How do you become the top resident in your program?

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Find the defining characteristic of the residency and then pour all your energy into maximizing it:

neurosurg = ability to function on the least amount of sleep
plastics = most expensive car
ortho = most push-ups in a minute
gsurg = most contemptuous affect on phone while being consulted
etc...
 
Accept that you are a ****** when you start and you will be good!
 
Surgical Olympiad? Are you referring to feats of strength? We actually had some in residency. Just curious if this was common elsewhere.
Past two years our program does an "olympiad" where they split us into teams, then have surgical tasks for each PGY year to compete against each other for pride, bragging rights, and evaluation of our technical skills. Interns had knot tying and vertical mattress, pgy2 basic lap skills, pgy3 bowel Anastomosis, pgy4 vascular Anastomosis, pgy5 advanced lap skills.
 
What sort? Surgical skills?

Nothing that useful.

At the county hospital our call room was setup as several bedrooms spilling into a common living area where residents hung out playing video games, watching TV or charting. One of the doorways into the living space had a pullup bar hanging from it. Residents so inclined did as many as they could and wrote their name, number of pullups and witness. There was a never ending contest to see who could do the most.

The plastics and ortho residents had a inter-departmental yearly contest at a local park called the Skin and Bones Games that was eventually opened to all surgical residents. It was comprised of conventional things like number of pushups in 1 minute, 100 yd dash and a kickball game as well some more unconventional stuff like hotdog eating contest, donut relay (eat a bunch of donuts and then run a 400 as a team of 4 in relay fashion), egg toss, wrestling in padded sumo outfits, mechanical bull riding and some others that I can't seem to remember.

We also had a residents vs faculty softball game which provided a nice opportunity to beat up on faculty.

We did have open and lap skills stuff that we did in the simulation lab. Times may have been posted but they were never celebrated or resulted in the banter that followed the stuff above.
 
Along those lines I was thinking of doing something like that at our Chief Roast as a fun competition, like stupid takes on surgical skills. For example, split up into teams, have one senior and one junior on each team do peg transfer but each team member uses one of the graspers. Or a real-life stone scooping where one of the team members rides piggy back and uses one of those toy robot claws to pick up like whiffle balls. Anyone else have any good ideas for a not-FLS, alcohol-involved competition?
 
Nothing that useful.

At the county hospital our call room was setup as several bedrooms spilling into a common living area where residents hung out playing video games, watching TV or charting. One of the doorways into the living space had a pullup bar hanging from it. Residents so inclined did as many as they could and wrote their name, number of pullups and witness. There was a never ending contest to see who could do the most.

The plastics and ortho residents had a inter-departmental yearly contest at a local park called the Skin and Bones Games that was eventually opened to all surgical residents. It was comprised of conventional things like number of pushups in 1 minute, 100 yd dash and a kickball game as well some more unconventional stuff like hotdog eating contest, donut relay (eat a bunch of donuts and then run a 400 as a team of 4 in relay fashion), egg toss, wrestling in padded sumo outfits, mechanical bull riding and some others that I can't seem to remember.

We also had a residents vs faculty softball game which provided a nice opportunity to beat up on faculty.

We did have open and lap skills stuff that we did in the simulation lab. Times may have been posted but they were never celebrated or resulted in the banter that followed the stuff above.
What was the ortho thing? Steps I and II + bench press >= 700?
 
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Surgical Olympiad? Are you referring to feats of strength? We actually had some in residency. Just curious if this was common elsewhere.

I won our anastamosis contest this year. They timed us and then numbered our grafts and gave them to the chairman blinded. Combined the two and then ranked us. Oh, and we don't have it, but if we did, I'd win a pull up contest, kinda have to as a rock climber or I would be pissed.
 
I won our anastamosis contest this year. They timed us and then numbered our grafts and gave them to the chairman blinded. Combined the two and then ranked us. Oh, and we don't have it, but if we did, I'd win a pull up contest, kinda have to as a rock climber or I would be pissed.

I'm a dark horse candidate for the temporal bone contest. We do something similar, where our temporal bones are numbered and given to the neurotologists to pick over.

Of course, I expect to win since I broke into lab after hours and drilled random holes in the other 19 t-bones.
 
I'm a dark horse candidate for the temporal bone contest. We do something similar, where our temporal bones are numbered and given to the neurotologists to pick over.

Of course, I expect to win since I broke into lab after hours and drilled random holes in the other 19 t-bones.
Those others just didn't care enough
 
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