Residency strategy question

[dank204]

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Lets say you were already accepted into something like a radiology residency. Would you choose to do your first year, your internship, at any old hospital or would you want to do a more demanding internship?

My friend got into a radiology residency but he did his internship at a "country club" hospital. We call it a country club because the hospital feels like a hotel and nothing exciting ever happens there. He did the internship at this country club hospital because it's right next door to his house and he's already going to be a radiologist.

The way I interpreted this was that he was doing the less demanding residency just because he could "get away with it"

If this was your situation, would you want to be at a trauma center doing your residency so that you could "see more stuff?"

 

[BloodnGuts]

The way I look at it, ultimately every decision each one of us makes has to be what's "right" for us. If your friend is attending an accredited program that will allow him to reach his personal and professional satisfaction by choice than I would say he probably made the right decision for him.

There are hundreds of different programs out there, only you can decide which ones are going to be your top choice.

 

[cpants]

I would probably try to get away with the easiest prelim I could find. Sure you could do a surg prelim at a huge volume center, and yes you would likely see and learn a lot more. Not a lot of what you would learn would translate to being a better radiologist though, so it's largely irrelevant.

 

[Mr hawkings]

Lets say you were already accepted into something like a radiology residency. Would you choose to do your first year, your internship, at any old hospital or would you want to do a more demanding internship?


If this was your situation, would you want to be at a trauma center doing your residency so that you could "see more stuff?"

Personally, i would not really care to see more stuff that i would not use in my chosen specialty. I would be a tougher choice if i was going into something like anesthesiology. I would be more likely to choose the tough internship over the country club one.

 

[Law2Doc]

Lets say you were already accepted into something like a radiology residency. Would you choose to do your first year, your internship, at any old hospital or would you want to do a more demanding internship?

My friend got into a radiology residency but he did his internship at a "country club" hospital. We call it a country club because the hospital feels like a hotel and nothing exciting ever happens there. He did the internship at this country club hospital because it's right next door to his house and he's already going to be a radiologist.

The way I interpreted this was that he was doing the less demanding residency just because he could "get away with it"

If this was your situation, would you want to be at a trauma center doing your residency so that you could "see more stuff?"

This question comes up time to time, and the consensus amongst attendings I've talked to is that the folks who do harder prelims don't really end up having much more to show for it than the ones who do the cushier transitional years. You might get to do a lot more stuff you will never have an opportunity to do again, might have the opportunity to do lots of procedures and get a much better appreciation for management of an ICU patient and the like, but being a prelim grunt won't translate to being a better specialist as compared to the transitional year slug who takes it easy. They really will "get away with it", if they so choose. The transitional year system allows for this, and folks flock to it because they, in fact, are not penalized in the least when they go this route.

Now I'm all for the "see more stuff" attitude. It's only a year. No more crazy than all those dudes who go off to the third world and do the peace corps for a year. If you are going into a field where you will be holed up in a dark room 12 hours a day, then by all means spend a year doing something outside of your comfort zone that you won't likely have the opportunity to do again. You'll probably make some good friends and have some good stories. But I wouldn't kid yourself that you are going to get anything other than personal satisfaction out of it. It probably won't make you a better specialist, or even a better doctor. But if it floats your boat, it really will likely be your last chance to do something like this. So sure, go for it. But do it for you, not do it because you think there's a tangible career benefit. Because there isn't.

 

[TexasPhysician]

I would run from high volume intern years if I was going into radiology. High volume surgery center wouldn't help me a bit in radiology.

 

[mglavin]

OP please copy paste your post into a word document and re-read it when you do your surgery rotation or at any point in your internship

 

[deuist]

If this was your situation, would you want to be at a trauma center doing your residency so that you could "see more stuff?"

Hell no! If that was my situation, I'd be at the country club hospital getting my car valet parked and leaving every day at 2pm for the golf course.