Anyone actually enjoy residency?

[fullmetal]

I enjoyed residency (FM). But I think I was insanely lucky because my program was filled with people who were passionate about teaching and actually cared about our education. It was a large, rural, unopposed program. My co-residents were also pretty great (mostly). Going through the grind with helpful, supportive people really makes all the difference.

Looking back, yeah, those 80 hour weeks and 27 hour shifts were rough sometimes. Had I chosen a different career path I could have been maybe going out and having more fun for those 3 long years (not to mention the 4 years of med school before it). But I loved what I was doing and I do think to be a good physician you need to put in a lot of hours. There is just so much volume and variability and somewhat of a steep learning curve - not just medically, but there is an art to having difficult discussions and inspiring real change in people. Do we need to be doing 27 hour shifts? Hell no. They need to get rid of that and focus on quality over quantity (some days I swear I was just holding up a wall).

Attending life for me is even better. More time, more money and most importantly, complete autonomy. The downside is there's a lot more responsibility.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[DarkBluMage]

Medicine used to be a calling. If one is looking for work/life balance, medicine just might not be the place to find it. People don't get sick from 9 to 5. Sick people need their doctor when they are sick. Doctors families have sacrificed for the needs of the patient for centuries. Now, people want to consider it a job. We can thank corporate medicine and their HR, with some help from the Govt, for turning a noble profession into a job. Medicine is not for everybody, like football. Lots of strong, fast players are not very good at it or just don't like it. It takes more than being smart and wanting to help people. You have to actually do it, which may not be for everybody.

Lol and this is why the suicide rates for medical students and physicians are so high. Just because something is a calling doesn’t mean it should encompass your entire life as if social and familial aspects of humanity don’t matter. Sounds like indoctrination to get to the point where so many think it’s acceptable to disregard every other area of life for a job. That’s what the reality of being a physician is, A JOB. Regardless of if it’s a calling for someone or they’re just in it for the money. It’s A JOB and there is more to life than working. There is more to life than constantly grinding and being penniless for so long for an education to become a physician. It’s possible to work towards a career in medicine and feel it’s your calling while also being able to recognize that there are serious issues in the way we go about graduate medical education in this country. Wake up

 

[pseudoknot]

It was not always perfect but I really enjoyed residency and fellowship (emergency medicine and surgical critical care). I worked with great people, learned a lot and was protected from the politics.

 

[Angus Avagadro]

Lol and this is why the suicide rates for medical students and physicians are so high. Just because something is a calling doesn’t mean it should encompass your entire life as if social and familial aspects of humanity don’t matter. Sounds like indoctrination to get to the point where so many think it’s acceptable to disregard every other area of life for a job. That’s what the reality of being a physician is, A JOB. Regardless of if it’s a calling for someone or they’re just in it for the money. It’s A JOB and there is more to life than working. There is more to life than constantly grinding and being penniless for so long for an education to become a physician. It’s possible to work towards a career in medicine and feel it’s your calling while also being able to recognize that there are serious issues in the way we go about graduate medical education in this country. Wake up

Thousands of doctors go through training and manage to get through and look back with good thoughts. . The above comments confirm this.
Residencies offer more support today than they did in the past. Is residency hard? Sure. No one said it isn't hard and no one should enter one thinking it will all be good times. Complainimg about the work, call, and rules is normal, as its hard for many residents. Most look back on it as a positive period and as a time for growth and maturity. Sometimes the growth and maturity takes awhile.

 

[greatnt249]

Lol and this is why the suicide rates for medical students and physicians are so high. Just because something is a calling doesn’t mean it should encompass your entire life as if social and familial aspects of humanity don’t matter. Sounds like indoctrination to get to the point where so many think it’s acceptable to disregard every other area of life for a job. That’s what the reality of being a physician is, A JOB. Regardless of if it’s a calling for someone or they’re just in it for the money. It’s A JOB and there is more to life than working. There is more to life than constantly grinding and being penniless for so long for an education to become a physician. It’s possible to work towards a career in medicine and feel it’s your calling while also being able to recognize that there are serious issues in the way we go about graduate medical education in this country. Wake up

I don't think anyone is arguing that you have to forsake things that are important to you in life; there is, in fact, middle ground. It is a job, but how else do you become good at what you do without putting in the hours? And even after you're done with residency, you're still not done learning. Do I think "putting in the hours" means q3 36-hour calls? No, but in the same vein, I think you'd be doing a disservice to your own skills and training by forcing residency to be a 40-hour workweek, no weekends for 3 years and expect to walk away ready to be on your own.

