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Ever Thought About Quitting Surgery?


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Holy fuck yes. Pretty sure I thought about it daily/weekly in the spring of third year (and we had a great program with excellent residents and supportive friendly staff). It's just really easy to burn out in surgery.

 

It's was so common in my program for the third years to be ultra stressed and questioning their life choices that I dubbed it the "Third year meltdown". Luckily it only startsin the spring of third year and once you hit 4th year life improves a lot. We actually haven't had anyone quit the program in the last 15 years at least.

 

Reaidency blows (for everyone not just surgeons) so it's hard to decide in a lifelong career based on just residency lifestyle. I know my life improved a ton post reaidency.

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Just to add on to what NLengr was saying...

I've heard 3rd year was the hardest year as well, because you see your friends/colleagues in FM Residency graduate and find jobs and actually have a life.

 

There are definitely drop outs every year. GenSx at UfT a several years back lost a ton of residents. Uro at UBC right now only has only one 5th year resident, because the others in that year dropped out. GenSx at Mac is missing a few too.

It definitely is unfortunate, but it's not uncommon by any means. In some institutions it's a systemic/program issues (residents are abused and overworked), in others it's not a problem at all (like NLengr's institution).

It's definitely important to make sure you really want surgery, but I don't think any medical student (regardless of the number of electives) truly know if they can survive residency or not until they survive it. It's not like a race or an exam that you can practice or study for.

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