Older physicians often bemoan what’s perceived as a decline in professionalism during residency training. Caps on the number of inpatients assigned to an intern or resident. Duty hour limits. Wellness retreats. While these may be imperfect, they&…
Category: Residency
Why South Korean resident physicians are quitting
In February 2024, the resident physicians in South Korea resigned in waves. This was not a strike; striking seemed meaningless, and the residents went right on quitting. This occurred after the Korean government promulgated health care reform plans to …
Confronting the damaging hierarchy in graduate medical education
Although I have a deep respect for everyone who contributes to the education of our next generation of physicians, I also feel that the current hierarchy in graduate medical education is damaging U.S. health care. That is, the best students go to the b…
Accelerate your career with mentorship
As a lifelong learner who takes pride in self-directed learning, the importance of mentorship has not always been readily obvious to me. When I completed my residency and embarked on a career in academic medicine, little did I realize how important the…
What doctors can learn from actors about artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) promises to revolutionize the practice of medicine by expanding our knowledge and reducing our workload. However, physicians should tread carefully and take heed of the example set by other industries. For example, AI was a…
Medical residency closures: Is nothing sacred anymore?
Closing a residency program can significantly disrupt a physician’s training. In 2019, the closure of Hahnemann University Hospital in Philadelphia forced 570 residents to find new placements. First-year residents discovered a week before they st…
A call for equity: fair compensation and overtime pay for resident physicians
Amidst significant rises in resident unionization, a policy shift is warranted to guarantee equitable compensation and overtime pay for resident physicians contending with demanding 80-hour workweeks. On October 13, 2023, California Governor Gavin News…
How medicine’s demanding training took my sleep away
I, like many of my peers in medicine, am a terrible sleeper. And it’s no wonder, after all. I spent the better part of my twenties and thirties training my brain not to give in to sleep when I needed it. Then, in the rare hours I did sleep, I was…
Improving medical specialty selection with pre-training examinations
Considering that the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) primarily evaluates candidates’ general medical knowledge, there is a growing need to introduce specialty-specific pre-training examinations (PTEs). This is because the USML…
Authenticity and bias in recommendation letters [PODCAST]
Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Catch up on old episodes! Heather Furnas, an adjunct clinical associate professor at Stanford and an aesthetic surgeon, joins us as we delve into the intricate world of recommendation letters, biases in evaluations,…
