I recently read a medical school commencement, delivered by a physician, that was both inspiring and sadly reminiscent of what physicians should aspire to throughout their careers. This physician relayed how patients throughout her training and career …
With the advent of countless resources and study aids over the years to help medical students prepare for the USMLE Step 1 exam, ranging from the venerable First Aid review book and Anki flashcard decks, to online tools such as UWorld, Pathoma, Sketchy…
“How did you like it there?” I ask, sitting down next to a new fellow (between bites of a plump sandwich, hoping there is no spinach in my teeth). I expect to hear the standard resident talking points — long hours, frequent call, and ballooning student…
My wife and I had a baby a few months ago. Or, more accurately, she birthed a child while I sat in the corner, contemplating the miracle of reproductive physiology in a vasovagal fugue. In the months leading up to and following that wondrous moment, we…
Most physicians recall the rigors of their residency training through a mixed lens. In prior generations, a single-duty shift could stretch to 36 or more consecutive hours, but the exhaustion was buoyed by the camaraderie of sleepless on-call nights in…
I graduated from an international medical school this past spring. I’m currently in the midst of a preliminary year as an internal medicine resident at St. John’s Riverside Hospital in Yonkers, N.Y. Next year, I’ll start my dream resi…
An excerpt from Career & Life Planning Guidebook for Medical Residents: The Best Part of Your Journey Is about to Begin. Life is a journey. Where is this journey of life taking you? Do you know? If I asked you where you will be in seven years, coul…
I consider myself one of the lucky ones because my wife and I couples matched to the same institution for residency. At the time we put our residency match lists in, we were just boyfriend and girlfriend, and the decision to couples match felt like a b…
“Can we please try to be objective about this!” I said these words to myself over and over during this year’s interview season as we formulated our residency rank list. At my institution, the residents and faculty have equal sway in forming the rank li…
Residency application season has begun! When I was applying last year, I spent a lot of time thinking not just about what programs I wanted to go to, where I wanted to live and how best to answer “Where do you see yourself in five years?” —…
