July Has Arrived

I'm deep into my surgical rotation now, so posting is down a bit - but I lucked into a full long weekend off, so perhaps I can pick up the pace a bit!

It's now July and that means a lot of changes in academic hospitals. Residents' years run from July 1st to June 30th, so today represents a big milestone for many people. Residents who are in their final year have officially just finished the most important part of their training and are going onto fellowships or into the working world. Other residents are moving up into new roles or new positions within their residency program.

In addition, the new residents are starting today. Obviously an exciting time for them, but it's interesting to see the wariness the rest of the hospital staff have towards this new transition. The July Effect, the worsening of outcomes in academic hospitals, provokes enough anxiety among senior residents and nursing staff. The evidence for patient harm in July is a bit conflicted, but the nurses certainly seem to believe that their lives are going to get harder starting today, as the seasoned PGY1s move onto their second year and get replaced with fresh new residents who may have been out of hospital for months. Many will be coming from other schools or even other countries and won't be familiar with the way our hospitals work. The new residents have the least experience of anyone in their position, yet the same level of responsibility.

I expect it will be a change for us clerks too. We've now been in the hospital for 10 months straight and know our role pretty well. We're only a year from starting residency ourselves. When we started clerkship, even the most junior resident was two years ahead of us in training and had a few months under their belt. When I start back on Monday, the training gap closes to a year while the incoming residents will still be adjusting to their new roles and surroundings. We're not at a resident level yet, but the gap between us and our residents will probably never be smaller.

I'm interested to see how the dynamic changes over the next few months!

My Amazing Residents

I'm getting towards the end of my first rotation. Something that deserves says - residents are awesome.

I've been hating the long hours - they work longer hours.

There's been a ton for me to learn in a short period of time - they have more to learn.

It's challenging to work and learn under others' directions, subject to their somewhat inconsistent whims - residents not only experience the same, but they teach us, having to adapt to our personalities and learning needs, all at the same time.

And they've been nothing but pleasant to me the whole time. They've often gone out of their way to teach me new things, or to get me in on useful clinical opportunities, or to let me practice a skill. So I wanted to take a quick second to send out a big "thank you" to all the residents who have helped me and tolerated my ignorance thus far. It really does make a difference.