MD & DO co'21 Residency Panic thread

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Neopolymath said:
I really don't care about being a notehoe and dancing like a monkey presenting patients on endless rounds in the name of "learning." This is particularly true for me since I was met with audible laughter after asking my rad mentors if intern year was helpful at all.

I say to each their own. I would rather be treated like a useless med student than accidentally end up on the other end of the spectrum.
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This is so true for TYs. I don't know why TYs have to do a year of internship before going off to your real training. I think 3-6 months is plenty of time for you all. You don't need a year to practice re-ordering PRN Tylenol, especially if you're never going to do that again.
 
Neopolymath said:
I really don't care about being a notehoe and dancing like a monkey presenting patients on endless rounds in the name of "learning." This is particularly true for me since I was met with audible laughter after asking my rad mentors if intern year was helpful at all.

I say to each their own. I would rather be treated like a useless med student than accidentally end up on the other end of the spectrum.
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Writing notes and “dancing like a monkey” isn’t anyone’s definition of learning. There are great TYs that actually value rads people and give them fantastic procedural experience and radiology electives. I simply have no idea why people would rather do virtually nothing for a year. Seems like it would make the time go a lot slower, and it for sure won’t make you a better doctor.
 
I know the vast majority of us will not care about the match this time next year, but I do think it should be moved to mid/late February. In a non shortened application cycle the roughly 8 week timeframe of deadtime between the end of interviews (mostly) and the ROL submission/Match seems a bit extraneous. Better to move it up and allow for more time to plan out a move/your life for the foreseeable future.
 
efle said:
Well I want it because I asked a bunch of rads residents about it and they unanimously said nothing in PGY1 can prep you for R1 at all, so avoid a hardcore prelim.

If anything, a super cush TY where I can take a rads elective and research blocks will be better for me AND chill.
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I've heard this from every rad resident I've talked to as well. I've probably asked ~15 different residents from different programs (some did TY, some did IM, & 3 did GS) & the general response from all of them was: "No intern year will help you for radiology. Some may argue that surgery might help with post-op complications & internal medicine may help with differentials, but the advantage you have over other residents when you begin R1 fades in a matter of a couple weeks, so don't base you decision off of a perceived advantage you will have when you begin R1."

So basically no matter what intern year you choose, & no matter how chill/hardcore your intern year is, you will all be at the same level as everyone else after a few weeks of R1. Choose intern year based on location & the lifestyle you want during intern year, not based off of a perceived competitive edge you think you'll gain.
 
underthesun said:
Writing notes and “dancing like a monkey” isn’t anyone’s definition of learning. There are great TYs that actually value rads people and give them fantastic procedural experience and radiology electives. I simply have no idea why people would rather do virtually nothing for a year. Seems like it would make the time go a lot slower, and it for sure won’t make you a better doctor.
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I don't think anyone is advocating to do "virtually nothing" all year. The point is that there is no use in working beyond extremely hard during intern year in a field you're not going to practice in. Working your tail off as an intern doing scutwork is not going to make you a better ROAD physician. As someone who depends on their consultants for accurate diagnoses, especially when it comes to imaging, I'd rather these docs spend more time in their chosen specialty.
 
underthesun said:
Writing notes and “dancing like a monkey” isn’t anyone’s definition of learning. There are great TYs that actually value rads people and give them fantastic procedural experience and radiology electives. I simply have no idea why people would rather do virtually nothing for a year. Seems like it would make the time go a lot slower, and it for sure won’t make you a better doctor.
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You say do nothing but I hear "go home and do something enjoyable if I want to" when I see these chill places. I'll make the claim that no one has ever denied a TY at a cush program from staying late on rotations they feel useful lol. I would rather have the choice than no choice and just mostly sitting on various medicine services. I'm not worried about being a better radiologist from intern year. I have found only a few IR docs (that are crusading to make IR super clinical) say intern year is useful and not a single other person in real life. We can agree to disagree. It takes all kinds and I hope you enjoy your intern year.
 
