IM residents do you enjoy residency?

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I am not a resident, but after completing my first sub-I, I think I can safely say that most people do not enjoy residency. It sucks no matter the specialty. If I'm wrong, I guess I'll stand corrected.
 
DrStephenStrange said:
I am not a resident, but after completing my first sub-I, I think I can safely say that most people do not enjoy residency. It sucks no matter the specialty. If I'm wrong, I guess I'll stand corrected.
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lmao this is what I figured. I feel like its just one of those things that you just have to get through in order to subspecialize or be an outpatient PCP attending (which i would imagine gets much better?) but I guess if you enjoy hospitalist medicine and want to be a hospitalist then God bless you lol
 
DrStephenStrange said:
I am not a resident, but after completing my first sub-I, I think I can safely say that most people do not enjoy residency. It sucks no matter the specialty. If I'm wrong, I guess I'll stand corrected.
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The only residents I saw who were truly happy where Family Medicine, Pathology and Radiology during training. The worst were General Surgery and Internal Medicine which it was the norm for them to go on 32 hour straight duties all in the name of patient continuity and exposure, once they get overwhelmed with deteriorating patients whilst simultaneously dealing with a barrage of admissions either from the ER or direct, you can see in their faces and body language that they do not want to be there. But hey when you are done with residency, an attending life is easier, although it depends on the specific career focus.
 
Deecee2DO said:
Title says it all-Do ya'll love it? Or putting up with it to get to the fellowship you are passionate about
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Nobody enjoys residency. There are varying levels of tolerance, but not enjoyment.
 
darklabel said:
As someone with a few months of attending under their belt, I don't miss a damn thing about residency. I even have other attendings that I can bounce ideas off of. I went to a ****ty program though. I'm even nostalgic for medical school sometimes, but not residency.
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Not even a single one? 😢
 
I didn't mind residency at the start, because as an intern, we were more protected with our time/number of admissions. As a senior, this wasn't the case. I was also in a very clique-y program.. the chief residents ran the show, and in my third year, the chiefs definitely had their favorites.

But it's all good because I absolutely LOVE fellowship (so far!) Doing rheum 🙂
 
I like internal medicine and I have no desire to specialize, and residency is...fine. It's certainly more enjoyable than other jobs I've had, but it's hard to say I enjoy it given how many hours we work. But the day to day stuff is fun, for the most part, and my co-residents are great. Honestly I think the people plugging for fellowship enjoy it less, because there's still so much more training to go, and because there's a lot of stuff they're going to have to learn in residency only to forget it immediately in fellowship.
 
HowlPrenderghast said:
The only residents I saw who were truly happy where Family Medicine, Pathology and Radiology during training. The worst were General Surgery and Internal Medicine which it was the norm for them to go on 32 hour straight duties all in the name of patient continuity and exposure, once they get overwhelmed with deteriorating patients whilst simultaneously dealing with a barrage of admissions either from the ER or direct, you can see in their faces and body language that they do not want to be there. But hey when you are done with residency, an attending life is easier, although it depends on the specific career focus.
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Radiology resident here, I've loved the radiology component. I was totally miserable during my IM intern year.
 
I feel like the better half of this decade has been a discussion in shades and comparisons. Residency is better than medical school. 3rd year better and more enjoyable than 1st.
It's really all about where and when you have more free time to discover and build you, the non-physician regular you up.
 
In retrospect, the only moments in residency that I enjoyed were moments of relative independence and autonomy. There is no true autonomy as a resident practices under a teaching attending. However, I felt more "empowered" on the subspecialty consult services. (Eureka! Someone is talking my language now!") I also felt empowered in MICU rotation (I would tell the fellow - well i'm off to reject this consult - big high fives on the way out). Rounding and working under hospitalists could be suffocating at times.

Medicine floor service and stepdown was just being a note monkey and being the punching bag for the patient, the patient's family, case management/social work, nurse management, and the hospitalist attendings.

Fellowship tends to be better as you are finally treated with some modicum of respect by your attendings (unless you go to nephrology fellowship .. but I digress).

