RERUN - Supporting New Interns

Tis the season for welcoming new interns! As we divert our energy to preparing for the new academic year and intern orientation, we invite our listeners to take another listen to our ideas for best practices for supporting new residents. Let us know what you have found most successful, or other elements of support we should incorporate! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hi, I'm Kyla. And I'm Mary, and you're listening to the long call. This podcast delves into the complexities, lessons, and triumphs of residency. Through candid conversations, we want to explore how meaning and connection can emerge from the challenges, chaos, and unexpected moments along the way. It's about discovering the purpose and sometimes even magic woven into the everyday work of being a physician.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely our own and do not reflect the policies or positions of any institution, organization, or employer. This podcast is for informational and reflective purposes only and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or representative of any official entity. And while we are both doctors, we are not your doctors, and we are not providing any medical advice on this podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

We're excited to unpack the mask, meaning, and magic of residency with you. Stay tuned for more. Hi everyone. Thanks for joining us for our second episode. We are excited to get into some detail today about supporting new residents.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Exactly. Since we're still near the start of the academic year, we thought it would be nice to reflect on the ways that we support our interns as well as things that we see that could be improved. For a little bit of framework, resident physicians are doctors who have completed medical school but are now undertaking training within a specific field. For example, for Kyla, OBGYN. Generally, to practice medicine, doctors need to complete a residency program. An intern usually refers to the first year of such training after medical school. Kyla, what do you remember from the early days of your intern year?

SPEAKER_00 1:39

Yes, I remember being incredibly excited. It was a feeling of, wow, I finally made it. I wanted to be a doctor for my whole life and now I'm finally a doctor. And then quickly being absolutely shocked by wow, I'm somebody's doctor. There was so much to learn. I think people use this analogy a lot, but like trying to drink from a fire hydrant and just soak everything in. And I just felt like I couldn't imagine a day where I would feel like, okay, I kind of know what's going on. It just seemed, it seemed like it wasn't gonna happen. Um things are well, things are fine. I know what's happening, I know what's going on. But it wasn't just the medical knowledge and the surgical skills that I needed to learn, like what I thought being a doctor was. You take care of your patients, you learn these skills, you read the textbooks, um, you get the hands-on learning, but it was the administrative task that truly no one talks about. I guess maybe in med school there's there is a bit where you learn how to do documentation, of course. But I don't think I mean, maybe just really scratches the surface of like how how much admin is needed, how much residents do for admin, and how that's part of also what keeps the hospital running. And it's it's a lot.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

Absolutely. And what I'm always trying to impart to you all is that that doesn't actually improve after you graduate from residency. It's part of just being a doctor in most jobs.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

Yeah, and I think I think even being a senior resident now, that is becoming more apparent because you think, oh, I'm the intern, I'm doing the admissions, I'm checking the orders, I'm doing all those things. Well, senior residents are doing that too, and then they're also documenting, you know, more challenging conversations and doing kind of the same administrative tasks but in a more complex way. And they're getting advice from attendings that are also doing the same thing. So you're right, it just all kind of builds on top of each other in a way that you just never expected, or that I never expected. When I was an intern, I felt like all of the tasks that were expected of me in isolation were completely doable. It was just with putting them all together, it just sometimes felt insurmountable, felt like it was a lot. I think it's just an example of kind of a trusting the process of where, you know, I thought there was never gonna be a day that I understood what was going on, and there definitely was a day where you just wake up and it it just all clicks, which is a great feeling. Mary, what about you?

SPEAKER_01 4:09

For me, internear was a little further back. It really is a blur. Uh, I do remember going to orientation and meeting my class for the first time. I remember being very excited to get my first long white coat, and we all gathered for a group picture, which I find hilarious now as I never wear a white coat around the hospital. Kyla, what did you find to be the most helpful parts of your orientation that you can remember?

