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Fresh fry

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Fresh fry last won the day on March 2 2017

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  1. Yup, except the family part. I wish I could do it but it makes me miserable. Can't stand the Doc McStuffins crap, the same people with the same problems, fixing insulin for people who won't exercise, tweaking inhalers, beta blockers, coumadin. Screening, oh god I hate screening. Not having enough time to do a good job. Glad there are good people out there that can do it but I would kill for a short residency in something I could do. This is definitely not my last career, pay the bills, stack some cash, then maybe switch out to working in the stock room at walmart where I never have to see another human again.
  2. I thought we were passed this crap. Does anyone actually still think this counts as an EC?
  3. A lot of people don't like the way they split their program into half days versus blocks. So instead of being on 1 or 2 blocks of surgery and 1 block of obs and 6 of fm all at once they split it up and you do half days spread throughout the residency. The services they rotate don't particularly like it either as it causes all sorts of coverage and continuity issues and so they feel that the fm residents are more of a burden than anything. I am not an fm resident but have friends in both years of that program and elsewhere in Alberta. Anyone who i know who chose it, chose it for location. I would agree to what was said above that yes there are lots of open spots in lots of programs but Calgary is particularly under-subscribed.
  4. This is the only part that you have to work on. Your GPA is much to low. Yes you theoretically have a chance but for all intents and purposes you need a clean slate with 3-4 years of full time studies with a GPA > 3.9. You need a second undergrad degree. Doing a masters or part time studies will not help you. Your ECs and volunteering/research are sufficient I would not invest a bunch of time trying to improve on these. You need to find a program that you can do well in and put your nose to the grind stone. Fortunately you can work part time as an OT to help with the bills in the meantime. GL
  5. I don't think you were attacking NLegr, what I am saying is this is not a "reflex response". NLegr et al is saying that this is necessary, crappy residencies have to be to a certain extent crappy, it is innate and unavoidable. Here is where we have common ground: I would rather things only be as difficult as absolutely necessary. I agree there is a backwards culture in medicine where people say "it sucked for me so it should suck for them". I don't think this is productive. I think we should always be striving towards perfection in how we educate/learn, we are nowhere near there yet. I wish people took the same attitudes that they do with their children. We all want our children to have a better world than the one we experienced. In medicine, the attitude seems to be the opposite. I think where we differ (and this is common with most people who are interested or doing surgical training) is that putting time restrictions and limiting work hours is detrimental to our training. I used to think there was no way someone needed to work 100hrs/week to be competent at what they do. I automatically assumed the system was broken and most of that had to be scut. From where I am standing now I totally understand why this is the case and I will actively fight to prevent work hour restrictions for the reasons others have warned about: 1) longer residency 2) lower competency 3) resentment from staff which really can mess with your life (I would rather stay an hour later and dictate for my preceptor than have them pissed at me and not willing to help me find a job when I'm done). I think we all want to make things better for ourselves and for those coming behind us, no one would say the status quo is ideal. Please don't assume that those of us who are against work hour restrictions are reflexively doing so. We have our own informed and experienced reasons.
  6. Why do you think it is a coping mechanism, that is completely baseless? Could it not possibly be more in line with what NLegr has said where people who have actually gone through the system realize that as much as it sucks there is something necessary to it? Soldiers who go through basic training don't have a "good time" but every one of them that has been to war would wish that their training had been even harder. It is completely naive of a person who has no real idea of what they are rallying against to condemn the people that support it and to insult them by saying that they have no real concept of why they are supporting it, that is way out of line. I am applying to two surgical specialties that are probably #2 and #5 when it comes to hours worked (neurosurge is the worst hands down). I have a young family and the thought of being away from my kids and not being able to support my wife bothers me to no end. But I have actually walked the walk, I have done over 20 weeks of electives, spent nearly a year on 1 in 4 call during core rotations and I have a choice. I will probably chose one of the more "intense" programs specifically for the reason that in the specialties I am interested in, you need the hours to be competent. There is no stockholm syndrome, I have just seen the alternative and know that you need to do a 1000 assessments in the ER and you need to scrub in and retract on 1000 cases to see the anatomy to know what you are looking at and not chop up ureters, you need to sew with double gloves on a million times, etc. I want to get through that as fast as possible. As for resident "well-being", people have choices as to where they want to go; democracy is forcing programs to get better everyday to attract the best candidates. Schools have implemented night floats, afternoon naps, mandatory protected home time. There are many examples of toxic programs that are slow to catch on and I'm glad there are people who are pushing to correct this but the fact of the matter is residency sucks regardless; it is the same as a marathon or climbing a mountain. You can do things to make it suck less but it is hell while you are going through it; the trick with both is to get it over with as fast as possible. The bigger the mountain the greater the challenge and the greater the suck. Here is the thing: when you get on to the ward in a couple years, and you are on overnight call for the first time in your life, and you are tired because you have been up all night admitting some COPD'er for the 13th time this month you are going to think back on this and think "I was right, why don't we have night float" or "what is the point of this, this is scut I'm not learning anything". But then your next page will be a for a coding patient or someone who is really sick and having chest pains and you are going to wish you had seen this a hundred times before. You are going to feel scared and inadequate and when that person dies, even if it is through no fault of your own, you are going to feel worse than you have ever felt before. You are going to start staying late after you could go home to see more cases, you are going to study harder than you have ever before. That's not stockholm syndrome, that is the drive to be the best, the sense of commitment and professionalism that has brought us all this far. This is a serious game with the most serious of stakes; maybe your attitude will change once you have played it, I'm sure you won't be so quick to condemn those who have.
  7. Agree with NLegr completely. Also there are specialties where working extended call as staff is the norm so sleep deprivation and working while stressed are something the resident has to be acclimatized too. I know Obs/Gynes that work 72 hr straight calls and I know it s not uncommon for some ICU and intensivists too as well. One size does not fit all and I am against anything that extends residency by so much as a day, especially since more surgical programs are going the way of requiring fellowships and graduate degrees.
  8. Med students often look at residents or preceptors and wonder how they got so jaded then they tell themselves that "that will never be me, I will never cut off a patient, or use big words, or make a joke at the patients expense". The thing is everyone comes into this a reasonably good person with mostly solid motives; we all want to be "good doctors", do the right thing. The sad thing is that after a year or two of 1/4 call, where your worth as a person is determined by how quickly and efficiently you can keep the system moving, all of that goes out the window. It is a broken system that makes broken doctors. Of course it is program dependent. Psych residents work chill hours with preceptors whose billing is based on hour long chunks of time, O&G residents are on the other end of that spectrum and are literally sleep deprived all of the time while being expected to catch the next baby or do the next assessment. In hard core surgical specialties residents get treated like crap and any praise (or lack of discipline) comes from doing as much as their preceptors work as possible. Dictate, round, operate, admit, go go go. Of course med students get a small taste of this as they are coming through. All of this patient centered stuff takes time, which is the one thing that is always in demand. The day you realize you have no choice but do the wrong thing because there just isn't enough time not to, or that you prioritize not getting yelled at over a patient's praise, is the day you will understand where your friends are now.
  9. Absolutely not. People are bastard coated bastards with bastard filling. If you ever find a happy resident find out who their dealer is.
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