Being attending is best because no one is looking over your shoulder. As long as you do what's right for the patient, you can laugh as you count the cash on the way to the bank (or watch the EFTs fill up your bank account automatically on your phone app)
 
liking/disliking certain phases of training is pretty personal and unique to the individual. I enjoyed high school a lot more than college. I enjoyed/didn't enjoy medical school and residency pretty much equally. Both were still better than first year of fellowship.
 
I enjoyed parts of it. I liked my co-residents. I liked most of the faculty. Faculty can make or break a rotation. I did not enjoy the long hours, no respect, low pay. I did not like having to do several inpatient services in a row. Things got a lot better after intern year then with fellowship then with attending. It’s just nice to focus more on patients and practicing medicine than being stretched between everything else that comes with training.
 
The problem with internal medicine residency, is you get these d-bag faculty that expect you to care about every situation, to have empathy and sympathy for everyone, no matter what the circumstance. And you have to fake like you care.

The beauty of being an attending is that I don't have to fake anything. Some scumbag drug seeker wants to leave AMA and is verbally abusive to my nurses, I 'counsel' him for all of 15 seconds then show him the door. And if he gives me any lip, I call the cops on him.

And then I secretly hope that he gets hit by a truck somewhere. (Sorry, I have issues, and I've been drinking)
 
Most of residency is just a grind and I really hated general IM. The best parts of residency are probably correlated with the times when I had the most autonomy and/or when I had camaraderie with a great team. As much as nights suck, I really enjoyed just being able to run the show with very little involvement from attendings. I also enjoyed critical care and nights because I was managing sick patients, not dispo and social stuff. Any work situation is 100x better if you really get along with your team, sometimes embracing the suck together really builds human connection.

Fellowship (allergy/immunology) is way better. Work hours is my field are fantastic compared to residency, even as a fellow. Being a sub-specialist is fulfilling because I am focused and often can "fix" or provide significant relief for whatever the patient's problem is. The main things that still annoy me about fellowship is the excessive academic stuff and certain attendings. Making a powerpoint for a lecture I have to give or working on research can be more draining than a week of ICU nights. I just want to see patients. Dealing with certain attendings can be frustrating if they have a tendency to micromanage or if their management style is very different than mine. Within our division, some attendings are very different than others in approaching a similar problem. I simply agree with one style far more than another so I have to stay humble and bite my tongue.
 
Social aspects of medical school were better than in residency. Anytime an exam would be over would be an awesome following weekend.
Residency in IM sucked in almost every way. Not reminiscent about it at all except for the time outside of the hospital. Most people who tried to convince themselves that they enjoyed it were:
A) nerd types who had no hobbies other than reading and going to bed at 9pm was their natural thing.
b) lying about it. When they would have that 1 in 1000 case where it was crazy metastatic disease prompting the “wow this is a great case”, moments later they would be complaining and whining because they have to deal with the dispo plan for their terrible social situation.

Fellowship (GI) is 1000x better. My colleagues who didn’t do fellowship are still complaining of the same things from IM residency. The only thing they like about their job is the 7 on 7 off where they go from depression/anxiety for 7 days and see the light at the end of the tunnel that is the 7 days of freedom. They then become depressed the Sunday before that next 7 day stretch of work and eventually it becomes iatrogenic bipolar disease.
 
I really enjoyed residency. We had good autonomy, great teaching, and a very supportive program. I also chose to do a ton of ICU time so did a lot of those 30 hour calls. I would say that the majority of my co-residents felt similarly.

Attending life is definitely better but I definitely enjoyed my training
 
I'm 2 months into IM residency and I am enjoying it so far. As an intern I feel pretty protected. Always have a senior around for most things. The hours haven't been as bad as I thought they would be. And everyone has been super nice so far.
 
Recent grad here. Overall I enjoyed residency. Not to say I liked every last minute of it, or that I wouldn’t have been happier with less days per week, less hours per day and overall less bull$hit. I am thrilled to have graduated but I have as many fond memories in addition to the ****ty ones and ridiculous ones.
 
ortnakas said:
Recent grad here. Overall I enjoyed residency. Not to say I liked every last minute of it, or that I wouldn’t have been happier with less days per week, less hours per day and overall less bull$hit. I am thrilled to have graduated but I have as many fond memories in addition to the ****ty ones and ridiculous ones.
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Haven't entered residency yet as I am currently practicing as GP. Hoping this will be my experience as well when I finish residency.
 
