my advice for medical trainees:

I'm a 29-year-old OBGYN. I just finished residency. I know there's a ton of new doctors on the block who just started practicing medicine this month. And so I have one piece of advice for you guys. And that is to learn from every single patient. I'm sure you've heard that, but what exactly does that mean? This is how I practiced it in residency. I would see a patient who presented with preterm labor. As I'm walking towards the stairs and going to report to my senior resident, I would pull out my phone, okay? Open one of two apps, either UpToDate or ACOG. ACOG is a national organization for OBGYNs. A lot of specialties have an app like this for different specialties. I would type in preterm labor and literally learn anything about the condition for two to five minutes, whether it's the epidemiology or management. Anything, any random fact, okay? Because you are going to see that disease again and again and again in residency. I would do this for every patient that I saw, especially those first two years of residency when I was still a junior resident and learning a lot. Obviously, I know you can't do this immediately after seeing every patient. Totally get that. But what I would do is mark or highlight that patient on my list and would make sure to read about that specific condition before I left the hospital. The key is before, okay? Because after work, which you have very limited time after work in residency, protect that time, okay? Because if you are working after that time, you are going to increase your risk of burnout. I promise you, there are so many times in residency where you will have time to doom scroll. Instead, study about your patients. That helped me with two things. One, it helped me understand the patient better and remember the patient better. And number two, it helped me ask better questions. So yeah, I hope that helps for you guys. That helped me a ton when I was a junior resident.