Making friends in residency

[jkstat]

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How is life in residency, especially making friends? It sounds like it can be really isolating? I guess I'm making the comparison to medical school where you have a giant class and everyone knows each other.

Do you guys feel like the relationships in residency are stronger/different than the ones in medical school?

 

[Entadus]

Way closer with my cointerns than I ever was iwith med school classmates. N=1

Time to socialize outside the hospital can be very scarse, but not necessarily zero

 

[OrthoTraumaMD]

It is what you make it.
If you make an effort to hang out, you’ll make friends. It’s easier because you spend a lot of time together in pgy1.
If you just do your work and go home, you won’t make too many friends.
There is nothing wrong with either option. It basically depends on what you want. I am a pretty solitary person, and basically stuck with my close college friends throughout medical school and residency, and didn’t make any new ones. Despite that, I managed to get close enough to some of my co-residents that I am friends with them now and we talk regularly.

 

[Tenk]

Most people are far closer in residency than medical school. What’s really fun is going to conferences together to ummm... learn and stuff....

 

[Winged Scapula]

I consider my former co-residents some of my best friends. We spent significantly more time together than we did with our families. There's something about sharing in good times and bad times that really bonds you to others. This is why we often tell students to really consider the "temperament" of a program over location, prestige etc because those relationships are so important.

 

[Coupd'Cat]

Depends on the mix of people you'll be with. Half my co-interns have families/partners or are older, so they have a higher activation energy when it comes to activities after 6PM or on weekends. That being said, we all still have plenty of time when we're lucky enough to be on the same rotation to bond and whatnot.

I'd also say that my intern year relationships feel more like working-relationships in contrast to the debauchery and foolishness and whatever you'd call the opposite of professional in my closest medical school relationships.

Then again, could be that we're all just getting older and wrinklier.

 

[Carlin]

I made some of my very best friends during residency. They weren’t all in my program; some were in other programs at the same hospital. My first year was a transitional year so I rotated through different departments and met a lot of the other residents on my rotations. It’s very similar to med school in that you have a big pool of peers to find friends in. Just be outgoing and open to meeting the other people in the hospital- other residents, nurses, therapists, techs, etc.

 

[puahate]

Most people are far closer in residency than medical school. What’s really fun is going to conferences together to ummm... learn and stuff....

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

 

[cubsrule4e]

Echoing what has been said above. What better people to bond with than the people youre seeing on a daily basis who can understand exactly what youre going through? While I moved back to my original home city and dont keep up with them too much these days, they were definitely a nice support group to have through the process.