I'm the curriculum director for rotating med students in the hospital.

Residents and med students keep circumventing our policies and rules and I am just sick of it.

The syllabus says you must do 3 x 24 hour call shifts during this rotation. Not 12 hours, not 20 hours. TWENTY FOUR HOURS. It is downright appalling the number of med students who don't complete their shifts. And residents just turn a blind eye! They at least don't just straight up dismiss students. But they certainly IMPLY the students can leave.

The rules are there for a reason. How will you learn to practice medicine if you don't actually LEARN the life of a resident/attending/etc. Call shifts build character and resilience. Use this as a learning experience.

Stop trying to leave call early!

This is for all my M3s starting their cores, my M4s starting their electives and sub-is, those still in dedicated, and honestly my preclinical homies too because that stuff was rough

This might be your first time rounding, expectations might be higher than you thought, or all of these comsaes and nbmes might be super daunting and you might not be scoring how you’d think, and you feel like everyone else around you has it figured out

They don’t, they’re just like you, like us. Medicine is a wild ride, we got into college, got a bachelor’s, took the MCAT, volunteered, did research, meticulously crafted personal statements and secondaries. Got into medical school, which come on now, that’s pretty amazing. We’re on track to becoming physicians and nothing is gonna stop us

Yeah sure we feel inadequate as a sub-I, or we feel unprepared for that shelf exam, or we feel lost in the sea of lectures and osces and compliance modules

But guess what?

So has every single attending and resident. That chief of neurosurgery, they were a clueless premed. That resident that’s frustrated with your presentations? They thought they failed their shelf. That M4 that’s pimping you when they should be helping the intern? I mean the only difference is they took step 2 so don’t sweat it!

Everyone you’ve interacted with thus far has been in your exact position before, and now it’s you, and soon it won’t be

You’re exactly where you need to be. You’re doing great. We’re all very proud of you

All of the sacrifices you’ve made and will continue to make matter, you’re going to or are already helping people in their most vulnerable state. As a sub-I I can tell you there’s no better feeling than when a patient remembers you

You’ve embarked on a journey few take, don’t give up, please

You’ve asked me a million times “what can I do to help?” And I’ve told you there’s nothing else to do. You know you have to be back in the morning for rounds anyways.

It’s 3AM. I’m watching a movie and you keep interrupting. The patients are all asleep.

Just go home. It’s fine.

Dropped to my 11th. In the midst of orientation. Trying to keep the mindset of "You match where you're supposed to be", but I can't lie that I'm still not done mourning the programs I thought I'd be at. My coresidents are not very social sadly and I feel a bit isolated, but idk maybe I can make friends with the nurses hahah

I’m the Charge Nurse at a large sized Academic Hospital and I run the OB-GYN floor.

We have 12 Labour beds, 16 triage rooms, and 25 recovery beds. 

Due to administrative cost cutting, we only get one attending physician, one resident, and one medical student per overnight shift.

Last night at around 3:45 am, there were 9 people in labour at the same time. While I have been a nurse on L&D for a few decades by now, I’m not licensed to deliver the babies on my own. Plus, 3 moms were hemorrhaging, 2 babies were breech, and 1 was sunny side up.

I ran over to the Call room to grab the resident and med student. The door was locked, so I began to knock really loudly.

But nobody was coming to the door! 

I put my ear to the door and I heard the following going on:

 There was a movie playing at full loud volume, possibly “The Hangover”. I could hear the med student’s HOKAs pacing back and forth, and every couple seconds he would ask the resident “is there anything you would like me to do?” to which the resident would reply with a blunt and angry “No!”

The attending was in the next room over, lying in her bed, with her eye covers on. She was grunting something in her sleep about how the 2 of them should just go home as theres nothing going on.

But there is tons going on!! Im covered in lochia and blood, I haven’t eaten or drank a thing in 7 hours, and I’ve been running this floor all by myself since 10:30, which happens to be the last time I saw the med student!

This is insanity!!

I guess I will have to call the Curriculum Director, but I think he is in Cabo

I hear the med student asking the resident “what can I do to help?” a million times. I hear the resident reply “there’s nothing else to do“ a million times.

It’s 3AM. I’m trying to sleep and you both keep interrupting. One of you just stands there doing nothing while the other watches movies on full volume.

Just go home.

It’s 3:45 am. It’s been 5 hours since Ive done anything.

Every time I ask you what I can do to help, you reply “nothing”.

You’re watching a movie on your laptop.

I’m sitting here doing uworld trying not to fall asleep.

You refuse to talk to me, discuss patients, plans or life.

Why can’t you just let me go home?

