Residency tips and pearls should be a little more accessible than having to ask all of the time. Especially because there are some questions people are reluctant to ask… like about stress. Here are some coping tips for internship and residency…

No baby yet, so I had time to address some questions… One question was posed (on a forum) about extreme levels of stress and anxiety in internship and residency. Here was my response. Some of these tips and pearls come from the free report you can signup for at the right (just put your name & email in there & follow the directions… easy-peasy). Some of the other tips & strategies come from RookieDoc members-only videos. And some of the others were specific to the questioner. Anyway, check out my response and let me know if it helps you.

Also, if you have a question for me, Just Ask.

What you have expressed is ultra-common. It is, by far, the biggest thing I deal with every year from May to about October. I give talks to and provide services for new interns… I’m not going to plug my stuff here, but I am going to give you some background and a little proof that it is common.

When I started internship, I came in pretty average or slightly below average. I felt like any minute I was going to be declared a fraud & that somehow this whole medical school thing was actually a mistake. I was also immensely fearful of hurting someone.

Because of those two things – harming someone & being declared a fraud – I was always the first one in… always the last one to leave… At night I was dreaming about my patients. During the day I had palpitations, fatigue, reflux, etc. And throughout the day I was dreading any situation in which I could be called on or humiliated. Now, I wasn’t paralyzed with fear and I did my best not to show it, but I was definitely burning out.

So much so, in fact, that there was an intervention. Two attendings pulled me aside and took me under their wings.

One & a half years later I was Resident of the Year, then Chief Resident, and now I hold a prestigious position at my institution. Now the unfortunate thing is that not everyone gets attendings to guide them through it all (despite the whole idea behind our training). The fact is, you’re right, many people do talk about specific interns behind their backs. Some even pigeon-hole them into categories and give them labels that stick with them throughout their training – passed from attending to attending.

So I started giving talks to new interns and started some web sites and services. In the process, I have interviewed or surveyed well over 1100 interns anonymously and as a coach/counselor.

And guess what? Most of them list those same two top fears that I said I had. (My surveys always ask for the 3 top fears… and these 2 are the most common) Fear of harming someone is always number one… and fear of being the weakest link or worst of your peers or exposed as a fraud – almost always number two.

So what you are feeling is more common than you think. Actually, it’s probably normal.

Now, is it as intense as you describe? Not usually.

Now, on to some things to help cope…

1 – You are not alone. You know when you’re sitting around with the whole team – the students, the interns, the residents, maybe fellows, and the attending? And you know when the attending starts throwing questions out to the group? At that moment, everyone is secretly hoping they’re not called on. Everyone is eager to blurt out an answer when they know it… because they want to be absolved from answering the ones they don’t know. (Incidentally, because of this fear, I always start with the students, then the interns, then the residents when I’m asking questions to my team)

2 – The 10-Year Litmus Test. Ask yourself, “10 years from now, will any of this matter?” And the answer is no. It will not.

3 – Strengthen Your Strengths. This might sound like an odd suggestion & maybe even unrelated, but it is not. Most people are worried sick about their weaknesses. But think about this… How are you going to stand out? How are you going to provide the most value to your program? How are you going to forge the career you want, that’s in line with your passions and goals? Do you think you will do these things by working on your weaknesses? No.

If you want to stand out… If you want the people around you to say good things when you’re not there… If you want to like the company you keep… and if you want to make an impact in your patients lives or even on the world at large…

Then you should strengthen your strengths. Provide value to your program and your patients and your fellow interns with the areas you are strong in. (Related to medicine or not)

4 – Compare Yourself To Yourself. Too many of us worry where we stand relative to someone else. Like you said, “i will compare myself to my class mates and convince myself that they are all so much better than i am”. You are comparing what you know of yourself to what you do not know of others. You have no idea what they are thinking… what their fears are… or even what attendings think of them… or the vibe that patients get from them… or whatever. The best comparison to make is “This is where I am now – am I better than a few months ago? And how much better do I want to become?”

5 – You Are Not At The End Of The Road. Just because you are a doctor doesn’t mean that you are done. You are not at the “end of your training journey”… you’re right in the middle of it. You’re in the middle of the process. Trust the process a little bit.

Thousands of interns have come before you and thousands will come after you. All have their strengths and their weaknesses. This process helps make those weaknesses into competencies (maybe even strengths depending on you and your program). But the ultra-successful ones will be the ones who leverage their strengths.

So trust the process and add value along the way.

6 – It’s All About Communication. It’s not about knowing the right answers or even ordering the right tests the first time around. Those things come with time.

The best doctors are the best communicators. (By the way, so are the best wives, husbands, parents, etc) More on this another time.

7 – Avoid Complainers – Steer clear of complainers. Complaining is infectious. And whining will get you nowhere.

8 – Avoid the backbiters.

9 – Laugh a little bit. Check out sites like GiggleMed.com’s Medical Humor Blog, Placebo Journal and Q-Fever. But find humor only in appropriate things related to work – not in individuals or demeaning things.