 

[TelemarketingEnigma]

3 months into intern year: residency is very, very hard. The highs are high and the lows are low. My specialty has a very inpatient heavy intern year, so it’s been a little brutal and I would love a handful more days off. Probably working an average of 60-70 hours a week, and usually working harder within that time than at any other job I’ve ever had.

That said, there’s a number of things that are better than med school. In many ways I feel like I have way more control of my life - I know my schedule in advance, I have a paycheck to spend, I get to actually make decisions for my patients. My (limited) free time is my own, I’m not generally spending it all studying (pretending step 3 doesn’t exist at the moment). I enjoy my colleagues. I get to see and do some very cool things and care for patients who very much need me. I’m not as worried about what people think of me as when I was a student, as long as they think I’m minimally competent.

So yes, I’m very very tired. And there are so many things I would change about the system. But overall it is worth it so far.

 

[snooper]

Residents in other countries work considerably fewer hours but that's because their training is prolonged over a longer period of time because it is a "competency based model" of training and not a "time based" model the way the U.S. is structured where no matter how good or weak you are you graduate at the same time as everyone else your year.

I'm only familiar with Germany --- weekly hours are capped at 40 (although in reality sometimes longer but certainly not even close to 84/week averaged over 3 weeks--- residency isn't any longer, and according to faculty, who're familiar with training at both US and German top institutions, German clinical training during medical study is actually not as good as in the US.

I just think that residents in the US are used as cheap labor.

 

[podgal2003]

I’m 20 years out of Podiatric surgical residency. Lifelong VA and wouldn’t change a thing. I’ve gone from heavy surgery to academia and now administrative/committee roles for certifying boards and accrediting bodies. I still remember how tough it was. I met people I now have known my entire career - we’ve grown into our careers together. I’m a director for a residency program and we look to the residents to determine call schedules, rotation design and expectations. This focuses the program as centered around the resident experience. The hours are still long, the workload is high and the OR time is demanding. It’s a great balance.

 

[Angus Avagadro]

I'm only familiar with Germany --- weekly hours are capped at 40 (although in reality sometimes longer but certainly not even close to 84/week averaged over 3 weeks--- residency isn't any longer, and according to faculty, who're familiar with training at both US and German top institutions, German clinical training during medical study is actually not as good as in the US.

I just think that residents in the US are used as cheap labor.

I just think that residents in the US are used as cheap labor.
This in part may be true. Better to learn off of someone else's malpractice policy than your own. Residents will get the chance soon enough.
Like Quote Reply

 

[aspiringcardiologa]

I did enjoy residency mainly because of the good attendings who actually cared about residents and teaching and the other residents who tried to make the experience great. I think residency is just a means to survive on lack of sleep while having the expectation to study everyday and take care of very sick patients. Obvi there are more chill rotations where you can take a break, but the inpatient rotations and nights can be rough. Even during required elective rotations we had to come in during a weekend day so had to work 6 days a week which sucked.
The crappy part is the culture of medicine where you are expected to be perfect and there is a lot of mean gossip floating around which can break you. Some attendings did not care much for the residents. But I'm glad my program focused on wellness.
Fellowship is way better...so far (haven't done CCU yet anyway).

 

[mmmcdowe]

I enjoyed neurosurgery residency every day, just not every MOMENT of every day.

 

[emergentmd]

People who liked residency or thought it wasn't bad is like the abused spouse. You make rationalization for misery and accept it as "good for you"

Be truthful with yourself. After being an attending, would you ever go back? If your answer is No, then it wasn't that great.

I worked 100hrs/wk making 30k/yr taking care of indigent/homeless people who only knew they took that yellow pill. Typical abused mentality thinking it was good for me.

 

[guytakingboards]

Residency is like other high-reliability professions (e.g. police, firefighting, military): stressful and a very hard job but can feel much better if you have the right group of co-workers.

Nobody fondly remembers disimpacting a GOMER at 3am or sleeping in a tent in a sandbox, but everyone fondly remembers the camaraderie of the people that they went through it with.

The difference obviously being in healthcare we’re not being shot at and the switch to attendinghood can completely change quality of life.

 

[throwaway123342]

At this point I'm convinced that SDN is another version of earth in the metaverse, because I've never seen so many people say they liked (and particularly, "loved") residency.

