An excerpt from Doctors’ Orders: The Making of Status Hierarchies in an Elite Profession. Copyright (c) 2020 Tania M. Jenkins. Used by arrangement with the publisher. All rights reserved. I met Trevor on his very first day of residency, at the st…
Category: Residency
Dear interns: We have your backs
Every July, the same tired “new interns: be scared to go to the hospital” memes and jokes appear. I disagree. I believe that July is as safe as any other month to go to the hospital. July should be celebrated. Medical students and resident physicians a…
IMGs are abandoned during COVID
The Match is a stressful time during any physician’s life. Applicants study for, arrange for, and lose sleep over their USMLE steps, their letters of recommendation, and their personal statements. The matching process is particularly difficult during a…
Take yourself as you know you can be: a message from residency educator
To the residents graduating in 2020 and joining us in the ranks as physicians, from a residency educator: Victor Frankl was an Austrian psychiatrist and holocaust survivor. He was paraphrasing Goethe when he said: “If you take a man as he is, you make …
How the pandemic is affecting the residents [PODCAST]
“When the director of my general surgery program asked for a report on how the pandemic was affecting the residents, I queried my colleagues, promising anonymity to encourage candor. I received a wide variety of responses and reactions. Some are …
Understand your resident contract: What you don’t know may hurt you
When I matched into anesthesiology residency in 2002, I assumed that the entire four years of training were guaranteed to me, barring any gross failure on my part. A package deal, essentially. I hadn’t heard of anyone not finishing. For me, resi…
Protect our medical trainees during the pandemic [PODCAST]
“When I first heard about medical schools fast-tracking graduation for students and shifting young residents into high need areas to fight the pandemic of COVID-19, I thought of how panicked those students and residents must feel. Asking them to …
The USMLE needs better pandemic communication [PODCAST]
“The USMLE has failed the medical education community, and subsequently, future patients, as medical students will undoubtedly have irreplaceable damage from this experience; however, like all tests, it is possible to learn from mistakes and impr…
Dear AAMC: Please limit residency interviews [PODCAST]
“The COVID-19 pandemic has turned medical education upside-down. From exclusively virtual pre-clerkship courses, to delayed clerkships, to canceled graduation proceedings, there has been massive disruption. Now, after weeks of speculation, we’ve …
The medical education question that needs to be changed
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” That is a common question you hear in the setting of medical education. I think I heard it for the first time on my first clinical rotation. A little background, I was a non-traditional medical stu…
