PGY 1 year for Rads

[Radsinthefuture]

Hi all,

I was wondering what the general expectations of an off service rads resident are on the more intensive services (Gen surg etc.). Did you find you were often in the OR assisting cases? Or is it more so ward management/consults and "scut" work? I have not taken any surgical rotations since the beginning of the third year of med school and am a bit nervous when I see how many surgery rotations I have upcoming in my PGY-1 year.  Does anyone have any tips on how I can best prepare for these? My procedural skills in the OR are definitely not up to par but I wonder if that matters at this point.

Any and all tips for the PGY-1 year of rads would be much appreciated

[Lactic Folly]

I think the general expectation would be to work hard, pitch in wherever possible, learn as much as you can, and develop good relationships with your surgical colleagues. Time in OR versus on ward/consults would depend on what the team needs, and what the team composition is. I doubt too much would be expected of you procedurally as you'd be behind any surgical residents wanting to gain more operating experience - at least in my experience, going to the OR was primarily an educational venture. That being said, I did prefer consults/ward management, as understanding the clinical context and reasoning is necessary to know how to provide useful and relevant recommendations and information as a future imaging consultant. (Plus, I couldn't always see what was happening in the OR clearly, and found surgical atlases more helpful to learn about procedures.)  In general, surgical rotations are the more higher yield rotations during PGY-1.

In terms of general tips, you probably will never have as light a schedule as in PGY-1 (due to lack of outside reading requirement on even heavy in-house call rotations), so if you have any thoughts about research projects, residents who had ideas and started working on them early on have generally been glad they did so (though I don't think this is the majority by any means, and not something I myself did - just thought about in hindsight).  Doing some online cases can also help you hit the ground running with respect to detection/description/interpretation once PGY-2 starts. Or simply enjoy the relative lack of pressure to do anything on top of taking good care of your patients at an intern level for now  

[W0lfgang]

Agree with lactic.

Don't expect any thursday call shifts >:(