Has residency changed?

[belle54321]

Sorry the title of my thread is a little vague.

I am about to start my second residency in a different specialty. From reading SDN, I feel fortunate to be able to secure a second residency. (It seems like we hear more failure stories than success stories on SDN.) I have been reading SDN the last year and have noticed a lot of posts from residents who have been terminated or were denied a contract renewal. Perhaps, these posts really just represent a minority of residency outcome or has the nature of residency changed. I completed an obgyn residency at an ivy league hospital that has a reputation for being a "malignant" program. In my residency class, we had a family practice who joined us in the PGY-2 year. He didn't fit in in a female-dominated program, and coming from FP didn't help him (he was considered too lay-back). He was put on probation, and had to do a few extra months of labor floor at the end of his residency. He went to do a MFM fellowship and is doing well. Throughout the process, the administration was supportive of him. So, I am really surprised and dismayed to hear how many residents are terminated. Are they just in really unsupportive programs or are these residents truly incompetent? Or perhaps we are not getting the whole story. I am sure I made some mistakes when I was an obgyn resident, but I never felt like the program was looking for reasons to get rid of residents.

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[SouthernSurgeon]

Sorry the title of my thread is a little vague.

I am about to start my second residency in a different specialty. From reading SDN, I feel fortunate to be able to secure a second residency. (It seems like we hear more failure stories than success stories on SDN.) I have been reading SDN the last year and have noticed a lot of posts from residents who have been terminated or were denied a contract renewal. Perhaps, these posts really just represent a minority of residency outcome or has the nature of residency changed. I completed an obgyn residency at an ivy league hospital that has a reputation for being a "malignant" program. In my residency class, we had a family practice who joined us in the PGY-2 year. He didn't fit in in a female-dominated program, and coming from FP didn't help him (he was considered too lay-back). He was put on probation, and had to do a few extra months of labor floor at the end of his residency. He went to do a MFM fellowship and is doing well. Throughout the process, the administration was supportive of him. So, I am really surprised and dismayed to hear how many residents are terminated. Are they just in really unsupportive programs or are these residents truly incompetent? Or perhaps we are not getting the whole story. I am sure I made some mistakes when I was an obgyn resident, but I never felt like the program was looking for reasons to get rid of residents.

The vast majority of residents go through their years just fine, without any of the incidents or concerns you read about on this forum.

 

[BigRedBeta]

It's a distinct minority of programs and residents. And there's also probably a lot of the story not given on SDN - either to paint the poster in the best light or to scrub any sort of identifying information.

 

[deleted103644]

SDN often attracts the squeakiest wheels. I would imagine almost every resident dismissed from his/her program posts here, but the vast majority of the happy residents do not.

If you have been reading those posts, I have yet to see one by a native English speaker so I would guess cultural issues play a big role. I don't think residency has changed, there are just more ways for disgruntled residents to publicize their outrage.

If anything, if I were a PD, Internet forums like SDN would make me even more reluctant to let someone go.