End of Year Festivities

So the year is now winding down. It is one of the best and most melancholy times of year. The chief residents are nowhere to be found most days, already absent from the hospital in spirit. Of this year's class, 2 are doing plastic surgery fellowships, 1 is doing a colo-rectal surgery fellowship, and one decided that the surgery residency thing was all a big mistake and is doing an anesthesia residency instead.

While all of us are very excited to be advancing on into the next year, it is sad to see these guys leave. I've spent three years with them now, and they become some of your best friends. Its a friendship forged by spending many long nights together hovering over the bed of some critically ill patient, mucking around in someones innards, or just hanging out in the lounge. Its kind of like being at NYP, where you periodically get a new staff crop rotation.

In any case, I'm excited to be starting my fourth year here. Practically speaking, it means that I will now be a "senior" resident having graduated from being a "junior" resident. It all means more time in the operating room, less time in the emergency room, fewer pages from nurses whose main motive is to write "MD aware" in the chart, etc.

So far I have been away from town when the new residents arrive. There is definitely a transition that takes place from being a medical student to being a resident. Most people take about a month or two to make that transition. This year I'm assigned to be on one of the busiest general surgery services for the month of July. It should be fun.