How to stay positive in residency

[OtoNEC1]

Definitely experiencing some burn out as junior resident

I dread call both cause it involves waking up in the middle of the night (home call) and pager anxiety. This makes residency much more challenging in my opinion.
Any recommendations on how people have dealt with this in the past?

I keep just plowing ahead knowing it will come to an end

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[gutonc]

Definitely experiencing some burn out as junior resident

I dread call both cause it involves waking up in the middle of the night (home call) and pager anxiety. This makes residency much more challenging in my opinion.
Any recommendations on how people have dealt with this in the past?

This...down there...is how I dealt with it. They can't stop the clock.

I keep just plowing ahead knowing it will come to an end

 

[anonperson]

Definitely experiencing some burn out as junior resident

I dread call both cause it involves waking up in the middle of the night (home call) and pager anxiety. This makes residency much more challenging in my opinion.
Any recommendations on how people have dealt with this in the past?

I keep just plowing ahead knowing it will come to an end

What makes you anxious specifically? Are you nervous about managing things or dealing with a clinical situation you cannot handle?

Or is it the general annoyance of getting called/paged?

A couple of things:

Just accept that call will suck and you will be inconvenienced.

As mentioned before, time marches on.


"If you're going through hell, keep going."

 

[Saddleshoes]

#1 Make time for personal necessities. (Work out, dinner with SO, church, alone time, some fresh air away, or a good $**t.)
#2 Find ways to make it fun. (Make friends with staff, prank the system, discover you favorite food in the cafeteria, find the place in the hospital without cell phone coverage and goof off there, try to find ways to connect with patients, find the humor in the human drama taking place around you, discover the the best restroom to take a good $**t on company time.)
#3) Pace your self. (It is a marathon not a sprint. Only worry about taking one step at a time not the whole race. It's good to look back and see how far you have come every once in a while.)
#3.5) Never stand when you can sit. Never sit when you can lay down, Never stay awake when you can sleep.
#4) Call up some old classmates and compare notes. You will find you are not alone.

Good Luck with it.

 

[j4pac]

Quoting two of my favorite fantasy book series ever:

Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien:

“How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer?”


Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson:

"You told me it will get worse...?”

"It will. But then it will get better. Then it will get worse again. Then better. This is life, and I will not lie by saying every day will be sunshine. But there will be sunshine again, and that is a very different thing to say. That is truth. I promise you: You will be warm again."

 

[TonsilPlucker]

Definitely experiencing some burn out as junior resident

I dread call both cause it involves waking up in the middle of the night (home call) and pager anxiety. This makes residency much more challenging in my opinion.
Any recommendations on how people have dealt with this in the past?

I keep just plowing ahead knowing it will come to an end

How'd your relationship with co-residents? Try to get together at least once a rotation (q2-3 months) outside of work. Pre-covid, anything would do (movie night, happy hour, dinner, etc.) A nice, therapeutic bitch and moan session can do wonders.

If it's really starting to affect how you approach residency (thoughts of quitting etc), time to seek professional help (counseling, etc). Even if it's just one session to check-in, it may help you see things through another lens and/or realize that this is very common.

PM if you have other questions!

 

[dienekes88]

A lot of solid advice above. Maybe read House of God.

Law #4: The patient is the one with the disease

Law #8: They can always hurt you more.
And the corollary... "but they can never stop the clock"

Do your best, man. Just keep trying. You will get things wrong, and you can't be perfect. This will continue as an attending. Just keep trying to do your best, and don't beat yourself up too much.

 

[Giovanotto]

Last couple of weeks have been one of the toughest for me. I'm usually a very upbeat person, but life circumstances plus being on a highly specialized service that I don't care about with very needy but useless fellows is killing my soul.

 

[deleted875186]

My opinion .... don’t complain, it doesn’t make you feel any better, and it doesn’t help those around you, just move on after work, get out as fast as you can, and try and enjoy the rest of your life .... easier said than done some days.

 

[Giovanotto]

My opinion .... don’t complain, it doesn’t make you feel any better, and it doesn’t help those around you, just move on after work, get out as fast as you can, and try and enjoy the rest of your life .... easier said than done some days.

Completely disagree. Complaining is like 90% of what bonds me to my other interns lol. Don't be that guy that's stone cold all the time.

 

[deleted875186]

Completely disagree. Complaining is like 90% of what bonds me to my other interns lol. Don't be that guy that's stone cold all the time.

Didn’t say be stone cold. Some complaining is inevitable, can be bonding between coresidents if done in a overall positive way.

But the couple residents that complain about everything nonstop is just a drag on the whole program, they’re the type of people I leave if I’m stuck in the same room as them, they just make everyone depressed.

 

[operaman]

Judging by your username and past postings, you’re a PGY3 ENT resident. If that’s the case (or any other surgical sub really) then the answer to your question is going to come in about 3 more months. The jump from 3 to 4 is a big game changer.

It completely normal to feel kinda burned out right now. By this time, call has lost 98% of its educational value and is just about getting the work done. You probably aren’t even calling anyone unless you need to admit or operate; you’re just by yourself in the trenches. You’re maxing out what you can learn and do as a junior resident and you’re ready for that next step.

July will be a huge game change though, especially if you’re like most programs and switching to some form of backup call. The pages just magically disappear! You get to operate a lot more. Your staff trust you more. Life gets so much better.

At this point as a PGY3, I counted up all my remaining calls and broke it down by weekday/weekend/trauma until the numbers looked smaller. Then every call I would check off the number remaining. I found it encouraging to see that I only had one more Saturday face call left, or 5 more weekday calls. Just another way to remind yourself that this too will pass.

 

[Groove]

Definitely experiencing some burn out as junior resident

I dread call both cause it involves waking up in the middle of the night (home call) and pager anxiety. This makes residency much more challenging in my opinion.
Any recommendations on how people have dealt with this in the past?

I keep just plowing ahead knowing it will come to an end

Some good advice in here. I can remember feeling burned out as a resident. The key is to just rise above all the fracas and keep focused on the goal. Residency is transient. It's a relative drop in the bucket when compared to the length of your career. Once you finish, you can go anywhere you want, make exponentially more money, and if you choose...never talk to your attendings and/or co-residents ever again. It's the ultimate control to shape your life in exactly the way that you see fit. In the meantime....keep your head down, don't rock the boat, don't excessively complain, don't go out of your way to make enemies. Suck it up and plow through the sleep deprived states. Do whatever it takes to make your attendings happy with your performance and keep writing good evals. Oh, and for the love of all that is holy and pure, do NOT be the guy that sends in an "anonymous" ACGME survey complaining that there are work hour restrictions being violated. It WILL get back to your director and you will be black listed. You're over half way done. Take a deep breath and feel good about reaching the halfway point. The angst of residency will quickly be behind you. It's amazing as an attending looking back how quaint, small and insignificant all those residency woes are when taken in context to my life these days. You can do it!