Another school year has come to an end.
Graduations are pretty much done.
That means the first days of internship are approaching fast.
I thought a few pieces of advice, and encouragement, might be appropriate at this time. As I prepare to meet my new interns on my next rotation through the hospital.
Breathe
If you are anything like me (mumblety years ago), you are probably very anxious about your first day of work as a licensed (trainee-licensed) doctor.
At the beginning of internship, I lost my appetite for a full 6 weeks, nothing that has ever happened to me before or since.
As someone who survived internship and residency, and is comfortably long past those years, let me say: you can do this.
Your teachers have been preparing you to practice medicine for the past 4 or so years.
You graduated from medical school and passed your boards. You were accepted into your internship. Not everyone does this.
That isn’t to say that you won’t make mistakes. Or that you won’t be as skilled, knowledgeable, or facile as your senior resident or attending. Of course you won’t. If you were, there would be no need for you to get further training at all, and you could skip straight from medical school to independent practice.
Take a deep breath, go forth, and start practicing (emphasis on practice) medicine.
Eat well, move some
Let’s face it, internship is a very busy time in your life. You will learn tons, but won’t necessarily have a lot of time to take care of your own health.
As a PCP, dealing with lifestyle-related disease in older people, I ask you to think about how to eat healthfully and get some exercise during your training.
Batch cooking on light rotations, finding healthier frozen dinners, maybe even arranging for potlucks or rotating group meals once a week–anything to improve the quality of your food will pay dividends over time.
Similarly, finding a way to exercise (even for a short time) during your free time is important: for cardiovascular health, for weight maintenance, for mental health. Just be safe–jogging at 4 AM may not be so healthy, for various reasons.
Build new relationships
This is an intense year. Long hours, tough cases, pushing to learn more and do more. It can be overwhelming.
You know who understands what you are going through?
Your co-interns.
Participate in social get togethers during orientation, make plans to meet up with your peers after work, etc.
I never went out to bars so much as during my intern year, and even though I hardly drank (see above! Too much alcohol is bad for the liver!), hanging out with bright, motivated, caring people going through the same experiences was awesome. And supportive.
Save a little money
I write about personal finance, how could I not include this advice?
But, seriously, you may be earning real money for the first time. Learn to manage it early, and you will do very well for the rest of your life.
Yes, you may have humongous student loans. Yes, you may need to outfit an apartment to live in. Yes, there may be some necessary purchases you’ve been putting off while living on loan money.
Still. You are making a real salary (not your attending salary, but the median salary in the US).
Learn to live on your salary, and even save a little. If you really have to, you can wait 2 to 3 months to start saving, as long as you start soon.
If you can, put savings in a Roth IRA, or your workplace 403(b) [especially if they have a match].
$500 a month will max out your IRA, but even $100 to $250 a month will grow over the years. This might be only $3000-$9000 after a three year residency, but, if invested, could grow quite a bit before you retire.
More importantly, by training yourself to save and invest a little money from the beginning, you will set yourself for success once you are making the big money.
For those done with internship, what other advice would you give those about to start?