I am friends with tons of residents in different specialties and at different programs, and a few recently graduated attendings....and while some didn't hate it (most did), none actually liked it. Maybe everybody I know went to a brutal program haha.

Its a spectrum. Residency objectively sucks. You work long hours and you dont make much money. But if you get in the right headspace it can be fun and you can have friendships, etc.

 

[longhaul3]

People who liked residency or thought it wasn't bad is like the abused spouse. You make rationalization for misery and accept it as "good for you"

Be truthful with yourself. After being an attending, would you ever go back? If your answer is No, then it wasn't that great.

I worked 100hrs/wk making 30k/yr taking care of indigent/homeless people who only knew they took that yellow pill. Typical abused mentality thinking it was good for me.

This makes no sense. An experience must be terrible if you wouldn't choose to go bacK?

I had a great time in high school but I wouldn't go back. Does that mean I was rationalizing?

Sorry your residency sucked. Not all of them do.

 

[emergentmd]

I never said my residency sucked. Looking back, I had great memories and learned a bunch. It was a necessary step towards being a doctor. But in no way does working 80-120 hrs/wk making 30-50k/yr not suck.

 

[JP2740]

It’s not black and white. You’ll have experiences you’ll enjoy and others you won’t. It sucks but you’ll have some fond memories as well.

 

[MusicalMed]

I'm PM&R. There were many hard parts throughout residency, but they were primarily earlier on (moreso in PGY-1 and PGY-2) for me. I have an extremely supportive residency between my fellow co-residents, faculty, and support staff, and I firmly believe that makes all the difference. I know that can often be hard to decipher through virtual interviews, however.

 

[MateoGM416]

Ok now how do you tell the okay residencies from the horrible ones before you apply

 

[cj_cregg]

Ok now how do you tell the okay residencies from the horrible ones before you apply

Before you apply - usually, you can't. Talking to residents on interview day is often the best way to figure this out.

 

[VA Hopeful Dr]

People who liked residency or thought it wasn't bad is like the abused spouse. You make rationalization for misery and accept it as "good for you"

Be truthful with yourself. After being an attending, would you ever go back? If your answer is No, then it wasn't that great.

I worked 100hrs/wk making 30k/yr taking care of indigent/homeless people who only knew they took that yellow pill. Typical abused mentality thinking it was good for me.

Or maybe not all of us had bad residency experiences.

 

[pawprint]

My intern year was the best year of my life. I made lifelong friends, enjoyed every rotation I was on, worked with rockstar attendings. Sure, there were challenges, but they were good challenges that made me a better person and a better doctor.

For reference, I did pediatrics and the culture in my program was outstanding. It really was one big family who just wanted to work together make sick kids feel better.

 

[Teeth and Titanite]

If I could get paid an attending salary to be a permanent fellow where I trained, I would jump at that in a heartbeat.

What made your fellowship so much better than life as an attending?

 

[operaman]

What made your fellowship so much better than life as an attending?

The hybrid trainee/attending role. It meant I had my own clinic and boarded my own cases some of the time. If something unusual came along I could get any of my faculty to scrub it with me and help. And then as the most senior trainee I had my pick of every great case booked by my faculty. So basically I did whatever I wanted every day of the week, whatever was most interesting. My faculty were all awesome so I loved operating and hanging out with them. We had great residents helping as well but our service only had juniors so there was never any bickering over cases, just great collaboration and teaching and as a bonus they handled all the floor work. And to top it all off I had no admin pressure regarding productivity and paperwork because I was just a trainee.

It was like a year of advanced surgical play with great people. Being an attending is awesome too but not EVERY day is filled with exciting cases and unusual stuff. Thankfully my practice is clinically pretty interesting as I’m the only doc of my kind for a long ways in all directions, but fellowship was just next level in terms of pure fun at work.

That said, the attending salary makes the less fun parts a lot more tolerable.

 

[Teeth and Titanite]

It was like a year of advanced surgical play with great people. Being an attending is awesome too but not EVERY day is filled with exciting cases and unusual stuff. Thankfully my practice is clinically pretty interesting as I’m the only doc of my kind for a long ways in all directions, but fellowship was just next level in terms of pure fun at work.

That said, the attending salary makes the less fun parts a lot more tolerable.

Thank you for the insight. The unique advantages of the trainee role have dawned on me recently and have helped keep me grounded. I'm not a resident yet, but I'm hoping I can keep these things in mind and stay positive throughout the rest of my training.

 

[operaman]

Thank you for the insight. The unique advantages of the trainee role have dawned on me recently and have helped keep me grounded. I'm not a resident yet, but I'm hoping I can keep these things in mind and stay positive throughout the rest of my training.

Absolutely. I think it’s harder to hang on to that when you’re in your early years of training because you’re Doing a lot of the less fun work. Then as you get more senior it’s really fun because at some point you realize you’ve been learning a ton and you actually know a lot about operating and doctoring, but now you want to absorb every last morsel of knowledge you can while you’re still in training.

And you get to do really complex cases with a safety net. Now when I book something big there’s a new kind of pressure and stress because I’m solely responsible for the outcome. As a chief I could get the feeling of doing these really complex unusual cases while not having the outcome resting solely on me. If I got stuck I could just call my attending over and he’d scrub and get us out of the jam. I could still call a more senior partner in a pinch, but as a trainee it was expected whereas now it’s a slightly different dynamic.

 

[WheezyBaby]

Loved residency. Loved being an attending. Love fellowship. Medicine is great

 

[NITRAS]

Loved residency. Loved being an attending. Love fellowship. Medicine is great

Except when medicine sucks.
I think I got three pancreatic masses transferred yesterday. Someone in her late 20’s, 40’s and 60’s. Of course the 60 yo was expected to be met by a surgeon and oncologist. Their sending facility couldn’t even send the CD of their imaging. Didn’t have the heart to tell her that the oncologist won’t see her without tissue, and if it is an IR biopsy, it will be after she leaves. Hopefully she has something they can get with EBUS or EUS so that our fellows get a chance to poke something.

 

[WheezyBaby]

Except when medicine sucks.
I think I got three pancreatic masses transferred yesterday. Someone in her late 20’s, 40’s and 60’s. Of course the 60 yo was expected to be met by a surgeon and oncologist. Their sending facility couldn’t even send the CD of their imaging. Didn’t have the heart to tell her that the oncologist won’t see her without tissue, and if it is an IR biopsy, it will be after she leaves. Hopefully she has something they can get with EBUS or EUS so that our fellows get a chance to poke something.

Yea, I mean I look at that more as life sucks sometimes. I obviously don't enjoy what they're going through, but I find it gratifying to effectively break bad news and help a patient / family through a terrible time to whatever extent I can. There are options in medicine to limit exposure to that for those who don't feel the same obviously

 

[mstevens]

I loved my residency. I learned a lot and was treated with respect by faculty who saw me as a future colleague and many of whom became my friends. I had enough time to take a weaving class 40 miles away on Wednesday nights when I was an intern (no idea how - I have neither the time nor the energy now 35 years later) and my wife and I had time to cook together almost every evening.

When my 1 y/o was diagnosed with cancer near the end of my 4th year, they pulled out all the stops to be supportive, including creating a last-minute fellowship. When she died 4 months later, followed shortly by my best friend who was the child/adolescent chief resident (AIDS in the late 80’s/early 90’s sucked so much, kids), they kept me employed, functional, and not endangering patients. My friend was ordered to go home when he tried to show up in clinic the afternoon after his first chemo, then they negotiated a treatment schedule that let him see patients when he had energy. The child/adolescent division director practically kidnapped our daughter to watch her when she was sick so my wife and I could sit and catch our breath for a couple of hours.

I was given increasing trust and responsibility over my training, but was never without backup and knew that on-call faculty would always take my calls no matter what or when.

Our interests were encouraged and our expertise recognized. It probably says a lot that so many students (all 200 of us did our rotations there) wanted to train there and so many residents wanted to stay on the faculty. I think half the residents the year after me are still there.

I do get that there are residencies that are awful, but lots are run by human beings who just love to teach. I even had a general surgeon colleague who said the same about his residency (which astounded me because the one at my school was run by psychopaths and I’d assumed they were all like that).

 

[AlbinoHawk DO]

Hi everyone,

Did anyone actually enjoy their residency and had a great experience?
We hear all the time how miserable it is, no sleep, too much work, not treated well, yelled at, etc etc. But is it really as bad as people say it is and make it out to be?

Anyone have a great experience and enjoyed their years?

Starting anesthesia/ICU double specialty program next month and pretty terrified.
Thanks.

I did IM. I absolutely loved residency. I think ICU is amazing. I'm hoping things are going well