Neopolymath said:
You say do nothing but I hear "go home and do something enjoyable if I want to" when I see these chill places. I'm not worried about being a better radiologist from intern year. I have found only a few IR docs (that are crusading to make IR super clinical) say intern year is useful and not a single other person in real life. We can agree to disagree. It takes all kinds and I hope you enjoy your intern year.
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My mentor is a radiologist (not IR) who says intern year makes you a better radiologist. Lol. So n=2 I guess.
 
SurgDoc95 said:
I know the vast majority of us will not care about the match this time next year, but I do think it should be moved to mid/late February. In a non shortened application cycle the roughly 8 week timeframe of deadtime between the end of interviews (mostly) and the ROL submission/Match seems a bit extraneous. Better to move it up and allow for more time to plan out a move/your life for the foreseeable future.
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Agree. Logistically it makes no sense from an administrative standpoint or from an applicant's perspective. That extra month would be pretty nice to get our ducks in a row.
 
Matthew9Thirtyfive said:
My mentor is a radiologist (not IR) who says intern year makes you a better radiologist. Lol. So n=2 I guess.
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So the question becomes if mega chill intern year versus "normal" intern year makes a difference or if just doing any intern year at all is what helps?

Personally, after doing some shorter clerkships, I fully believe an abridged version of intern year would work just as well. No one needs to be on peds or psych for 8 weeks as a 3rd year to get the idea of what's going on. I don't find it different with many rotations besides IM and GS. So from my perspective that would mean someone doing a prelim can probably capture what they need to carry with them to their advanced specialty after a much shorter time as well but we don't do that due to convention.
 
Neopolymath said:
So the question becomes if mega chill intern year versus "normal" intern year makes a difference or if just doing any intern year at all is what helps?

Personally, after doing some shorter clerkships, I fully believe an abridged version of intern year would work just as well. No one needs to be on peds or psych for 8 weeks as a 3rd year to get the idea of what's going on. I don't find it different with many rotations besides IM and GS. So from my perspective that would mean someone doing a prelim can probably capture what they need to carry with them to their advanced specialty after a much shorter time as well but we don't do due to convention.
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He did a chill TY. His view was that clinical exposure to patients from the medicine side helps you.
 
Matthew9Thirtyfive said:
He did a chill TY. His view was that clinical exposure to patients from the medicine side helps you.
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I don't think you will find a lot of people arguing against that as an absolute statement but maybe the relative impact. All physicians greatly benefit from a well-rounded training. It's why we don't make as many dumb**** consults and can tell our patients what's going to happen to them as they progress through the system. I just don't think doing 3-4 extra 72 hour/week rotations mostly about capturing billing gives us anything extra in our advanced positions.
 
Most of the TYs still have you spending 3-4 months on medicine and some time in ER, surg, and ambulatory. I dont think changing that to 9 months of floors in an IM prelim will improve what I dictate in any of my reads.

The fact that I'm allowed to do a surgical year or even a pediatrics year before my rads residency tells me 9+ months of IM is ridiculous
 
Is this the ERAS panic thread or the rads applicant panic thread? Seems like everyone and their mother is applying (COVID maybe?? general disillusionment with the clinical practice of medicine??? who knows). I'm pretty detached from ERAS-related matters these days, but still can't help overhearing things. The rat race to the reading room is real this year. Show em how it's done SDN bois
 
zero0 said:
Is this the ERAS panic thread or the rads applicant panic thread? Seems like everyone and their mother is applying (COVID maybe?? general disillusionment with the clinical practice of medicine??? who knows). I'm pretty detached from ERAS-related matters these days, but still can't help overhearing things. The rat race to the reading room is real this year. Show em how it's done SDN bois
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It is an interesting observation that so many of the SDN regulars are rads studs

seems like a win for the SDN community to me, these folks are gonna have so much free time to continue contributing to the forums while surfing the web from their yachts 😉
 
Neopolymath said:
You say do nothing but I hear "go home and do something enjoyable if I want to" when I see these chill places. I'll make the claim that no one has ever denied a TY at a cush program from staying late on rotations they feel useful lol. I would rather have the choice than no choice and just mostly sitting on various medicine services. I'm not worried about being a better radiologist from intern year. I have found only a few IR docs (that are crusading to make IR super clinical) say intern year is useful and not a single other person in real life. We can agree to disagree. It takes all kinds and I hope you enjoy your intern year.
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When I say do nothing, I mean the TYs that have zero expectations that you get involved in clinical care and learn to be a doctor. That does not equal going home early lol. More often it means sitting in a corner.

