{"id":2621,"date":"2019-09-05T15:22:18","date_gmt":"2019-09-05T19:22:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/general-medicine\/?p=2621"},"modified":"2019-09-05T15:26:39","modified_gmt":"2019-09-05T19:26:39","slug":"building-your-squad-residency-and-beyond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/general-medicine\/index.php\/2019\/09\/building-your-squad-residency-and-beyond\/","title":{"rendered":"Building Your Squad \u2014 Residency and Beyond"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Ellen<\/a>

Ellen Poulose Redger, MD, is a Chief Resident at Stony Brook University Hospital in Stony Brook, NY<\/p><\/div>\n

At nearly every stage in our education and training, we find \u201cour people.\u201d\u00a0 Maybe it\u2019s your table-mate in kindergarten, or the kid with the really cool light up sneakers in preschool who becomes your best friend.\u00a0 Maybe it\u2019s your next-door neighbor who you play with after school, or a coworker from your first job in high school.\u00a0 These people become part of our squad \u2014 even if their membership is only transient in this long journey of life.\u00a0 What I\u2019d like to talk (write) about though, is finding your squad in residency.
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Match Day, MS4 year:<\/h2>\n

You nervously check your email or open an envelope to reveal your fate for the next 3-7 years.\u00a0 After all the emotions of where you matched happen in rapid cycle, you think, maybe for a minute \u2014 who else is going to be there with me?\u00a0 What happens to my best friends from med school \u2014 the ones I spent evenings and nights and weekends with in the library, and the ones who have been with me through the rough rotations and the brachial plexus and the formaldehyde and everything else?\u00a0 How on earth will we move away from each other and be busy interns and stay in touch?\u00a0 [Note to all MS4s \u2014 it\u2019s called a group chat, and sometimes you put it on \u201cno alerts\u201d when you\u2019re busy, and sometimes you realize you have 86 missed texts from these people, who will always be part of your squad.]<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Orientation to Intern Year:<\/h2>\n

Everyone shows up, early, on day one and everyone is full of first day jitters.\u00a0 Maybe you\u2019ve moved to a new city or even a new country, maybe you\u2019re still at the same place you went to medical school.\u00a0 Regardless, you\u2019re a newly minted doctor in a room filled with strangers, people you\u2019re about to be in the trenches with for several years.\u00a0 Everyone\u2019s sizing each other up: who\u2019s going to be the social chair?\u00a0 Who\u2019s the gunner?\u00a0 Who\u2019s the one who will have the bag with acetaminophen and ibuprofen when you get a migraine at work?\u00a0 Who knows how to use this EMR system already?\u00a0 If you\u2019re anything like me, you\u2019re trying to settle into a new apartment and figure out how to drive around a new city and do basic things like get groceries, while at the same time trying to make friends and a million other things.\u00a0 You sit through hours of orientation (retirement accounts?\u00a0 I haven\u2019t even gotten a paycheck yet!\u00a0 ACLS certification?\u00a0 Controlled substance prescribing training?\u00a0 I\u2019m barely ready to give a colleague that ibuprofen I carry around, let alone give a stranger anything stronger!)\u00a0 You might go on a retreat with your intern class.\u00a0 It may or may not be a scavenger hunt with insanely hard clues.\u00a0 But, by the end of these few days \u2014 you\u2019ve found some people.\u00a0 The ones you will be able to call a year later and go on a spur-of-the-moment \u201cwe have to go get a coffee or something stronger together before I go insane\u201d date with.\u00a0 [Note to all interns \u2014 these residency BFFs don\u2019t have to be in your program, in your year, or necessarily even doctors at all, but you\u2019ll need someone.]
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Sometime in the Middle of Your Training:<\/h2>\n

Depending on what specialty you\u2019ve entered, this may be your 2nd<\/sup>-5th<\/sup> year of residency.\u00a0 You\u2019re an old pro at things that used to scare you (ACLS and codes, anyone?), have navigated several rounds of medical students and new interns through the EMR, and calmly know how to push metoprolol to control afib with RVR.\u00a0 You\u2019ve learned how to have the difficult conversations on the phone at 2am with patients\u2019 families, learned and forgotten more than you ever thought possible, and probably left the hospital at least once with the bodily fluid of a patient on you.\u00a0 And you\u2019ve done all of these things with a group of colleagues \u2014 friends, actually \u2014 who you literally can\u2019t remember not knowing.\u00a0 [Note to mid-term residents \u2014 this is a good thing, not a sign of early onset dementia.]<\/p>\n