SPEAKER_00 4:34

Yeah, I think definitely having in the hospital and out of the hospital opportunities to meet everyone who's gonna be a part of your team. So leadership, kind of multidisciplinary sessions where you meet nursing APPs that you're gonna be working with. But then we also were really intentional about having sessions where we met with different members of different classes, which I thought was a really nice way to kind of get to know everyone in a less pressured environment before you actually start. Other things that were helpful, running the logistics of everything before you were kind of like on a time clock to get those things done, which is nice too because a lot of times you'll have residents coming from different medical schools where things are done differently, the EMR is different. So being able to have everything standardized and know what's expected, and then also knowing where everything is in a new hospital, where the bathroom is.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

Absolutely. We talk about Maslow's hierarchy of needs a lot, and that is right at the bottom, so crucial.

SPEAKER_00 5:31

Yeah, exactly. Knowing where you need to put your things, where you can get food, all of those basic needs. I think it's helpful because when you kind of are oriented in that way with all of those things, the people, the places, then you're using less brain space when things are a little bit more high pressure.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

That's one of the reasons I really like to do our orientation in the spaces that our residents work so that they get familiar with those basics right off the bat.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

And then I would also say just learning resources as well. I definitely felt like coming out of med school, I was like, okay, O-P-G-Y-N, like I get it. I know what's going on with that. You know, you have like your flashcards and whatever you use in med school, and then you start residency and whatever specialty you're in, you realize just how vast the amount of knowledge available is. And so I think just knowing all of the different learning resources are available, and then you can pick and choose what works best for you.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

Absolutely. Yeah, we tried this year to kind of compile all of our resources into one space. I had a lot of resident support in doing that. And I think that's been really helpful because it's too many things for our interns to remember, right, during orientation. But knowing here is the space I go and I can control F to find whatever I need within this, within this place can be really helpful.

SPEAKER_00 6:45

Yeah, a residency handbook is it's a game changer for sure. It's very helpful.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

Kyla, I know you mentioned a lot of folks who it's crucial to meet in those early days. I wanted to circle back to what you were saying about the importance of meeting people in a in a lower stakes setting. I think that's important for, you know, your senior residents, some of the interdisciplinary colleagues. But I think it's also really important to think about leadership and who is in those different leadership roles and trying to meet folks before, you know, there might be an acute situation or a situation where people might be feeling uncomfortable that people have gotten a chance to get to know one another. Something that I've been thinking a lot about is of course, I want my residents to come to me and feel, you know, safe and empowered to come to me with a concern. But it's nice for our residents to have other outlets and other allies to where if they ever do feel uncomfortable coming to program leadership, specifically their program director, program manager, APDs, they know other folks within the system who might be able to help them out.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

That's also really important for interns specifically, because even in systems where, you know, we're trying to kind of decrease hierarchy on different levels, I think there's always a sort of experience hierarchy, right? And get rid of that. You can't. Like you come to train and you're learning from people who have more experience. There's just that sort of hierarchy. But otherwise, sometimes people just, you know, feel a little bit less comfortable going to people in leadership. So I think it's really important for interns to also feel comfortable with their peers if they have different questions or concerns as well.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

Absolutely. And then one kind of um thing I hadn't thought about until this year that our program manager actually brought to me was the importance of our residents meeting people that they might not interact with on a day-to-day basis in the hospital or in the clinic, but who they often need to interface with, will see, you know, every now and then in the hallway. So getting a chance to get to know folks in some of those more administrative support roles as well. So you all know our program manager, of course, very well. But the other folks who work in our administrative office, right, you might just be exchanging a random email here or there with them or, you know, coming down to that space for a lecture and might not recognize who that is in the hallway. But to foster that collegial environment like you're talking about, it's great to give folks a chance to get to know one another. So we did a little meet and greet with our administrative staff and our interns this year.

SPEAKER_00 9:05

That's great. I think um, yeah, because you get emails from people and you're like, I know this person's name, I know their middle initial, like I see it all the time. But it's nice to be able to put a face to that, especially with people who are at the admin suite because they're also doing so much behind the scenes as well.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

What are some of the things that you and your co-residents have done from a senior leadership role to help out our new interns?