I hate IM and am ranking a program that only has 4 months of it. The rest is filled with awesome electives at a place that has no fellows and loves their TYs. They’re regularly doing procedures, they scrub in the OR, etc. Great radiology electives. Hours are also very reasonable. Residents LOVE it and it has a high number of rads people.
Contrast that to another TY in my area where the residents are bragging about how little they have to do, but when they’re on service they have no responsibility and end up sitting around a lot. The services at that hospital dislike them and don’t integrate them into the team. Hours are maybe slightly less than program #1.

My original point was that chill and good learning environment aren’t mutually exclusive. I didn’t even apply prelim surgery because I wasn’t about to slog through it and the potential for learning was just really low. I really dislike the programs where the TYs brag about how little they have to do though—right or wrong, it just comes across as lazy.
 
underthesun said:
When I say do nothing, I mean the TYs that have zero expectations that you get involved in clinical care and learn to be a doctor. That does not equal going home early lol. More often it means sitting in a corner.

I hate IM and am ranking a program that only has 4 months of it. The rest is filled with awesome electives at a place that has no fellows and loves their TYs. They’re regularly doing procedures, they scrub in the OR, etc. Great radiology electives. Hours are also very reasonable. Residents LOVE it and it has a high number of rads people.
Contrast that to another TY in my area where the residents are bragging about how little they have to do, but when they’re on service they have no responsibility and end up sitting around a lot. The services at that hospital dislike them and don’t integrate them into the team. Hours are maybe slightly less than program #1.

My original point was that chill and good learning environment aren’t mutually exclusive. I didn’t even apply prelim surgery because I wasn’t about to slog through it and the potential for learning was just really low. I really dislike the programs where the TYs brag about how little they have to do though—right or wrong, it just comes across as lazy.
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We agree more than we disagree then. For the record, I'll be ranking a malignant prelim #2 for family reasons even though the rest of my list is composed of great TYs and prelims. Good luck.
 
zero0 said:
Is this the ERAS panic thread or the rads applicant panic thread? Seems like everyone and their mother is applying (COVID maybe?? general disillusionment with the clinical practice of medicine??? who knows). I'm pretty detached from ERAS-related matters these days, but still can't help overhearing things. The rat race to the reading room is real this year. Show em how it's done SDN bois
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Just trying to follow in your footsteps. Hope intern year is alright.
 
zero0 said:
Is this the ERAS panic thread or the rads applicant panic thread? Seems like everyone and their mother is applying (COVID maybe?? general disillusionment with the clinical practice of medicine??? who knows). I'm pretty detached from ERAS-related matters these days, but still can't help overhearing things. The rat race to the reading room is real this year. Show em how it's done SDN bois
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It feels like that to me too this year. Maybe bc I’m just paying more attention this year for obvious reasons. Pretty sure number of applicants/applications are about the same as they have been in previous years.
 
Ho0v-man said:
It feels like that to me too this year. Maybe bc I’m just paying more attention this year for obvious reasons. Pretty sure number of applicants/applications are about the same as they have been in previous years.
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Hell if I know
 
NotAnotherPreMed said:
My mentor sent my #1 an email before I could send an LOI lmao. he shot my shot smh. So now time to just sit and chill till match day.
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You can pretend like you did not know that and send one as well as you wish...your chance of giving them reasons why you want to come there and what you bring to the table...your mentor version is probably not the same.
 
frenchyn said:
You can pretend like you did not know that and send one as well as you wish...your chance of giving them reasons why you want to come there and what you bring to the table...your mentor version is probably not the same.
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I guess. I'll wait till their last day of interviews and then send that email!
 
