r/Residency

Alright guys, let’s hear the crazy stories

My ex was in medicine too and I always found it comforting that I could download about my day to someone who understood what I was going through. But I’ve heard from my friends with partners not in medicine that it’s nice to have that separation and you’re less likely to talk about work all the time.

August intern. My anxiety levels are through the roof right now. Started lexapro 2 days ago and for some reason it has spiked my anxiety. How many of you are on SSRIs? Has it helped?

I am currently sitting in the resident lounge staring at at the wall because I just finished a fourteen hour stretch and my brain is basically mush. You know that specific sound the pager makes when you are right in the middle of something critical. I was in the ICU helping with a difficult intubation on a patient who was crashing hard. It was one of those moments where everyone is focused and the tension is so thick you can feel it. Then my pager starts screaming. I had to have a nurse check it for me because I was busy. It was a page from the surgical floor asking if I could put in an order for a stool softener for a patient who hadnt gone in two days. Two days. Like that couldnt wait until I was finished saving a life. I dont blame the nurses because I know they have their own checklists and boxes to tick but the lack of situational awareness is just wild sometimes. It feels like we are expected to be in five places at once and still have a smile on our faces.

Then I finally get back to my desk to catch up on notes and the same thing happens again. This time it was a family member who wanted an update at  4 AM. I understand people are worried about their loved ones but calling the resident line in the middle of the night for a non-urgent update is just exhausting. My attending is going to be here in two hours for rounds and I still have six notes to finish and a discharge summary that I havent even started yet. I am drinking my fourth cup of coffee which is now cold and tastes like battery acid. Residency really teaches you how to function on pure spite and caffeine.

The worst part is that when I try to explain this to my friends who arent in medicine they just dont get it. They think I am being dramatic or that I should just set boundaries. How do you set boundaries with a pager that literally controls your life for eighty hours a week. I love being a doctor and I love taking care of paitents but some nights the system just feels like it was designed to break us. I just want one night where I can sit down for twenty minutes and eat my soggy cafeteria sandwich without being summoned to deal with something that could have been an email or a morning task. Anyway I should probably get back to these notes before the sun comes up and the chaos starts all over again.

Im frustrated and looking for sympathy. I wanna hear what unhinged behavior the rest of you are seeing from our great leaders in clinical medicine.

I literally just got here. Just trying to eat my Mac and cheese. He has been on our list for 4 months. I think this is the first time he has been outside in weeks.. I hope tonight is busy. wtf are we even doing here, yall?

Edit: Probably going to die. But still in the “doing everything we can” stage. Hence why still in hospital instead of home.

Gave Jarrod a Reese’s today at 3AM as he was sweeping around us, so concerned with being in the way. Like bro you are not in the way, you are working harder than I am right now just waiting for this CTA to come back. He is so sweet, asked “wait can I have both?” Like…these people are so under appreciated. Remind them they have value.

Don’t get to eat lunch with my coresidents because I’m pumping. Don’t really get to go to social events because it’s hard to find / expensive to hire babysitters. Also mom guilt about spending more time away from baby than I need to. I know I signed up for this. Just sucks cuz I feel so left out. That’s all.

Remember to test your patient’s Zoloft levels regularly folks! It is a “relatively simple procedure!!” Per a well known and a respected psychopharmacologist.

Also, do let your patients suspected of felony use your personal cell phone to call family because of “human compassion”. We are not some cold blooded heartless soul, we are here to help!!

I would like to ask how to deal with jealousy among residents colleagues?

Drop your average caffeine intake.

Surgery resident PGY-2.
300-400mg a day. Like a Celsius and 1-2 cups of coffee.

PGY-1 IM resident on a notoriously busy service and I just need to vent.

Got slammed over the weekend. My list ended up being capped. After about 12 hours of drowning I finally had a moment to breathe and was chatting with my senior, he asked if I had plans for my off day. Casually mentioned that I would catch up on my PC in basket stuff before clinic later in the week. Then got scolded and told explicitly not to do that and my days off are my days off. So I went home that night, had my day off the next day, didn’t catch up on my in basket, and just enjoyed myself.

Got absolutely beat down the next day on service, got some more in basket stuff on top of it. Ended up pulling a 14 hour day. Afterwards, came home and tried to clear out my in basket as much as I could. Only had one message remaining when I passed out with my laptop on my bed. Next morning had clinic, and was promptly reamed out by my attending for not getting to that one patients message which was them freaking out that they didn’t have a refill for their SSRI (lack of refill not on me, but her prior pcp before they graduated), that has been sitting in my in basket for 3 days, today marked the 3rd day. Apologized and explained being on a busy service with long hours and how I was told to not work on my days off. To which I was then told that the expectation was that I respond to all in basket messages within 72 even if it falls on a day off.

