Blog Archives

ERAS 2018 Timeline: Don’t Lose the Forest for the Trees

As many of you well know, September 6 was the date that candidates could start applying to ACGME-accredited residency programs (and September 15 will be the date that ACGME-accredited residency programs start receiving applications). I am a big fan of getting your ERAS in on the early side: It demonstrates commitment, and when I was reviewing applications as an Assistant Residency Director, I found my workload was lighter earlier, allowing me more time to spend on those initial applications.

Having said that, do not over focus on an early application such that your written materials are suboptimal. Every year I encounter panicked candidates who want to submit their poorly written documents simply to get them in, shooting themselves in the proverbial foot.

Find a balance. Yes, submitting early is wise, but not at the expense of your candidacy’s success.
Tags: , ,

American Osteopathic Association (AOA) and Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) Merge

As many of you know, in March the American Osteopathic Association (AO), American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine (AACOM), and the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) jointly announced a memorandum of understanding to consolidate the graduate medical education system.

I would recommend reading a short article about the merger called “Proof of Equality or a Loss of Identity?” in the recent ACEP Now magazine. (The magazine is a a publication of the American College of Emergency Physicians. The article starts on page 5.) The piece is a short summary written by J.D. Polk, the dean of the College of Osteopathic Medicine at Des Moines University. The article takes on a positive tone, highlighting the increased influence a unified front could have in positively affecting graduate medical education funding.

Tags: , , ,

FREIDA Rocks

If you’re applying for residency, make sure to check out FREIDA, which has a lot of improvements. As a reminder, FREIDA Online® is a database with over 9,400 graduate medical education programs accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), plus 100 combined specialty programs.

General information about programs – percentage of residents who are international medical graduates (IMGs), percentage who are doctors of osteopathy (DOs), and minimum Step scores (to name a few) – are all useful in deciding where to assign your application in September. But now that we’re into November, you can search the system for other factors that might affect how you rank programs – work schedule, salary, whether a night float system exists, etc.

FREIDA is an amazing, free resource that you should not overlook.

Tags: ,

Sleep Deprivation is a Form of Torture

As a resident, I spent one horrific week on my surgical rotation clocking 138 hours in the hospital…and I slept only 6 1/2 of those. By the end of the week, I had decided to quit residency. Fortunately, a good night’s sleep helped me turn that decision around.

Pauline Chen MD recently wrote a piece in the New York Times called “The Impossible Workload for Doctors in Training” in which she argued that the ACGME’s (Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education) work hour improvements over the last decade have not been effective. After the Libby Zion case, the ACGME started mandating fewer work hours for residents for their safety and the safety of their patients. The most recent (2011) rules do not allow interns to work more than 16 consecutive hours.

Dr. Chen’s point is that because the volume of work has increased, limiting the number of hours has not been an adequate way to address the problem of over-tired residents. In other words, even if someone is working fewer hours, if she’s managing many more patients in a shorter time period, safety is still a major concern. There are studies and anecdotes to support her assertion that are cited within the article.

Of course, the solution is not to go back to the previous work hours –  nor to continue as is. More funding needs to be allotted to residency positions. Not only would this alleviate the workload problem, it would mitigate the physician shortage crisis. We have a lot of medical students; the bottle neck comes in residency positions. If we had more training spots, we could train more doctors and consequently, offer more primary and preventive care, while providing increased safety to residents and their patients. It would be a win-win-win.

That week on my surgical rotation was particularly bad, but I had many, many others that were also minimally human. We would not accept heavy or dangerous work loads for pilots or police officers. We need to reject them for doctors-in-training as well.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

About Dr. Michelle Finkel

Dr. Michelle Finkel

Dr. Finkel is a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Medical School. On completing her residency at Harvard, she was asked to
stay on as faculty at Harvard Medical School and spent five years teaching at the world-renowned Massachusetts General Hospital.
She was appointed to the Assistant Residency Director position for the Harvard Affiliated
Emergency Medicine Residency where she reviewed countless applications, personal statements and resumes. Read more

Receive FREE Insider Medical Admissions Tips.

Listen to Dr. Finkel’s interview on the White Coat Investor podcast:

Listen to Dr. Finkel’s interview on the FeminEm podcast: