Was there any particular year of residency that you felt you learned or grew the most?

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hebel

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I'm at the beginning of my PGY-2 year and this has been on my mind a lot lately. Looking back at intern year I do think I learned a lot...but did anyone else feel like it was more about how to be a doctor/resident and less actual psychiatry? I'm actually feeling pretty glad that psychiatry residency is four and not three years, because I feel like I have so much to learn when it comes to psychiatry. Did you all feel like things ramped up once you hit PGY-2 and beyond?

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PGY2 here. Agree with you about intern year. Not so sure about having a PGY4 though. The bulk of graduating residents I have spoken within stated that it was PGY3 outpatient when it all started to come together. This was even the perspective of residents who "hated" outpatient and were on their way to accepting positions in CL (and we are a heavy CL program with at least 5 months, in addition to call and NF which is ED and CL). I feel your concern. Keep learning from your patients and reading up on cases. It will click. And the learning will continue, well beyond PGY4.
 
PGY1 was absolutely huge for me, but my program also really dumped on our interns in terms of call responsibility. By the end of the year my confidence to triage problems that came up was way way up, and I remembered having a moment on one of my last calls of the year with emergencies going on in the unit, the floors, and the ED stacked with patients and noticing how calm and in control I felt, mainly because it was all starting to be stuff I'd handled before. I know that incoming students say they'd prefer their responsibility be gradually increased, but being thrown into the fire helped me acclimate to being a resident a lot faster, and suddenly having all kinds of free time in PG2 was nice too.

Chief resident year in PGY4 also was educational though I was happy when I got to pass the reigns when it was finally over.
 
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