First Year Residency Tips

First Year Residency Tips

Internship is busy and stressful with a very steep clinical learning curve. Here are some first year residency tips to help to set you up for a successful medical internship year.

• Try to live close to the hospital to minimize the time/stress related to commuting.

• Build an emotional support system for yourself.

• Use your fourth year of medical school to build basic clinical and procedural skills.

• Review the internal medicine milestones before you start and every couple of months to monitor your growth and pick skills to work on and draft learning objectives for yourself.

• Set realistic expectations for family and friends about your availability for the year.

• Make sleep and wellness a top priority.

• Set aside time to read and study around the patients you are seeing.

• Ask for EMR navigation tips from your residents.

• Register for, take and pass your USMLE step 3 exam.

• Be sure to learn at least one new thing from EVERY patient you see.

• Follow up on all night float admissions you do and reflect on the care you provided, look for potential areas to improve the quality of your care.

• Identify residents and faculty that you admire and figure out what specifically makes them great and try to nurture those skills within yourself.

• Be kind and respectful to all hospital staff, especially the nurses.

• When you are unsure what to do ask the nurse or colleagues, "What does one usually do in this situation?"

• When in doubt, ask for help early and often.

• No question is too stupid, ask as many as possible.