosh, Attendings do the same. I think they s hit and pee too. Granted, Residents don't really talk to him about OPs concerns because, you know, that's really personal and it's the PD after all, and I'm there. So, where do I get the balls to answer the OPs' question? Read on.
Other brilliant resident life examples that are clearly specific only to resident life (sarcasm)... I know that if you are a resident and need off, for a conference say, you may need to call a fellow resident, or the Chief, to see if you can get your "shift covered." WOAHHHH. Now, whether you are a resident or not, is this much different than calling someone to take your waitering shift at Fridays? Your mail shift at the PO? Your bartending shift at Hooters? The call, not the work mind you. Common sense. Once you know that's the process, come on now, Doctor.
More secret resident life stuff that I cannot comment upon but I will (sarcasm)...Post overnight call, you get out of work and would like, "desperately, to be left alone and go to sleep." Again, not a resident here, so I hope I'm not overstepping my bounds, but Common Sense. I guess I have been exposed to this technically, in that I called my resident friend, "Wanna goto the beach?" "No, I'm post call..." But then again, you made an assumption that I have never been exposed to any of this, right? I'm a premed student. You're the Attending. And YOU'RE the one making assumptions here????????
I regularly work with residents. Daily, for months at times. 1 on 1, all day. Believe it or not, as part of this project I did, guess who taught me how to do what I needed to do? A resident! Why? One matched and was leaving. My job? To fill his (NON CLINICAL) shoes. Free Research! So, I'm exposed to research and writing at a resident's level. Guess what, and this is going to BLOW YOUR MIND, you know what happens when the resident can't find the CT for Patient XYZ on the system, THEY ASK ME. Holy COW batman! I'm helping a resident with said resident's research job!!! You know what happens when I'm calculating a STS score and I'm not sure, reviewing the chart, if the patient is NYHA Class II or IV, I ASK THE RESIDENT!!! Ergo, Exposure. This is what med schools want from us pre-meds. Mine experience happens to be very resident heavy because of my ability to write. Something, frankly, some docs are amazing at, some, not so much.
🙂 So I'm a valuable commodity. And I use that to my advantage to get exposure to all facets of the career I will spend the rest of my life practicing.
My other closest friend, matched here. We spent 2 years together working on a project. Day in and day out. Breakfast. Morning meetings. Grand rounds on Tuesdays (yes, the mentors expect you there when they are speaking because, the clinical trial team is the clinical trial team). Lunch. All afternoon at library, cath lab, etc. 2 years. Nothing but listening to his life story coming from India and ultimately matching where we work. I could probably talk a little bit about J-1 visas as well, however, again, I'M A US CITIZEN.
You know what residents talk about when you and they are searching for papers on pubmed side by side in the med school library, for hours at a time? RESIDENT LIFE AND MATCHING. You know what they talk about when you are driving them to buy their first car because "they don't know how to buy a car, even though it will be with a personal check - HA..." RESIDENT LIFE AND SWITCHING RESIDENCIES. You know what they talk about when they are from India and have NO CLUE what Freida.org (i think that's the address) is, and don't know the difference between Mount Sinai in NY or Cedars Sinai in LA? RESIDENT LIFE AND THE JOB MARKET. And when you are sharing the experience of getting your first papers published together, as co-authors, walking around campus to get our three other authors' signatures on a piece of paper, you know what they talk about RESIDENT LIFE AND PRESENTING POSTERS.
Mostly, though, it's just common sense. Not to be an ass. The process of RANK ORDER LISTS > MATCHING > HATING YOUR CURRENT JOB ain't exactly brain surgery - just yet. And, as far as the OP's post, I think my opinion was spot on. Albeit, incomplete. In fact, as for changing career areas (I've switched the areas of television I write for more than once), majorly or tangentially, I have a LOT of exposure to that. Common sense.
You know there are TWO KINDS OF DOCTORS I expect to encounter when I enter med school and residency a) the types that are happy I am grabbing the blade with my non-dominant hand, putting the patient in sniff pos, aiming that part of the handle at THAT WALL/CEILING corner over THERE without them having to tell me to do so. And then I'm going to encounter type b)
your type. The ones who are deeply offended that I read ahead and want to piss on my parade and QUESTION why I would read ahead because I love what I'm doing. Your type will call me out and make a joke in front of the other residents, EVEN THOUGH I did the right thing. Like you did above. Your type, I never wanna be, especially with impressionable new students. But your type is out there, ad infinitum, and frankly, I would NEVER speak to you like this in person in a hospital. Ever. So, thank you for giving me the opportunity to express myself in a manner I won't use, when dealing with YOUR TYPE, throughout the remainder of my medical career. I appreciate it.
Common sense. Remember it. Gets you through a lot of life's problems that you haven't been exposed to just yet.
Please don't put people into their little square-pegged "pre-med" places here. Bugs me. Rather presumptuous of you to presume about my life. Ay?
Have I addressed your post and ameliorated your concerns?
Namaste.
D712
i'm on tkim's side.
'ing her way slowly away from the forum as we keep piling trains onto these busted tracks.