Panicked Thoughts in the Last Months of Residency:<\/h2>\n

Similar to how you felt many moons ago as a MS4, you\u2019re now going to a fellowship or a \u201creal\u201d job as an attending somewhere, and again, you\u2019re (I\u2019m) nervous about how this is going to go.\u00a0 Everyone I\u2019ve been working with for years is moving on to something new, and many of us are also moving to somewhere new.\u00a0 Again \u2014 how are we going to stay in touch?\u00a0 How will we stay so close when we don\u2019t see each other for months on end?\u00a0 And, of course, what about the people at the next place?\u00a0 We\u2019re embarking on the next step in our journey, but, again, when we disperse across the country or across the globe, how will we stay connected?\u00a0 [Note to new attendings \u2014 Again, it\u2019s technology and social media: texts and direct messages and conversations entirely in memes.\u00a0 And hopefully using vacation days to go see each other or meet up in a cool place.]\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In each of these steps in our professional lives, just like in preschool and elementary school and every step before we made it to \u201cbeing doctors,\u201d we find our people.\u00a0 The ones who it isn\u2019t weird to text and ask for recommendations on compression socks.\u00a0 Or the ones who you\u2019ll complain to and get advice from when your career and personal plans diverge.\u00a0 These people will be your squad, which will grow and shrink over the years and have people like your high school BFFs and your med school BFFs and your college BFFs and your residency BFFs and so many more people in it.\u00a0 Because you\u2019ll need a person you can ask for compression sock recommendations, but also someone who can recommend a good book for pleasure reading and also someone who can send you a great meme with uncanny timing when you\u2019re having a rough day.\u00a0 The days (and nights) might be really long in training, but the years are short \u2014 and they\u2019re all so much easier to get through with a good squad at your side.<\/p>\n

\"NEJM<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At nearly every stage in our education and training, we find \u201cour people.\u201d\u00a0 Maybe it\u2019s your table-mate in kindergarten, or the kid with the really cool light up sneakers in preschool who becomes your best friend.\u00a0 Maybe it\u2019s your next-door neighbor who you play with after school, or a coworker from your first job in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1296,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[17,29,33,37],"class_list":["post-2621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-residency","tag-chief-resident","tag-internal-medicine","tag-reflections","tag-resident-experience"],"yoast_head":"\nBuilding Your Squad \u2014 Residency and Beyond - Insights on Residency Training<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Dr. Poulose Redger outlines the path of residency and the world beyond residency.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/general-medicine\/index.php\/2019\/09\/building-your-squad-residency-and-beyond\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Building Your Squad \u2014 Residency and Beyond\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Dr. Poulose Redger outlines the path of residency and the world beyond residency.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/general-medicine\/index.php\/2019\/09\/building-your-squad-residency-and-beyond\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Insights on Residency Training\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-09-05T19:22:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-09-05T19:26:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/general-medicine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/07\/AU000_epouloseredger.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ellen Poulose-Redger, MD\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Ellen Poulose-Redger, MD\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/general-medicine\/index.php\/2019\/09\/building-your-squad-residency-and-beyond\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/general-medicine\/index.php\/2019\/09\/building-your-squad-residency-and-beyond\/\",\"name\":\"Building Your Squad \u2014 Residency and Beyond - Insights on Residency Training\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/general-medicine\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2019-09-05T19:22:18+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-09-05T19:26:39+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/general-medicine\/#\/schema\/person\/9582a49f225d70a7043e5aad25bfd855\"},\"description\":\"Dr. Poulose Redger outlines the path of residency and the world beyond residency.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/general-medicine\/index.php\/2019\/09\/building-your-squad-residency-and-beyond\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/general-medicine\/index.php\/2019\/09\/building-your-squad-residency-and-beyond\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/general-medicine\/index.php\/2019\/09\/building-your-squad-residency-and-beyond\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/general-medicine\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Building Your Squad \u2014 Residency and Beyond\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/general-medicine\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/general-medicine\/\",\"name\":\"Insights on Residency Training\",\"description\":\"Observation of residents across diverse medical specialties\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/general-medicine\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/general-medicine\/#\/schema\/person\/9582a49f225d70a7043e5aad25bfd855\",\"name\":\"Ellen Poulose-Redger, MD\",\"description\":\"Ellen was born just outside Atlanta, Georgia, at the end of her father\u2019s second year of medical school. 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