What "extracurriculars" are you doing as a resident?

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chicandtoughness

chicandtoughness

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Baby MS2 here just daydreaming about the future while procrastinating studying for renal block 🙂

What kind of "extracurricular" activities are you doing as a resident, and how much of your time is spent on it? Besides the usual research, I'm curious what y'all are doing to still be engaged in your career without having to be patient-facing, and also what the "expectation" is for extra commitments. I don't get the feeling that psych fellowships are super competitive, but what activities would boost your chance coming out of a standard psych residency?
 
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That’s a relief to hear. I hate the amount of ass busting one needs to do in med school and can’t wait to just show up at a job and then set it aside at the end of the day.
 
Working out, pickleball, stocktrading, video games etc.

To be fair, I am on the lazier and unmotivated side. Few of my co-residents who are applying to Child Fellowship are involved in some research (but only few hours a week at most) and attend conferences for networking (but probably are motivated equally for opportunity to travel, use GME funds).
 
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I played golf, volleyball as part of a local league, video games, read a ton about personal finance, hung out with friends and my significant other, and traveled. Academically, I was on the board for the local APA district branch and went to APA and AACAP. The main thing was selecting electives/rotations that were geared toward children.
 
I agree with other responses here. Generally try to enjoy life outside of residency, fellowship (if you even decide to do one) is generally a lot less competitive than residency in psychiatry.

Two exceptions to this:
-If you want a significant fraction of your attending life to involve doing research, you will need to do some serious research during residency. Outside of MD/PhD research track residents, though, this is pretty unusual.
-If you have your heart set on doing a more competitive fellowship (like Child or Forensics) at a "top" program then following interests within the field will help. This includes publishing, attending conferences, or taking up other voluntary projects. If you are less picky about where you match then this is less important, I'm pretty sure there are unfilled spots each year.
 
Thank you all! This was the motivation I needed lol. The promised land awaits. 2.5 more years...
 
Honestly most residents across most specialties are not looking to do additional work outside their hours unless there is a very competitive fellowship (like IM planning on cards). It's just in psych you get a life outside of your 30-60 hour work week as opposed to getting a life after your 60-80 hour work week in some other fields.
 
chicandtoughness said:
Baby MS2 here just daydreaming about the future while procrastinating studying for renal block 🙂

What kind of "extracurricular" activities are you doing as a resident, and how much of your time is spent on it? Besides the usual research, I'm curious what y'all are doing to still be engaged in your career without having to be patient-facing, and also what the "expectation" is for extra commitments. I don't get the feeling that psych fellowships are super competitive, but what activities would boost your chance coming out of a standard psych residency?
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Yeah the way you phrase the question is layered with POW of medical school rat race language. You don't have to keep running in a circle on your hamster wheel. Past a certain point you do whatever you feel like doing. In residency..I was already a grown @ss man. So I made money. Read what I was interested in. Which just happens to be somewhat psych related. And went to yoga classes. Hung out with my wife. I don't know. Same **** I'm doing now, but it's not what I would call..."extracurricular." Life doesn't come with a curriculum. Unfortunately.
napoleon dynamite whatever GIF
 
Lmao at the "lazy" people who worked out and went out to restaurants.

I slept, watched Netflix, and while I went out to restaurants as a student, as a resident I still ate good food but it was all ordered in and eaten on my couch while watching said Netflix.

I kept a spare set of clean scrubs around my apartment as a substitute for pajamas, so I didn't even have to do as much laundry. Did that make me feel like I was still at work? It made me feel like I was so lazy I wasn't even bothering to wear real people clothes. Or I might just do it in my underwear.

No idea how true it is, but I read somewhere that in terms of brain activity in studies, your brain is more active even when you are asleep in non-REM than it is while watching TV. That outside of a coma, there is no activity with less brain activity than watching TV. Which means your brain is more active when you are unconscious than when watching TV. TV is as close to death as you can be and still be alive. Closer even than unconsciousness if you can believe it. Even being asleep would a more redeeming activity in terms of effort for your brain.

There's doing whatever you want, and doing the bare minimum to keep yourself alive when you're not at work.

Someone somewhere told me this was "regression in service to the ego."

I'm not saying this is healthy, but there is such a thing as lazier than working out or going out to eat.

Find your happy medium and stay well and don't feel bad about where that is in the least.
 
Psychiatry is lovely in that you can do hobbies and be an interesting and whole person while learning it. But it’s probably important to consider what type of residency you are at. If yours has really chill hours the whole way through, it probably makes sense to pursue some psychiatry related learning and pursuits do at least average out to 40-50 hours a week. I think there’s enough to learn that that’s a reasonable standard, personally.

I am at a chill residency so do moonlighting, a therapy course, podcasts, reading, other resources on the side but still do fun stuff a lot. The field feels like a cheat code for medicine all the time. I make a bunch moonlighting, my patients are usually happy, I’m learning a lot, and have time to either succeed or fail in my personal life independent of work related concerns.
 
Bartelby said:
I agree with other responses here. Generally try to enjoy life outside of residency, fellowship (if you even decide to do one) is generally a lot less competitive than residency in psychiatry.

Two exceptions to this:
-If you want a significant fraction of your attending life to involve doing research, you will need to do some serious research during residency. Outside of MD/PhD research track residents, though, this is pretty unusual.
-If you have your heart set on doing a more competitive fellowship (like Child or Forensics) at a "top" program then following interests within the field will help. This includes publishing, attending conferences, or taking up other voluntary projects. If you are less picky about where you match then this is less important, I'm pretty sure there are unfilled spots each year.
Click to expand...

Would publishing + attending conferences + voluntary projects during medical school be helpful for the "top" programs? We have virtually zero child psych exposure or resources at my residency program, and attending AACAP in-person this year would set me back $1k + a ton of other headaches.
 
Transistor said:
Would publishing + attending conferences + voluntary projects during medical school be helpful for the "top" programs? We have virtually zero child psych exposure or resources at my residency program, and attending AACAP in-person this year would set me back $1k + a ton of other headaches.
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Yes. I would focus on quality over quantity though. Do things well and in depth over doing a little bit of everything (unless you're just trying to figure out what you like). I feel like most of the people in my class have something they excelled in.

That said, even top programs tend to interview about 20% (loosely around 60/300) of the total applicants to child psych. This means that if all things were equal and someone applies to a program the chances they get an interview to the place are greater than 20%... because chances are EVERY applicant didn't apply to a school (unless it's like Harvard/Yale maybe lol)
 
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In residency, especially as a PGY3, I snowboarded lots, biked lots, and had a pretty reasonable quality of life since I was a bit busy clinically. Still snowboarded 20+ days each season and I didn't live near the mountains. The 50 days as a PGY3 was a bit wild though lol.

As a CAP fellow, I snowboarded plenty, biked plenty, and also did a lot of moonlighting.

As a current forensic fellow, I'm planning to do more of the above, but it hasn't snowed yet so I haven't snowboarded plenty yet. Have done plenty of moonlighting. Life is pretty good imho.
 
Stagg737 said:
My extra curriculars typically included working extra shifts/moonlighting for $$$ and watching Cars movies, Paw Patrol, and Puppy Dog Pals on repeat in the background of whatever I was doing with the kiddo. Having a 2 yo during the height of the pandemic was not an ideal situation, lol.
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Lol and where was WW during all this 😆 or was that med school? But seriously it's an extracurricular option for people on SDN
 
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