Navigating Life After Residency: 10 Lessons I Learned in EMS Fellowship
The transition from residency to your first job or fellowship is an exciting time in any career. New opportunities for professional growth appear, but with them come a new and unique set of challenges. Transitioning from a structured clinical environment to more independent work and self-driven projects can be a difficult transition. For this reason, we wanted to share a few lessons we’ve learned. Although this advice is derived from our experience in EMS fellowship, we expect that it will apply and be helpful to other upcoming fellows and all people stepping away from residency to enter the workforce.
You are an attending working with a fourth-year medical student on their emergency medicine clerkship. The student sees a patient with the chief complaint of dizziness. After an initial assessment, the student says that there are no red flags in the history and the patient has a normal neurological exam. In the back of your mind you are thinking, “Does this student know the risk factors, comorbidities, and red flags? Was a thorough neurological exam performed?” How do you know the trainee should be trusted?
There are a number of personal attributes characterizing the professional identity of “physician.” We are dedicated to patients, committed to lifelong learning, and responsible for a variety of other professional obligations. Each requires physicians to be highly accountable – obligated or willing to accept responsibility for one’s actions. In this post we present examples of how we’ve adopted peer accountability as a strategy to help us with the myriad responsibilities and obligations at the heart of our profession. Just in time for the New Year – we challenge each of our readers to consider finding an “accountability partner” in 2020!
