Where's the Face-to-Face Time?

Here's a short piece written by Dr. Graham Walker, an emergency physician at Kaiser San Francisco, about how medicine's technological uber-efficiency has adversely affected the collegiality - and even the patient care - in hospitals.

This issue has ramifications for residency programs: Trainees and their attendings need to interact across specialties in a face-to-face manner to improve resident education and patient well-being.

Breaking Up is Hard to Do

I found this article to be a sensitively-written piece by Dr. Thomas Cook, an emergency medicine program director. We spend so much effort trying to match into a good residency that we sometimes forget to consider the personal toll training takes.

Difficult Interview Questions: Learning to Hit a Curveball out of the Park

Check out my latest Student Doctor Network® article on how to navigate tough medical school and residency interview questions.

Crossing your "t"s and Dotting your "i"s

Make sure you double and triple check that your application materials are complete. A residency applicant I know only realized that his USMLE scores were not "assigned" when he contacted a residency coordinator asking the program to consider him for an interview. Residencies and medical schools will, of course, not invite you to interview if they don't have your completed application.

Inside a Residency Director's Mind

If you were a program director (PD), you'd be trying to avoid two big headaches, as you assessed a residency candidate:

1) Will this person be competent and collegial? A PD does not want to get complaints from patients, faculty, or other services about his/her residents.

2) Will this person leave the program prematurely? A PD does not want to scurry around to fill an open call schedule or residency slot.

As you approach you interviews, consider how you can demonstrate your competence and collegiality (academic success, strong evaluations, extracurriculars that demonstrate teamwork) and commitment to the field and residency program (research projects in the specialty, knowledge about the program and city). Ensuring the PD knows you are not going to cause him/her headaches is half the battle.