Insanely busy? A huge amount of social work? Do you get any autonomy? What is the bulk of your time spent doing intern year vs. yrs 2 and 3? Etc.
Realize this will differ by program but just want to hear how it is at your program and any broad generalizations. Thanks.
Very variable not just between programs but within hospitals at the same program. Social work depends more on your patient population and your hospitals resources than anything else, and it's good to get at least a little exposure to it during residency since you will probably encounter similar problems as an attending. As for the residency itself... I'm graduating from a university-associated community program next month and I have to say that I've had a phenomenal experience that I don't regret in the least.
Look, there's a lot of people who hate IM, either because of a crappy experience during their M3 rotation, M4 subi, or their prelim year. Most of those people (for the obvious reason that they dislike it) did not go into medicine, but feel qualified to opine about it because it's one of the fields they got the most exposure to. That's fine. But presumably, by asking this question, you do not have a visceral hatred for IM, or you wouldn't be considering going into the field.
IM is an exceedingly broad field with the vast majority of residencies being approximately 2/3 total inpatient experiences (counting wards, ICU, and inpatient consult services) and 1/3 total being outpatient experiences (counting continuity clinic, a month in the ED, and outpatient subspecialty clinics). Traditionally, most programs are pretty bottom heavy, with anywhere from 7-10 months inpatient as interns, and probably half that in the second or third year (with more subspecialty services and clinic time to compensate). Inpatient services are busy, but it's a different sort of business than the surgical services. Most of us like to sit around and talk about the details, because that's the culture of the field. Most programs have a decent balance of education vs service, and any program that is ACGME-accredited has relatively strict caps on the total workload of any given rotation.
Autonomy is key, and you only can really see how much autonomy you had in hindsight. Interns right now in May are often making the majority of the details with senior oversight, versus towards the beginning of the year it was much more closely watched. Your first day you don't even know how to replete potassium, by the end of intern year you can manage a patient with 15 comorbidities by going through them systematically... rather than just ignoring all but the one program your field deals with. As a second year, at least at my program, you can function pretty much semi-autonomously until rounds the next day... but backup is always available, whether that's your peers, more senior residents around, or attendings who are only ever a phone call away. I was never asked to do anything I felt uncomfortable doing, and I do a hell of a lot more now than I imagined as an intern.