SPEAKER_00 9:31

I think we've done quite a few things. One of the things we've done that I mentioned before is just having the social meet and greet. That's really helpful before starting, just to create a more comfortable environment. And then as far as with actual clinical work for OBGYN residents, I think one of the most exciting, but also can be one of the most daunting aspects is your labor floor shifts and having those call shifts over the weekend. And so one of the things that we do is we have helper shifts where we have a more senior resident, their sole job on the call shift is to be buddies with the intern and they walk them through the entire shift so that they know everything they're supposed to be doing from documentation-wise to patient care, getting that one-on-one mentorship at work.

SPEAKER_01 10:13

Yeah, a true shoulder-to-shoul experience, which can be so hard to come by in residency.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

It's nice that we carve out the extra time so that the interns can feel more comfortable in that way.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

Do you think the senior residents resent that or it's part of the culture? Or how is that? How does that work?

SPEAKER_00 10:30

I think it's part of the culture and I think it's becoming more ingrained. I don't think it's resented at all. I think there is like a, oh man, this is nice, that it's a more standardized process, which I don't know that it's always been, but I think that's the good part about change and like recognizing how if there were any gaps in your experience at all, being able to appreciate when changes are made and noticing that you would have also appreciated those same things. I think in that way it's it's appreciated, not resented.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

Yeah, and I think that came from a prior generation of residents who saw that gap and suggested this and has now just become a part of what we do. So I think that's a that's a great point, is that sometimes in medicine there's this idea of, well, everyone needs to struggle. We went through this struggle, but we don't need to keep the same level of difficulty for to stop that. Exactly, right? We should see as we become more experienced how we can make things better for others and pay it forward in that way.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

Definitely. I think the helper shifts are huge. I think also just in general, the senior residents in the beginning of the year, even if it's a busy shift, they are really mindful about setting aside time to orient um an intern at the beginning of the shift, at the beginning of a task that they've never done before and walking through steps and why we do this, why we don't do that, how will you communicate with the patient and what questions do you have to ask, or what questions do you have about what you have to do?

SPEAKER_01 11:57

I think that's really great that the uh senior residents take that on. I think from a leadership perspective or even an attending physician perspective, there's a lot of ways we can take on some of that as well that maybe we recognize less, but if it's brought to folks' attention, people can take that on to take some of that, you know, away from the senior residents because sometimes you all have a lot going on, and we can certainly orient an intern to some of the, you know, maybe the less in the weeds aspects of residency. One example, one thing we did this year was we recognized clinic, outpatient clinic was a specific space where things are just very different than inpatient, right? So going through the different inpatient services, there's some standard ways you interact with the EMR that are translatable, right, from service to service, versus in the outpatient setting, it's kind of a whole new context, even, right? The way you log in to we use Epic is different, right? So we set aside a specific time with some of our attendees who are quote unquote epic gurus, right? To spend just 45 minutes at the beginning of, you know, Monday morning, the intern's first session in clinic to do a shoulder-to-shoulder, you know, kind of review of here's how you set up your EMR, here's how you look at the different lists, let's optimize, you know, your patient instructions for checkout sort of idea. And it's not a big ask of the attendings, right, to spend 45 minutes doing that. You know, we cleared one patient off the intern schedule for the whole week, and it really seems to be a great satisfier.

SPEAKER_00 13:30

That's great. Even I remember as an intern, uh, one of the attendings walking me through optimizing my billing and everything, which was great because I think honestly, a lot of the job as a resident is not obvious and it's not intuitive, and you really do need someone to actually just tell you.

SPEAKER_01 13:46

Absolutely. But I think sometimes we forget, right? We've been doing it for so long that we forget that part's not obvious because it becomes second nature to us.

SPEAKER_00 13:53

Exactly, exactly. And then just going off of that with the whole second nature thing, I think another thing that we do as senior residents, which is not as formalized of a process, is helping interns figure out how to prioritize. So, you know, you you turn to the intern and you're like, Okay, I need you to admit this patient, and then you have to check on this patient upstairs, and then you need to write a note about this, and then you know, you see the look in their eyes.

unknown 14:17

The terror.

SPEAKER_00 14:18

The terror. Like, so what do you actually need me to do?