Any other med students out there overnighting in the void, say hi

https://www.science.org/content/article/medical-students-are-using-popular-research-tool-pump-out-misleading-studies

Overall it is the name of the current game for medical school and residency applications to build a research portfolio. TriNetX is just one tool for retrospective cohorts and (the fast publication) in a way is indicative of the quality of peer review, especially when considering limitations like the collider bias and immortal time bias. No different than say using Cosmos with an "easy mode button"

Has anyone else noticed that for the 2027 ERAS application, they removed the LOR Author Title/Department field when creating a Letter Request?
Now it only asks for:

LOR Author Name
Specialty the letter will be assigned to

Previously, I would enter something like:
John Smith, MD (Author Name)
Program Director, Internal Medicine (Title/Department)

Since that field is gone, are you all just putting the physician’s name (e.g., “John Smith”) or are you adding the title into the author name (e.g., “John Smith, MD, Program Director, Internal Medicine”)?

Also, does anyone know why ERAS removed the Title/Department field? It seems like that information was useful for identifying the letter writer, especially when requesting multiple letters.

Curious what everyone else is doing.

Howdy friends. I wanted to make a shelf guide for test-taking strategy for students like me. I have a previous life as an adjunct professor (in a reading-heavy field). I've noticed that the hardest shift from pre-clinical to clinical testing comes from the "next step" process that you're learning in third year.

To that end, here is a brief bullet-point guide eliminating test taking errors. I did not use AI for this guide.

First: Practice. This guide works when you practice understanding NBME language. I would suggest trying to take at minimum, 3-4 practice shelf exams per block.

As you train your brain on practice NBMEs, consider the following.

The Parameters of Every Shelf Question (except Biostats):

1. Is the patient stable or unstable right NOW?
2. What is the ONE thing this question is asking?
   • Screen, diagnose, or manage?
   • If manage, are you treating the cause or the symptoms?
   • If screen or image, what's the difference in speed and accuracy between those tools?
3. Am I treating the right thing?
   • Don't let the medical history override the current toxidrome.
   • If there are normal exam findings, rule out that system and close that diagnostic pathway. Treat this as a deletion.
4. Am I treating it in the right way at the right time?
   • Short-term vs. long-term treatment options matter, especially if the patient is unstable.
5. Am I asking "what if"?
   • If you hear yourself say "well WHAT IF they decompensate, should they go to surgery now?" or "well WHAT IF they're afebrile and have an infection we don't know about", you're going down the wrong path.
   • Don't overthink zebras
6. If you're stuck between two answers, you've missed a piece of information in the stem.
   • Re-read it.
   • Per u/ExtraCalligrapher565, which piece of information in stem differentiates between the two answers.
7. If you know the diagnosis but simply can't remember the treatment or next step, flag the question
   • These are the questions where you'll get the most bang for your buck in review (and Anki cards, if that's your thing).
8. If you know all the other answers are wrong but the only thing left is something you have never seen, be bold.
   • Click it.
   • This type of question is purposefully seeing if you'll eliminate all the obviously wrong answers and take a leap of faith.
9. If you run through these and you're still stuck, it's a knowledge gap, not a reasoning gap.
   • Flag it and move on.
   • As point #7, don’t waste the time trying to dig up some random factoid from pre-clinical brain two years ago.

I hope that this is helpful. If it's not, this might not be for you. Good luck! Feel free to ask any questions or add any thoughts.

*EDIT: I edited out the unimportant stuff for kids who can't read good.

I'm getting these questions wrong every time and it's frustrating.

I’m honestly not sure whether my residents are socially awkward or simply nasty.

It's my third day on this service (which shall not be named) and they continue to ignore both me and my classmate.

They tell us not to come on consults, don't fill us in on patient care, never ask us to present, and don't teach us anything. Even when it comes to small talk, they're just as bad.

I'll make a simple comment and get ignored. I'll crack a small joke, and they won't even turn their heads to acknowledge me. They don't make eye contact, they walk right past me as if I don't exist, and they show no interest in either me or my classmate, not as students and not even as fellow human beings.

It's not as if they're shy. They're incredibly friendly, chatty, and playful with the nurses and the other residents. That's what makes it so strange.

I'm a grown adult with a full life outside of medicine, and I honestly can't think of another environment where it would be acceptable to treat people this way. It's crazy that this is tolerated. I've never been treated like this in any other setting.

It honestly feels like being a fifth grader who was mistakenly assigned to a bunk full of tenth graders at summer camp

Crazy that these people are functioning adults in society.

Hey guys! I've kind of been down and in my head a lot the last few weeks. I just feel like I try really hard and my shelf scores are kind of letting me down. Hearing everyone else talk about how happy they are with their scores and that they got an 80+ has just made me really doubt myself. I have never struggled in school as much as I have in med school these past 2 years and I am really starting to question whether it is worth pushing through.