DrMetal said:
The problem with internal medicine residency, is you get these d-bag faculty that expect you to care about every situation, to have empathy and sympathy for everyone, no matter what the circumstance. And you have to fake like you care.

The beauty of being an attending is that I don't have to fake anything. Some scumbag drug seeker wants to leave AMA and is verbally abusive to my nurses, I 'counsel' him for all of 15 seconds then show him the door. And if he gives me any lip, I call the cops on him.

And then I secretly hope that he gets hit by a truck somewhere. (Sorry, I have issues, and I've been drinking)
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Don't worry... You are just saying what most (if not all) of us think.
 
Recent grad not started attending life yet. Residency was ok given that most of the people I worked with were nice people. But Let's see if my attending life will give me another perspective about residency.
 
HowlPrenderghast said:
Haven't entered residency yet as I am currently practicing as GP. Hoping this will be my experience as well when I finish residency.
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How are you practicing as a GP(licensed doc) without completing at least 1-yr post grad training?
 
Deecee2DO said:
Title says it all-Do ya'll love it? Or putting up with it to get to the fellowship you are passionate about
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There's aspects I enjoy now, but for the most part training shouldn't be "fun", but there should be parts of it (diagnostic challenges, differential formation, following up results) that should be at least somewhat stimulating. Ultimately though at a good training program you should be challenged to the point where you're never in a total comfort zone/relaxed phase. Conversely, you shouldn't be downright miserable everyday filled with thoughts of imposter syndrome. It's a happy balance. I personally am interested in fellowship but I guess you have to learn to like or get comfortable with IM first.

If you find yourself burnt out, I think the biggest contributor is a lack of knowledge. Whether it's social work, interpretation of images, management of end stage (insert organ) disease, wound care, etc. there's tons of places most residents never frankly learn adequate amounts about, but if you commit to learning something about each of these, you will find the days to have more meaning and things will make more sense and more decisions will be in your control. Transitioning to a position where I come in with much more experience, I can say things are infintely more enjoyable when you have experience/knowledge dealing with similar issues in the past.
 
Splenda88 said:
How are you practicing as a GP(licensed doc) without completing at least 1-yr post grad training?
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In my country, we can practice GP provided that you finish 1 year post graduate internship and pass the licensure exam. In the US, it's equivalent to PGY1, not sure about the comparable equivalence though but I suspect almost everyone goes to residency in the US as opposed to my country, wherein it is sustainable to go for moonlighting (Practice GP).
 
HowlPrenderghast said:
In my country, we can practice GP provided that you finish 1 year post graduate internship and pass the licensure exam. In the US, it's equivalent to PGY1, not sure about the comparable equivalence though but I suspect almost everyone goes to residency in the US as opposed to my country, wherein it is sustainable to go for moonlighting (Practice GP).
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You have to do at least 1-yr of postgrad training (aka residency) here in the US to be eligible for licensure in about 34 states if you are a US grad. If you are an international grad, most states want you to do at least 3 yrs.
 
Splenda88 said:
You have to do at least 1-yr of postgrad training (aka residency) here in the US to be eligible for licensure in about 34 states if you are a US grad. If you are an international grad, most states want you to do at least 3 yrs.
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Yes but the distinction is internship and residency is separate in my country whereas in the US, traditionally, internship is included in the residency, atleast that's how I understand it.
 
IM residency is a definitely a grind. How enjoyable or tolerable residency will be for you depends on your program, attendings, coresidents, ancillary support, etc. Looking back now that I am out and working, I can say that I enjoyed it overall. I had a great program that was supportive as well as great faculty and coresidents. Don't get me wrong there were things that I did not like or enjoy. One thing that made a huge difference in my residency was the amount of autonomy that residents had. Autonomy is what made 2nd and 3rd year enjoyable. YMMV
 
I was happier when my seniors left. 3rd year wasn't bad really. More autonomy. Focus on my goals. Intern obviously the worst. Second year I can't really say much because COVID kind of changed a lot of things halfway through. Anywho...Fellowship is only better. Could've just became an Attending. But I like to suffer.
 