Anyway, I hope this helps.

I just posted another video to YouTube… This one is the second video in the RookieDoctor.com series on Residency Horror Stories. You might be wondering where the first one is… Well, it’s a little long and has some embarrassing information in it, so it’s only available to members. (Yes, even more embarrassing than this video.)

In this video you get to see how I screwed up telling someone that they were dying. Horror for me… but, good for you, because I extract several important lessons from this story for you. In fact, that’s the very reason I’m sharing these horror stories with you… You can take the good and leave the bad and it’s told to you in a way that you won’t forget… a story.

So please take this stuff with you through your clinical training years and apply it. You will be a better doctor for it and, of course, your patients will benefit too.

I would really appreciate your comments… You don’t have to tell me how much of an idiot I was, though I learned my lesson… Hopefully you learned my lesson too.

Anyway, let me know what you thought about the video and if you have any horror stories of your own. There’s many more where this one came from… but thankfully not all from me.

If you submit any stories about your training or someone else’s please do not include patient identifiers or institutional identifiers. Of course, if you do, I’ll remove them from the story and I will alter some of the details for the sake of anonymity and privacy. But if you share your stories, others might benefit from the lessons.

I’ve started a Residency Horror Stories series. The point is not to get you nervous about your training or being on-call or anything like that… In fact, it’s quite the opposite.

Most people think they learn best through experience. That’s true, for the most part… but there’s another piece of “experience” that is even more important than the experience itself… and that’s “the story”. We remember things as stories. We further ingrain the memory by retelling that story. And each time we retell it, there’s an opportunity to extract new insights from it and an opportunity for the listener to benefit from your story.

Now some of the medical establishment (the Old Boys Network) may be a little upset with me for saying this, but… the dry, factual version we often present on rounds is not always optimal.

Which one are you going to remember?:

THIS?:

49 year-old obese female with a history of type 2 diabetes and smoking who presented to the ER with severe chest pain, hypotension, and diaphoresis. Her EKG demonstrated 3mm ST segment elevation inferiorly. Cardiology was consulted and she was emergently taken to the cath lab. After a brief Vtach arrest requiring 260 Joules for return to sinus rhythm, her right coronary artery was successfully stented with two Taxus stents with good angiographic results. She was transferred to the CCU in stable condition with an intra-aortic balloon pump, IV heparin, Plavix, and aspirin.

THIS?:

It was my first week as a second-year resident and I was on-call in the CCU. I was called stat to the ER for a CCU admission that was described as a “49 year-old obese female with a history of type 2 diabetes and smoking who presented to the ER with severe chest pain, shortness of breath, and diaphoresis.” I was told that cardiology was consulted via phone & they recommended transfer to CCU after a VQ scan.

I went to see the patient & there’s a morbily obese lady lying in Trendelenberg, IV fluids wide open, heart rate in the 40s, and huge “tomb stone” STs on the monitor. I introduced myself and told her that we would take good care of her. She looked up at me and said, “Son, I’m gonna die tonight if you don’t do somethin’.”

I went to the ER doc and said, “This lady’s clearly having a huge RCA MI! She’s bradycardic, hypotensive, complaining of chest pain, & her EKG… well, look at it! We can’t send her to the unit with a VQ scan.”

He responded, “Well, I talked to the cardiologist on-call.” And I asked, “Well, are sure he understood what we’re looking at here? I mean, no offense, but sometimes it’s all in how we say it. I think you should call him back.”

Well, he did… the ER doc called back the cardiologist on-call and got screamed at… loud enough for me to hear it through the phone from about 4 feet away. “I said!… Admit to CCU and get a VQ scan!”.

He hung up. There I am, a new second year, one of my first nights with any kind of real responsibility and I’m disagreeing with the ER attending and the subspecialist. What should I do?

Well, there was no question… that lady said to me, “Son, I’m gonna die tonight if you don’t do somethin’.” So I did… I firmly asked the ER doc, “I’m not comfortable with this! Are you comfortable with this?!” He said, “No… No, I’m not.” So, I asked, “Well, how about TPA?” He paused… so I snatched the EKG out of his hands and ran 3 floors up to the telemetry floor. There was a cardiologist (from a competing group) and I shoved the EKG in front of him and said, “49 year old lady in Room 8 in the ER, tons of risk factors, heart rate in the 40′s, telling me she’s going to die… no labs back yet.”

He said nothing to me. He picked up the phone and called the cath lab. Together he and I wheeled her into the lab. While we were lifting her to the table, she arrested….

So which one are you going to remember? Which one will give you strength to do the right thing when the time comes. Both of those versions are true. I lived through it. More importantly, so did the patient, but not before her night got much, much worse. I’ll tell you the full story and the lessons learned in the second video for “Residency Horror Stories”… the first video will be in the next few days.

Do you have a story we can all benefit from? Tell us. Here’s the link again: