Insights on Residency Training

September 19th, 2018

Coffee and the State of the Hospital

Ellen Poulose-Redger, MD

I think you can tell a lot about how things are going in a hospital based on the amount of consumption of coffee by its employees. Visit the Starbucks, Au Bon Pain, Roasterie, Einstein Brothers, or whatever coffee shop inhabits square footage in your hospital, and I’d venture to say that you can take the pulse […]

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September 4th, 2018

The Power of Intellectual Humility

Scott Hippe, MD

Don’t ever be afraid to say, “I don’t know.” Those were parting words from one of my physician mentors in medical school. I had asked him for wisdom in making the transition to residency. “In my career, I’ve seen hundreds of physicians who cannot bring themselves to say those words. They are generally the ones who get […]

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November 3rd, 2017

Uncuffing Medicine from Guidelines

John Junyoung Lee, MD

During my first Cardiology fellowship interview, Dr. Schevchuck, one of the cardiologists on the admissions committee, opened the interview with the following question: “Guess how many guidelines there are in the United States?” If you are reading this and you are planning on applying to a cardiology fellowship too, I have done some homework for you. […]

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July 15th, 2016

What Is Resilience?

Jamie Riches, DO

NEJM Journal Watch is happy to welcome a new panel of Chief Resident bloggers for the 2016-2017 academic year. Here’s a sample of what our new bloggers will be discussing, starting on August 1! “Resilience” is defined as the capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation caused especially by compressive stress. […]

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March 14th, 2016

The Era of the Ill-Prepared Medical Student

Ahmad Yousaf, MD

What is wrong with medical students nowadays? This question has been circulating in the academic medical world for years. As an intern and resident, I would hear complaints about how ‘unready’ they seemed. The grievances often include adjectives like ill-prepared, lazy,  or uninterested.  The complaints have burgeoned over time, and the examples are numerous in my institution: Students show […]

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February 5th, 2016

Don’t Give Up!

Gregory Shumer, MD

There comes a time in most people’s training when adversity threatens to become overwhelming and swallow them whole. It could be as a medical student, while spending countless hours in the library or when on demanding rotations. Or, it could be during residency, from the 80-hour work weeks or the stressful patient care situations. It […]

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December 18th, 2015

Morbidity and Mortality

Ahmad Yousaf, MD

He nervously shifted in his position in front of the audience of his peers. His voice was a little shaky, and the few words trying to escape his lips were chewed and swallowed. He was narrating a case in which a colleague’s sense of urgency, or rather, her lack thereof, likely negatively affected his patient. She […]

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September 25th, 2015

More Work Hours, More Strokes?

Andrew Ip, MD

Do doctors work too much? Residents would probably say “Yes! I’m burnt out,” and supplement it with some form of “I’d much rather work less.” Outside of residency, the answer may be a mix of yes, no, and maybe. Recently, Lancet published a meta-analysis on work hours and its effect on incident coronary disease and stroke. The study showed that […]

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September 16th, 2015

Tips for Intern Survival

Ahmad Yousaf, MD

With the start of the residency year comes a new batch of excited residents who will have many of the same successes and failures as those who tread the path before them. They will quickly fall into cliché niches within the residency class: the gunner, the humanitarian, the slacker, the superstar, the researcher. Their medically immature […]

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July 24th, 2015

Heroes Do Exist

Ahmad Yousaf, MD

We live in a time of great cynicism and skepticism. We seem to see only the mundane and boring in even the most interesting and spectacular things.  The electrical rhythm of the heart that pulses through cardiac tissue and results in a coordinated muscle contraction that effectively ejects blood to the rest of the body […]

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