I like residency and so do most of my co-residents, in spite of the pandemic and across all three years of training. Take a good look at how happy people are when you evaluate programs.
 
I have enjoyed residency, currently a 3rd year, but I think of things in the perspective of my prior Career. As a prior non physician HCW, the culture of the system definitely caters more toward physicians than the rest of the ancillary staff. So even as a resident, who gets paid less than most of the nurses from an hourly perspective, I still enjoy residency because we are still physicians and are mostly treated as such where I am.

It also helps that my programs has a very good family-like atmosphere, we help each other out, we are all friends as well as colleagues and always have each others backs when needed.
 
Deecee2DO said:
Title says it all-Do ya'll love it? Or putting up with it to get to the fellowship you are passionate about
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Just finished intern year and a few months out into PGY-2. It's still really cool. Definitely an art form and looking back it's pretty neat to see how much you grow in your working medical knowledge and efficiency. Could I do it forever? nope. I am a team player, but the logistics that a hospitalist has to move through just seem like a nightmare and that's coming from a university hospital where we have every single resource, I could not imagine how much more stressful it would be being at a community practice where you need to see high 20's.
 
AlteredScale said:
Just finished intern year and a few months out into PGY-2. It's still really cool. Definitely an art form and looking back it's pretty neat to see how much you grow in your working medical knowledge and efficiency. Could I do it forever? nope. I am a team player, but the logistics that a hospitalist has to move through just seem like a nightmare and that's coming from a university hospital where we have every single resource, I could not imagine how much more stressful it would be being at a community practice where you need to see high 20's.
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Wow. I have only heard of one place where hospitalists are seeing that many patients. The norm at most community hospitals is 15-20.
 
oh man. like? whew, that might be a stretch - lol..

i do hear that (aside from the fellowship speedbump for some of us) the medicine experience mostly improves with the passage of each year. for me, somebody could "eternal sunshine of the spotless mind" the intern part and id be okay. otherwise, the improved progression has held mostly true. on core medicine rotations, eg wards, i enjoyed the autonomy, decision making and step away from the front lines that was 2nd and 3rd year but im also very type B and unaffected by many of the issues that plague my colleagues. there are a ton of things i dont care about, which invariably affected my perception of the experience.

im a chief now and i enjoy 85% of this job but i think its the nature of the work. i work in the ambulatory setting, and my work is like 50% or less clinical...which i love and plan to model my future career after, at some point. im also pursuing fellowship in an area im super excited about, so even though im expecting that to be challenging, too, i feel like the ratio of cool to not cool will still be somewhat high.

i wonder if its just about perspective, too, right? like no, i didnt "like" residency in the same way i like vacation and levain chocolate chip cookies, but i also didnt spend the whole time slogging through "just" to get to the next thing (okay i did this during intern year but not pgy2 or 3). some parts of that training were kinda cool.
 
Enjoy? Hm. It’s not really the kind of thing you enjoy. But it’s one of the best times of my life. Square that. Doing hard **** is good for you. Our evolution is weird as we are not optimal as humans just sitting around. The friends you make and the things you go through . . . are priceless. I’m very happy to be an attending now and I suppose I went to a program that actually cared about its residents but residency was good.

I enjoyed it like you enjoy a marathon. Later.
 
NIK102989 said:
I really enjoyed residency. We had good autonomy, great teaching, and a very supportive program. I also chose to do a ton of ICU time so did a lot of those 30 hour calls. I would say that the majority of my co-residents felt similarly.

Attending life is definitely better but I definitely enjoyed my training
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Which program?
 
The only thing I really liked about it was finally having a seat at the table and being able to participate in making medical decisions, and to some extent the sense of “pushing yourself” through the challenge of it. But everything else frankly sucked. I still can’t believe how I got through those crazy hours without going totally mad.
 
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