I'm a new intern in Internal Medicine. I've seen our program director, but I've never had a conversation or personal interaction with him. Neither have the second years I've talked to... Is that normal? How do you get PD letters for fellowships if you don't interact with them? How are you evaluated?
How often do you see your program director?
- Thread starter jkc17
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that's a bit odd...we saw our PD every morning in morning report...and usually at noon conference. Also had service months with him as well...and then there is the mandatory twice yearly meeting for review...so you should have a sit down with him around December.
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I was in peds and not IM but our program director was at morning report and noon conference 85%+ of the time. He was also one of our hospitalists so we worked with him on a regular basis when we were on service. And twice yearly meetings and yearly parties at his house.
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I'm family medicine residency. We see our program director everyday at morning report, and he precepts us in clinic, and is our attending when we're inpatient.
My husband's Internal medicine residency, sees his director at their noon conference about 2-3 times a week, doesn't talk to him much, but is approachable.
My husband's Internal medicine residency, sees his director at their noon conference about 2-3 times a week, doesn't talk to him much, but is approachable.
Thanks for the points of reference. We see our PD once during orientation and then we don't see him again. He's not at noon conference or morning report. I guess my best bet is to find a mentor of some kind.
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How big is your program? I am in a community program and I see my PD all the time and she knows me pretty well.
We are 30ish/year. It's an academic program with mostly IMGs
I'm at a smaller program, but we see our director pretty regularly. Not daily, but definitely on average 2-3 times per week. He definitely comes to morning report once a week and then monthly we have a meeting with him as a group of residents.
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We see our Associate PD all the time, because it seems like he's always on service, and we rotate on one of his services at least 6 times during our first two years. I didn't work with my PD clinically until my third (and final) year in residency, and then only for a couple hours. I saw her occasionally at conferences, but not regularly. She would be in the office a lot, so we'd run into her when we went to ask for other things, but no really regular interaction. Until my last year, never felt really comfortable talking to her. She's very heavy administrative (only works clinically 1-2x per month), and has a number of other 'hats' to wear that keep her busy and out of the direct eye of the residents.
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That's kind of weird. I'm in a much smaller program to be fair, but in addition to seeing our PD at our weekly educational conference, and working with her on call or in clinic, she also meets with us individually twice a year to review our evaluations and discuss our progress.
Maybe try to arrange to meet with your PD to discuss applying to fellowship as a start? Do you have any assistant PDs that you can also interact with?
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This isn’t all that uncommon in very large IM programs, especially if you’ve started on rotations at other hospitals or more exotic sub specialties. A couple of my co-residents never even met their prelim IM PD during PGY 1 year, but they were at huge academic programs.
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LOL. yeah, I'm a 3rd year in a large IM program as well and I totally understand what you mean. Over the course of the entire residency I perhaps had in-depth interactions with the PD maybe 5-6 times, and maybe just once the first year. If your residency is big though, it should be broken down into smaller divisions each headed by an APD. I'm pretty familiar with the APD that heads my division, and the APD will provide the program letter for fellowships -- the PD only cosigns it. Just ask the seniors who writes the program letter and get to know those people well. Also, if they don't know you well, they'll probably draft the letter from comments they've collected from all of your clinical rotation evals, so it's not like they don't have anything to go off on. Some people do work with the APD/PD when they're on service but I often see it as a double-edged sword -- one of my coresidents stayed about 2 hours later every day while having the PD as the team attending lol.
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It's a little weird that your PD isn't more visible.
Still, if you want to get to know him/her for a letter later on, just set up a meeting to discuss your plans. If your PD is there for the right reasons, they won't mind the sit down to talk about your future, and it gives you some face time early on.
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