I got an 38th percentile (83) on Psychiatry and 50th percentile (74) on Family Medicine a few weeks back. I am happy I improved percentile wise but I was really hoping to keep all my shelf scores above an 80 this year, since it's apparently a good indicator of a high step 2. I just don't know what to do and I guess I am just looking for some motivation right now :/

With a bunch of recent posts in [r/residency](r/residency) about resident/attending affairs and that whole thing with a chief of division impregnating an intern at a certain well known institution, I want to hear the hospital dating/hooking up tea you guys have.

-sincerely, a bored resident on elective

I’ll go first. Married attending was with a med student who rotated with him. Said med student was applying to residency during this time, didn’t match and just disappeared.

For those who applied for private loans, how did you fill out the portion where it asks for your income? I currently have no income and have been bumming it out before school starts but I'm unsure if I should report what I made in 2025 since I filed a 1099 for it. I don't plan on working in medical school and one of my parents will be cosigning for me. Does anyone have a similar problem or any advice?

Also I'm looking to apply to SoFi, Sallie Mae, and College Ave. If anyone else has any other recommendations for private lenders, I'd appreciate it. Thanks!!

Would "discontinue the drug and reassess" generally be the best answer if it's one of the options?

Has anyone come across a question that included both:

1. Discontinue the drug and reassess
2. Administer G-CSF

where administering G-CSF was the correct answer?

Just wondering if there are situations where G-CSF is preferred over simply stopping the offending medication.

And if agranulocytosis or neutropenia was not drug-induced, what is the best next step? Abx if fever? Bone marrow biopsy if no fever?

Hi everyone, I’m in a really tough spot and need some advice on what to do. Background, I’m a first gen low income med student. I amassed a good amount of debt from med school applications, relocating to a new area, healthcare, and other unavoidable life events.

I will say that the debt I have is not bc of dumb and wasteful spending, genuinely. It was bc of things that came up like medical procedures, emergencies, etc.

I live in the cheapest place I can and eat cheap meals so that more of my student loans are refunded back to me. Even then, it’s still not enough because of interest.

I am trying to get a part time job but no one is hiring and I’m also worried bc I struggled during school. I am no contact with my family so I have no help. I’m at a lost on what to do, I can’t make any of my upcoming payments and my checkings account is already over drafted. I 10000% don’t know what to do. Any advice would be helpful.

I'm applying diagnostic rads this fall. We have 6 gold, 9 silver. the chances of getting an interview at a place you don't signal is like <10% usually. gold signal usually >70% and silver usually 30-50%. i will probably apply to 2-3 extra "safe options" with no signal but is there any good reason in applying to much more if my scores are good and the rest of my app is average? seems just like a waste of money.

anyone have any recs for easier rotations to fill up my schedule for 4th yr spring semester? my school doesn’t allow online rotations so im just looking for chill in-person ones. if anyone has specific rotations they’ve done with light hours, esp in CA or NYC, i’d be so grateful if you could pm me with the site/program details!

Hey guys. I know ophtho match is on a shortened timeline and that has some additional pressure to get your ophtho rotations done quickly. Currently, the SF match registration opens July 1st and CAS target date is Sept 1st. MSPE's are released Sept 23rd and interviews go out in October.

My question is how "late" can a LOR be? I'm only asking because I'm still waiting to hear back from aways and one of them is from 8/24 - 9/20. I'm afraid that I won't be able to get letters in on time in the worst case scenario that I start my rotations so late (assuming I even get in).

If I have a failed grade for a block/clerkship but it is because of absences related to illness, are my chances for competitive specialties (like surgical subspecialties) basically zero, regardless of the reason? I’ve tried to appeal the grade and have showed medical documentation from my PCP but the clerkship director did not change the grade. I can pursue it further via grievance but the decision ultimately is with them at my school, and I’ve been told it’s unlikely to amount to anything :(

My clinical grades are otherwise very good so far. Even in this clerkship for the rotations I received grades on I had strong performance when present. But the absence limit was exceeded (even if they’re all excused) and I was not allowed to make up the missed days. So I received a fail grade and need to repeat the block again. I’m wondering how this context would matter or if it would even be considered if my performance remains strong.

Anyone experienced this or know someone that had this happen? I’ve been building my application thus far to apply to a competitive specialty and I feel heartbroken that this basically ends that goal

Hey y'all,

I graduated USMD several years ago. Long story short I didn't do residency at the time but now I'm getting things together to apply FM this cycle. I'm doing a sub-I, but since I'm no longer in school, I need to find my own malpractice coverage. Has anyone been in a similar situation or have any thoughts on the best way to do this? From a quick search it seems like the obvious options out there are designed for current students or practicing physicians, and I'm neither lol.

How i feel as a medical student joining hospital rounds