This is all so annoying because this could’ve been avoided if I had just stuck with my original plan of working on my day off to play catch up. But I also have a habit of overworking myself and am trying hard to rein that in during residency. Also wish I had remembered to sort my in basket from oldest to newest, but I was running on 5 hours of sleep after a 14 hour shift and I know I was trying my best. Not upset with anyone other than myself. And frustrated that the expectation is that even my days off aren’t really mine :/

New grad NP starting in general cardiology next month. Recs for how I can prepare for this role? What videos or books do you think are most helpful? (I have been an acute care RN for 10 years) TIA!

Mid pediatric residency.

I just feel so desensitized.

It all started during my neonatal icu rotation. We whould take calls for the delivery room and C-section, it was so freaking exciting! Taking a baby that is not breathing, grey, totally flat. A bit of stimulation, Maybe some cpap or some positive ventilation. 99 present of the time and they are just back.

I couldn't wait for the next call, I just loved it.

But as time went on, I started feeling all my other stuff in life becoming so freaking dull. Meeting with friends I love, food, hobbies i used to enjoy, even regular cases in the ward, all just dull.

Im not looking for any answers, and I know that there is probably more to it. Maybe im just depressed.

I feel like a cliche, but unless i get that rush it's all so grey.

Sorry just had to vent.

I'm a nurse, and a lot of the standard order sets for our patients come with a set of default parameters around when to notify the provider that I typically sort of ignore because I assume that clogging up your inbox with a bunch of messages every time there's a vital sign or blood sugar check thats slightly abnormal but asymptomatic, unchanged, or not clinically urgent seems annoying and distracting, and I feel fairly confident i exercise good judgement when it comes to VS notification.

But, I am kind of curious about the BG checks. Our standard orders for all diabetic patients say to notify the doctor anytime a fingerstick is >150 which seems insane to me, especially bc we don't even give sliding scale insulin for BG <180. In practice, nobody actually follows those order parameters as written on my floor, but I'm just curious if there's a clinical reason or scenario in which the doctors actually would want to be notified every time a blood sugar reading was >150? Maybe for DKA patients I can imagine wanting that kind of aggressive notification, but is there any other scenario where you'd want to be urgently notified about the results of standard BG checks? Typically I only notify for hypoglycemia, excessively labile BG checks throughout the day, or BG >300, and even then i consider it more of an update/providing information to reevaluate insulin orders rather than an urgent notification most of the time. Just curious if there's somethign im overlooking here that I should be considering.

I finished IM residency a couple months ago and started my position as 4th year immediately after graduation.

I was excited about the role and opportunities my program gives me for growth in academic medicine (they paid for a course at a local med school, among other things) and was revving up to apply PCCM. But…around May I started having anxiety symptoms out of the blue with literally no history of mental health issues.

These symptoms got worse and worse and now I’m not even sleeping. Like im talking getting maybe an hour of sleep MULTIPLE nights a week. How tf am I sleeping SO BAD and I’m NOT A RESIDENT ANYMORE?

Things should be looking up for me. Done with the grueling schedule, getting opportunities, nearly doubling my resident salary, and yet…here I am. Medicated and still miserable.

Idk how I’m supposed to be a fellow next year at this point and I’m thinking I should withdraw my application. Am I burnt out? Am I spread too thin? I’m not sure. I have ABIM next week and my first attending shift too, so that’s not helping with any of this stress.

Everybody here seems so happy once they’re done with residency and I was so excited to finally get here… Anybody else feel like this?

Do you all know the treatments for alcohol withdrawal, opioid withdrawal? And any other admits!! Just asking as am feeling so dumb i dont even remember that management stuff or what they are talking about so stressed.

Please help how to get better?? And is it only me who is feeling this way and am i really dumb to not know about all this already?

(exclude derm from this lol) But recently grabbed lunch with some surgical sub residents as a rad resident. Then someone brought up "damn you know I wish I did something like EM or FM or pmr, short residency, and theyll be an attending for 3-5 years before Im finished". And we all agreed lol. Im in rads so much more humane than the others, but we still have our occasional 2-3 weeks of getting destroyed by call, and sometimes I even feel trapped looking at 3 more years of training. It would feel pretty awesome to be a senior EM resident looking at $300-400 per hr locum jobs, or an FM senior looking to start a regen/IV clinic, and to not be someones underling for another couple years

Edit: forgot anesthesia. No idea why it isnt up there or past derm/plastics when you have locums for 400-600 an hour for a 4 year residency

Tell me your stories please

That one day we will live in a world where EM physicians, nurses, and mid-levels will learn that we radiologists do not know, nor do we care, about the bed number of their patients. That they may instead give us names or MRNs I have a dream today.