Banco said:
My middle is also in constant flux. But don't worry, you're gonna land in your top 5. You can quote me in march to say that I was right.
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saved a link in my notepad app 😉
 
While working on going back through my list, I'm having an anxiety attack replaying my terrible interview with my #1 and the fact that the resident I emailed with questions about my #2 a couple days ago hasn't responded yet, while also feeling like why did I even bother taking Step 2 when only a handful of programs I interviewed with acknowledged my email about my score coming in and none of them were my top 5.
 
Completely separate note. Thinking ahead to May, what do you guys and gals think the travel landscape will be by then? I'm really itching for a flight, an all-inclusive resort, and maximum relaxation leading up to my graduation. Do you guys think things will be any improved by May? Granted, I'm thinking a Mexico trip. I see so many COVID-deniers already traveling there every weekend now, but I'd like to be a bit more responsible and wait until around middle of May. Maybe I'm a hopeless COVID romantic, but I'm starting to think it should be better by then, no?
 
Espressso said:
Completely separate note. Thinking ahead to May, what do you guys and gals think the travel landscape will be by then? I'm really itching for a flight, an all-inclusive resort, and maximum relaxation leading up to my graduation. Do you guys think things will be any improved by May? Granted, I'm thinking a Mexico trip. I see so many COVID-deniers already traveling there every weekend now, but I'd like to be a bit more responsible and wait until around middle of May. Maybe I'm a hopeless COVID romantic, but I'm starting to think it should be better by then, no?
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IMO it'll be at least a bit better better. I think if you're traveling safe & you've gotten your vaccine you should be good. I'm a little biased tho 'cause I'm hoping to sneak in a little trip too haha. Maybe Florida or something. Not sure yet.
 
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NecrotizingFasciitis said:
IMO it'll be at least a bit better better. I think if you're traveling safe & you've gotten your vaccine you should be good. I'm a little biased to 'cause I'm hoping to sneak in a little trip too haha. Maybe Florida or something. Not sure yet.
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Yeah I'll have my vaccine by then though my fiance likely won't. that said we're talking about doing an out west trip which would be nice and socially distanced, I'm really not trying to hike rather, I'd much prefer drinking pool/beach side lol. Lazy I know. Florida is another option, likely safer too. But I'm thinking about a mexico resort and to me the biggest risk is the travel part, but once you're there it can be pretty socially distanced I feel like. If you can make sure to get direct flights, no lay overs and sitting around an airport, that's not that bad. Especially by May. unless these variants completely f us
 
Espressso said:
Yeah I'll have my vaccine by then though my fiance likely won't. that said we're talking about doing an out west trip which would be nice and socially distanced, I'm really not trying to hike rather, I'd much prefer drinking pool/beach side lol. Lazy I know. Florida is another option, likely safer too. But I'm thinking about a mexico resort and to me the biggest risk is the travel part, but once you're there it can be pretty socially distanced I feel like. If you can make sure to get direct flights, no lay overs and sitting around an airport, that's not that bad. Especially by May. unless these variants completely f us
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Hopefully we really do give out 100 m vaccine doses in these next 100 days and we all are vaccinated and live happily ever after
 
iamarosepetal said:
Hopefully we really do give out 100 m vaccine doses in these next 100 days and we all are vaccinated and live happily ever after
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The Biden plan is fantastic, except for the part where the goal numbers were already being met under Trump. He just slapped his name on it and he’ll get all of the credit. Biden would actually have to SLOW the pace of vaccination to reach his target.

 
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underthesun said:
The Biden plan is fantastic, except for the part where the goal numbers were already being met under Trump. He just slapped his name on it and he’ll get all of the credit. Biden would actually have to SLOW the pace of vaccination to reach his target.

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Not to make this political, but I'm missing the evidence in the article that you linked that backs-up your assertion that "the goal numbers were already being met under Trump".

From the article you linked: "On Thursday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the Trump administration had averaged about 500,000 vaccinations a day — half the 1 million daily needed to meet Biden’s target. But the seven-day average has risen steadily, from 482,865 two weeks ago to 1,022,342 Friday, according to Post data." Of note, the article was written on Friday 1/22, Biden was sworn into office on Wednesday 1/20. The seven day average as quoted above would presumably be from 1/16-1/22.

