goals of med/peds residency

[nilla_wafer]

Hello all!
I would appreciate advice from a Med/Peds resident on the following question of mine:

Would it be perceived to be annoying/too forward to email a program director the day before an interview expressing your enthusiasm?

Also, how have the challenges of combining so many topics into a four year MedPeds programs caused you to redefine your goals for residency? How do you self-evaluate your levels of comfort dealing with diseases that people in IM or Peds alone have perhaps seen more of? Do you see yourself studying for two boards at this moment?

Thanks!
V

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[nevercold]

Hello all!
I would appreciate advice from a Med/Peds resident on the following question of mine:

Would it be perceived to be annoying/too forward to email a program director the day before an interview expressing your enthusiasm?

That's probably a bit much. Your attendance, your promptness, your courtesy in the initial reply to the invitation, and your attention to your presentation of yourself should all accomplish this. When you reply to an invitation to interview, you should express enthusiasm and thanks. The timing just doesn't seem very appropriate to contact them the day before the interview - either a little too overzealous or a little too last minute. A week or more before the interview would be fine.

Also, how have the challenges of combining so many topics into a four year MedPeds programs caused you to redefine your goals for residency? How do you self-evaluate your levels of comfort dealing with diseases that people in IM or Peds alone have perhaps seen more of? Do you see yourself studying for two boards at this moment?

From the intern perspective: I've found that the biggest learning curve so far is just developing a good clinical sense of judgment. You really learn how to decipher what information is important and what isn't as well as how to gauge the acuity of various presentations and when you can't trust your gauge of someone's degree of illness. This overlaps in adults and kids. Understanding the way various pathologies lead to physiologic change and then to symptoms is also a key learning step, which again can have overlap between adults and kids. It's after those elements that the pure knowledge base is really added on which can be pretty distinct between the two groups. So most of the time I am just studying human medicine and when I'm on IM, adding in details for adults and when I'm on Peds, adding in details for kids/neonates.

 

[The Med-Peds Dude]

Hello all!
I would appreciate advice from a Med/Peds resident on the following question of mine:

Would it be perceived to be annoying/too forward to email a program director the day before an interview expressing your enthusiasm?

You should ask this of a PD

No. Email from candidates and wannabe candidates is becoming a form of spam. Unless you really have something special to say, don't.

j