How to Build a better PM&R resident

[NukeLaLoosh]

---

Members don't see this ad.

How does one build a great PM&R Resident? Any advice for current attendings or residents during intern year or residency about incorporating PM&R elements to prepare you for PGY-2 day one?

Any advice on getting the big picture. I tremendously hated the comment "that's above your pay grade" to my questions in medical school. I need perspective to avoid the traps of my predecessors..seeing what's coming in ten years is hard to predict? I got my best idea of how a program really runs from the residents or staff that runs it. Medical School does not let you see how a hospital is run or how the medical system really works..how important the relationship to a hospital CEO is for a department chair, etc.

How important are board scores? Please point me to the right link/thread..thanks

 

[Llenroc]

What, with super powers you mean?

 

[NukeLaLoosh]

Where you feel your input as a resident has some benefit to your own program in terms of patient care and developing the curriculum. aka....revving up your education and perspective rapidly up to such a degree that you are taken seriously by your superiors when you're still at a point where changes you make will still affect you while you're still in the program. I would take being able to leap tall buildings and throw an unhittable curve ball too.

 

[Xardas]

How does one build a great PM&R Resident? Any advice for current attendings or residents during intern year or residency about incorporating PM&R elements to prepare you for PGY-2 day one?

Any advice on getting the big picture. I tremendously hated the comment "that's above your pay grade" to my questions in medical school. I need perspective to avoid the traps of my predecessors..seeing what's coming in ten years is hard to predict? I got my best idea of how a program really runs from the residents or staff that runs it. Medical School does not let you see how a hospital is run or how the medical system really works..how important the relationship to a hospital CEO is for a department chair, etc.

How important are board scores? Please point me to the right link/thread..thanks

How about...

- work ethic - staying till work gets done, being efficient so you can get work done in a timely manner

- persistence - not giving up on results of tests, labs, etc until you know what they are

- bedside manner - gaining the patient's trust

- outside reading - self explanatory


I mentor a lot of medical students who go not only into PM&R but into other fields as well. I think too often students get focused on a board score or a test score and lose sight of the overall picture. To be a great resident and then a great attending you have to have those qualities. Once you're in practice nobody cares what you get on step 1, 2, 3.. heck I even forgot what I got, just that I was pretty competitive for most types of residencies sans derm or rad onc.

I don't mean this post to be cynical, but show these qualities on all your clinical rotations and you will gain the trust and admiration of attendings. Carry that over into a special letter of rec and you are made.

Trust me, we faculty look at these kinds of things. A little hard work to go beyond a run of the mill student will pay off in ways way beyond residency/fellowship.