Navigating a Toxic Residency Program — Advice Needed

[Dropitlikeitspod]

Hi all,

I’m a current PGY-1 in a residency program that I’m seriously concerned about — not just for my own training, but for the integrity of what this program is doing (or not doing) for all its residents.

This program looks fine on paper, but in reality, it lacks accountability and structure. Residents are primarily used to staff the clinic, and on multiple occasions, surgical cases have gone uncovered because the clinic must be manned at all costs. There’s no rotation system or prioritization of surgical experience — just a blanket rule that clinic coverage comes first.
To make things worse:

• Attendings regularly schedule their own surgeries during their clinic hours, leaving residents alone to run clinic unsupervised.
• More than half of the attendings are disinterested in surgery and uninterested in teaching.
• Education, didactics, or any form of structured learning is practically non-existent.
• The majority of our surgical volume comes from outside hospital affiliations, many of which have been left uncovered or abandoned in recent months.
• Feedback attempts — including my own conversations with the program director — have gone nowhere. Frankly, I think the leadership is part of the problem.

I’ve spoken to my coresidents and even senior residents. Everyone sees the same issues and is just as frustrated, but nobody wants to speak up officially for fear of retaliation, blackballing, or losing chances at fellowship/jobs.

I’m reaching out here because I’m worried I’m wasting my time in a program that doesn’t care about producing competent surgeons. I’ve read the CPME guidelines and it’s hard to believe this program is compliant — but how do you report that without making yourself a target?

Has anyone here successfully navigated a bad program like this? Is there any way to document and report issues anonymously to CPME? How do you protect your future while still standing up for your education and patient care?

Appreciate any insight or advice — especially from those who’ve been in similar shoes.

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[GreenHousePub]

There's really no recourse.

Your options are to look at Caspr for advanced residency positions with open spots (typically terrible programs) or just bear down and finish the 24 months you have left.

 

[Feli]

There are sadly many programs like this (residents = "helpers", not academic). Some are VA with just very little overall volume/diversity or surgery, and others are like yours.

I agree little recourse. You talk to the director of med ed or the gme department at sponsor hospital, but its surely not a large academic center you describe. You can report them to Cpme once you graduate, but little will be done as new schools/seats need residency spots.

I'd say just talk to residents, make agreement to go to surgery and just say "clinicis covered" even if its light coverage. They are probably not exactly go-getters if they matched/scrambled there tho.

Try aggressively to transfer... it's potentially career/life changing to have more skills and certs. GL

 

[Weirdy]

File a complaint
Transfer out
Finish your training

Not much else you can do

 

[caliking87]

Reach out to one of the alphabet soup organizations. They’ll surely care and try to fix the issue right?…. Oh wait. They’ll place you on hold to try and coerce a pre med student who’s just scored a 487 on their MCAT to go to podiatry school

 

[Sole Badguy]

Once you fully and safely transfer, don't forget to name and shame - you never know, you might be able to save some other poor student from your situation

 

[MoostashPod]

I'm thinking this is probably one of those poor NY programs. Maybe I'm wrong.

Definitely do what you can to transfer out. Don't feel bad or anything. You're doing yourself and your future a huge favor. Your training should not be like this. Start looking and be upfront and neutral as possible to your current residency. Don't burn any bridges. Good luck.

 

[Bored Snorlax]

I'm sorry you're dealing with this. Hope it all gets sorted.

P.S. Might as well drop the name. Everyone lurks the forum anyway.

 

[heybrother]

Hi all,

I’m a current PGY-1 in a residency program that I’m seriously concerned about — not just for my own training, but for the integrity of what this program is doing (or not doing) for all its residents.

This program looks fine on paper, but in reality, it lacks accountability and structure. Residents are primarily used to staff the clinic, and on multiple occasions, surgical cases have gone uncovered because the clinic must be manned at all costs. There’s no rotation system or prioritization of surgical experience — just a blanket rule that clinic coverage comes first.
To make things worse:

• Attendings regularly schedule their own surgeries during their clinic hours, leaving residents alone to run clinic unsupervised.
• More than half of the attendings are disinterested in surgery and uninterested in teaching.
• Education, didactics, or any form of structured learning is practically non-existent.
• The majority of our surgical volume comes from outside hospital affiliations, many of which have been left uncovered or abandoned in recent months.
• Feedback attempts — including my own conversations with the program director — have gone nowhere. Frankly, I think the leadership is part of the problem.

I’ve spoken to my coresidents and even senior residents. Everyone sees the same issues and is just as frustrated, but nobody wants to speak up officially for fear of retaliation, blackballing, or losing chances at fellowship/jobs.

I’m reaching out here because I’m worried I’m wasting my time in a program that doesn’t care about producing competent surgeons. I’ve read the CPME guidelines and it’s hard to believe this program is compliant — but how do you report that without making yourself a target?

Has anyone here successfully navigated a bad program like this? Is there any way to document and report issues anonymously to CPME? How do you protect your future while still standing up for your education and patient care?

Appreciate any insight or advice — especially from those who’ve been in similar shoes.

All of the residents together need to schedule a meeting with your residency director / leadership. Individually you are a problem resident. Together perhaps you can accomplish something, but everyone has to be on board. I did this at my program and there were some fixes made, but they were very temporary and the PD directly retaliated against me to make my life worse. None of the changes I was able to have implemented lasted after me. In the end the PD always gets what they want and if the program has a bad culture it will just continue.

 

[Robin-jay]

Having some level of push back is necessary or else the residents would be at the mercy of the PD. Not a ton of push back, but enough to where the fight isn't worth the PDs time. YMMV, but residents who push back usually aren't a problem at my program because the battle simply isn't worth it for the attendings/PD if the residents position is reasonable.

You're essentially a PGY-2 now, and most pain and suffering is in the interns court. If your program is anything like what I've seen, 2nd year and 3rd year are much better than the conundrums interns regularly face.

 

[Sendin_Toes_2market]

Transfer.

All of the residents together need to schedule a meeting with your residency director / leadership. Individually you are a problem resident. Together perhaps you can accomplish something, but everyone has to be on board. I did this at my program and there were some fixes made, but they were very temporary and the PD directly retaliated against me to make my life worse. None of the changes I was able to have implemented lasted after me. In the end the PD always gets what they want and if the program has a bad culture it will just continue.

Most of the time podiatry clinics are huge revenue generators for hospitals. Admin regularly down play these issues. If you really want to report it, contact CPME with documentation and receipts. Look at a certain NJ program that got cracked down on. Now they have a whole new program.

 

[AttackNME]

Nowadays there are more program spots than residents to fill it. Do yourself a favor and transfer. You’ve got opportunity like no other decade in podiatry

 

[Dermato Fight Club]

Nowadays there are more program spots than residents to fill it. Do yourself a favor and transfer. You’ve got opportunity like no other decade in podiatry

With all the talk about saturation, hard to believe there’s more of anything than new podiatrists amirite?

 

[AttackNME]

With all the talk about saturation, hard to believe there’s more of anything than new podiatrists amirite?

Wrong. There are no more podiatrists. There are more foot and ankle surgeons and a few podiatric surgeons. We don’t make podiatrists in the USA anymore.