From my understanding of that article, an average of 500k vaccinations/day under the Trump administration is not the same as the Biden administration's goal numbers of 100 million in 100 days (i.e. 1 million vaccinations/day).

There is also this quote, "'If a good chunk of the speedup happened under the Trump administration, let’s celebrate that and say the challenge is now to maintain it,' said Matthew Ferrari, an epidemiologist at Pennsylvania State University." But a "speed-up" does not necessarily mean that the Trump administration was already meeting the Biden administration's goals...

So while it seems like the vaccination rate had been rapidly increasing over the past 7 days prior to this article's print on 1/22, I don't see evidence that the Trump administration was consistently meeting Biden's goal of vaccinating 1 million people/day. I may have missed something, so please feel free to clarify...
 
Espressso said:
Completely separate note. Thinking ahead to May, what do you guys and gals think the travel landscape will be by then? I'm really itching for a flight, an all-inclusive resort, and maximum relaxation leading up to my graduation. Do you guys think things will be any improved by May? Granted, I'm thinking a Mexico trip. I see so many COVID-deniers already traveling there every weekend now, but I'd like to be a bit more responsible and wait until around middle of May. Maybe I'm a hopeless COVID romantic, but I'm starting to think it should be better by then, no?
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Man I was supposed to go to Ireland June 2020 for 2 weeks, and several southern African countries May 2021 for 2 weeks. Now I just have travel credit with the company that I can’t even use pre-residency because the earliest they are resuming travel is July 1st.

Luckily my husband is also vaccinated due to his job as a respiratory therapist. So now I have to debate how things are looking later, and decide if we can go to an all inclusive resort in Mexico or take a domestic trip. Either way I am taking a freaking trip.
 
sunshinefl said:
Man I was supposed to go to Ireland June 2020 for 2 weeks, and several southern African countries May 2021 for 2 weeks. Now I just have travel credit with the company that I can’t even use pre-residency because the earliest they are resuming travel is July 1st.

Luckily my husband is also vaccinated due to his job as a respiratory therapist. So now I have to debate how things are looking later, and decide if we can go to an all inclusive resort in Mexico or take a domestic trip. Either way I am taking a freaking trip.
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I've seen so many friends post on Facebook lately pictures of their Mexican vacations. Seems like that is the easiest option right now.
 
morningmedicine said:
Not to make this political, but I'm missing the evidence in the article that you linked that backs-up your assertion that "the goal numbers were already being met under Trump".

From the article you linked: "On Thursday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the Trump administration had averaged about 500,000 vaccinations a day — half the 1 million daily needed to meet Biden’s target. But the seven-day average has risen steadily, from 482,865 two weeks ago to 1,022,342 Friday, according to Post data." Of note, the article was written on Friday 1/22, Biden was sworn into office on Wednesday 1/20. The seven day average as quoted above would presumably be from 1/16-1/22.

From my understanding of that article, an average of 500k vaccinations/day under the Trump administration is not the same as the Biden administration's goal numbers of 100 million in 100 days (i.e. 1 million vaccinations/day).

There is also this quote, "'If a good chunk of the speedup happened under the Trump administration, let’s celebrate that and say the challenge is now to maintain it,' said Matthew Ferrari, an epidemiologist at Pennsylvania State University." But a "speed-up" does not necessarily mean that the Trump administration was already meeting the Biden administration's goals...

So while it seems like the vaccination rate had been rapidly increasing over the past 7 days prior to this article's print on 1/22, I don't see evidence that the Trump administration was consistently meeting Biden's goal of vaccinating 1 million people/day. I may have missed something, so please feel free to clarify...
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Consistently meeting the goal? No. But that irrelevant, since there is a huge lag time in getting up to speed and no one in their right mind would expect to go from 0/day to 1M/day. That 1,022,342 number is a seven-day average, which started before Biden took office. So at the end of Trump's presidency, the pace of vaccination was essentially at Biden's goal of 1M/day.

I found the article funny because the Washington Post is actually being critical of Biden for trying to somehow claim it as his victory. Even the media is like 🙄
 
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