Advice to interns?

[JekyllandHyde]

Hey all,

Current ENT intern here and I just wanted to get everyone's two cents about something.

Obviously Ive been spending most of my time so far on general surgery services. I was just wondering how much everyone felt that this helped when they got to the ENT portion of residency.

I feel like its helped with some things (ex. pain management, fever workups etc) but generally speaking its been pretty specific to general surg issues, and not stuff super applicable to ENT - ex advancing diets in post bariatric patients.

Is this how most of you felt, or in hindsight was it all pretty helpful? I see our intern year in comparison to the ortho residents who only take 6 months of off service rotations, then go straight into ortho and I cant help but think thats how it should be for us.

Thoughts?

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[Pir8DeacDoc]

It's September.

The ENT intern year requirements are pretty balanced and provide a solid experience. Some are more useful than others but all are worthwhile to some extent.

 

[DrBodacious]

Hey all,

Current ENT intern here and I just wanted to get everyone's two cents about something.

Obviously Ive been spending most of my time so far on general surgery services. I was just wondering how much everyone felt that this helped when they got to the ENT portion of residency.

I feel like its helped with some things (ex. pain management, fever workups etc) but generally speaking its been pretty specific to general surg issues, and not stuff super applicable to ENT - ex advancing diets in post bariatric patients.

Is this how most of you felt, or in hindsight was it all pretty helpful? I see our intern year in comparison to the ortho residents who only take 6 months of off service rotations, then go straight into ortho and I cant help but think thats how it should be for us.

Thoughts?

I was an intern 5 years ago, before the duty hour changes, but I really did gain some valuable experiences. I think it is set up well. I think there is some flexibility with regards to the rotations. I did 3 mos of ENT and other rotations like NS, ER, plastics, anesth, ICU, and a few mos of GS.


Some of the old guard still think there should still be 2 years of general surgery, that sounds awful.

- I used ultrasound to place lines in the Burn ICU, and developed an interest that led to me doing USG FNA in private practice.
- I went out of my way to be primary on hernias and it really primed my suturing and soft tissue handling skills
- I got experience with minor procedures & giving local anesthesia in the clinic
- You learn about fluid/electrolyte management, which is not a huge underlying issue with general ENT, but is useful on the head and neck service, and you may need to know in a pinch.
- Same with ICU/vent management
- General surgery gives you more exposure to acute care (pages from nurses, admits, dischages, dispo planning, work rounds) you have to get good at this stuff, so I think it is good you had these rotations first.
- It exercises your efficiency

You will definitely build and retain important concepts and skills. The specialty knowledge is mostly useless, but not as useless as learning the Krebs cycle.

Intern year also helps you learn your place in the scheme of things.