SPEAKER_01 14:22

I can't do five things at once, I like exactly.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

And so I think being mindful of all the things that you're asking them to do, and then in that being like, Okay, I know I just asked you to do five things. I think this is the most important. And then if you can get to X, Y, and Z things after, that'll be fine. And then also being like, I also can just like take something off of your plate as well.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

Yeah. Then ideally that's kind of a uh graded autonomy sort of thing where right it gets to the point where you see maybe a little less terror in their eyes, but there still is some fear, and you say, Okay, what are you going to prioritize? And then check on their understanding of prioritization and maybe provide some feedback about that as they start to take on more of these things on their own.

SPEAKER_00 15:05

That's a great point about the graduated autonomy of them figuring out how to prioritize things. And I think that's a balance too, especially, you know, you're in the beginning of the year, so there's a little bit more collaboration of tasks when helping an intern, but eventually, you know, they'll get the hang of it and they have to do all the things. And I think I'm even learning as a senior resident, that transition, I mean, it's hard for them because they're gonna have to start doing everything, but it's also hard for me because I want to be like, well, I'll just do it really quick for you. I don't want you to worry, but like, no, they have to learn. So that that's an interesting transition that even I'm dealing with now.

SPEAKER_01 15:39

Yeah. And the thing I think as we become more nuanced teachers as we get further in our career, we realize that looks a little different for everyone, right? The kind of the end goal of competence by the end of a residency program, right? There is a standard for that, but everyone's path along the way is a little different. So the way you interact with one intern might be different than the best teaching methods for another intern. So that's a whole nother layer of complexity to add in as a teacher.

SPEAKER_00 16:05

Yeah, that's so true. Medicine is just, it's so complex. There are so many hats that you wear. You are somebody's provider, but then you are a teacher as well, and kind of what comes along with that.

SPEAKER_01 16:17

All right. Well, Kyla, what are some challenges that you've seen or can remember? We can do as much orientation as we want, right? But then at some point it is truly the first clinical day of someone's first year as a real doctor. And what are some of the things that come up?

SPEAKER_00 16:35

Let's see. I think some of the things that come up are honestly, it's the it's the creating priorities list. I think that's the biggest thing, right? Like you've done the the however many weeks of orientation and you've had an hour to go through a packet and click the click the buttons and check the boxes, and you're like, yes, I know how to do it. I can follow up.

SPEAKER_01 16:57

I can admit a patient.

SPEAKER_00 16:59

Yes, I can admit a patient. But what happens when you you're having to admit this patient, and then there are levers being pulled and alarms going off, and you need to run into different rooms, but you you still have to admit this patient. And the nurse is sending you a secure chat. Right. Like, where is the mirror lags? Like, you know. So I think that on the first day, it really sinks in of kind of having to prioritize everything and realizing how limited your time is.

SPEAKER_01 17:26

I think that just speaks to why having all the the logistical pieces set up on the front end is so important. We had a little snafu ourselves this year where our uh our EMR access for our interns didn't come through until the very last minute. And the amount of stress that caused all of us, myself included, but I think no one more than the interns themselves, not knowing if they'd even be able to log in on day one. So really trying to get those things set in advance for them, I think can provide a lot of comfort.

SPEAKER_00 17:56

Right, I agree. Even if it, even if it takes you a little bit longer, if you have a general idea of what you're supposed to be doing, it's helpful. I think other challenges I think about are maybe even provider-patient dynamics. So I feel like as the medical student, you'll get sent in to check on patients and you get to talk with them and like learn about their lives and you have a little bit more time to make those connections. And then sometimes as the intern, you you really don't get to engage with patients as much as probably you were you were hoping you would be able to, which can be a bummer, but also if you're having to have a difficult conversation with a patient that you maybe don't have the most um like in-depth relationship with, that also can be really challenging. And so it requires you to pull on some different skills and maybe use some communication techniques that you've never really had to practice before.

SPEAKER_01 18:48

Yeah, that's a great point. I think a lot of our excellent residents come in having excelled in medical school, and part of that is right, well, I took the time to get to know the patient, et cetera. But that's just not an opportunity you always have when you're pulled in so many different directions, as you mentioned. So yeah, it's kind of a whole different ballgame that people need to get used to quickly. What do you think of? You have your plan, you have, you know, the five things you're gonna do, you've prioritized them with your senior resident, and then an alarm goes off or a code is called and there's an emergency. How do interns handle that?

SPEAKER_00 19:22

In some ways, it depends on the time of the year. And it also, of course, depends on which patients are having the emergencies, but certainly the intern is considered kind of the first point of contact, and so the first person at the bedside. And I think you practice and you do simulations in med school, but nothing really prepares you for your first emergency as an intern and and you feel like you need to know all the answers. Do you think that's true? Do you need to know all the answers? I do not need to know all the answers, everyone. That is the feeling though, and I've been there. Yeah, honestly, low threshold to ask for help. Absolutely. Yeah. Even when you're a senior resident, I was on the labor floor this past week and I had multiple people back check me for cervical exams because I wanted to make sure I was making the right clinical decisions, and I felt very comfortable doing that. We're all working together to take care of the patient, right?

SPEAKER_01 20:12

That's great to hear, and also just to think about, right? This is your chance to learn. So you're more than halfway through residency now, Kyla. So if you're not gonna, you know, get that learning now, when are you going to?

SPEAKER_00 20:23

Exactly. Right. This is the time to maximize on all of the resources. So yeah, I think when you have your first emergency as an intern, you feel like, I just did four years or however many years of med school and like I should know what to do, but it's a lot. It's a lot like mentally, like pulling on that knowledge, it's a lot interprofessionally, like knowing how to communicate with everyone and kind of keep a level head. But then it can also be a lot emotionally too, whether the outcome is positive or less so. I think just the experience of having that sort of adrenaline rush and then the the coming down after, it can take a it can take a huge effect.

SPEAKER_01 20:58

Yeah, that's a huge impact emotionally, but also physically too. If you think about, you know, the hours you're working, the time you're waking up every day, and then to have to be at the top of your game, you know, mentally all of the time too. It's it's a lot for folks.

SPEAKER_00 21:14

That just stresses the point even more to remember that you're not alone and that you are on a team. So it's just important to tap people on the shoulder when you need an extra set of hands.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

Yeah, that actually brings me to something else in terms of asking for help. It's not just in the clinical scenario. Something that comes up year after year is right that someone starts their intern year, there's some logistical problem, their badge doesn't swipe, or their name won't pop up when they're trying to get added to a surgical case, or just these things that they shouldn't be happening, right? It's not happening to their colleagues. There's no explanation no matter how far I go to look for an answer of why it happened to this individual. But these things inevitably come up, these weird logistical quirks. And folks try to sometimes Figure it out on their own, whether just not to inconvenience me or because they feel like they should be able to deal with it on their own, or they're just running from one thing to the next and don't take a beat to send me a text or an email. So I try to emphasize as much as I can at our intern orientation that if something isn't working, reach out for help, reach out to your program director, your program manager. We are your support people. It is our job to help you. So please ask for the help when you need it.

SPEAKER_00 22:29

I think that's a really important thing to say because I feel like that probably stems from just this idea that's propagated that to be in medicine and to excel in medicine, you have to be on top of it and you have to think ahead and know the answers and be prepared. And yes, in some ways that is true, right? Like you need to be prepared, but you you just can't be expected to know everything. Um and I think that that's a really important thing to kind of release if that's something that you're holding on to coming into medicine, coming into residency, is that again, nothing about this job is obvious or intuitive. And so it's just important to ask for help.

SPEAKER_01 23:06

Tyla, do you have any um thoughts about ways uh we could help out residents who might be struggling a little more than usual or having a harder time acclimating to the clinical learning environment?

SPEAKER_00 23:20

Yeah, definitely. I think that it's really important to recognize nonverbal cues in in these sorts of situations because I think nine times out of ten, someone is not gonna come up to you and be like, I'm really struggling. Because it's not a comfortable thing to say.

SPEAKER_01 23:36

No one wants to say that.

SPEAKER_00 23:37

Yeah, no one wants to say that, even though you should be empowered to say it. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 23:41

We want our residents to tell us.

SPEAKER_00 23:43

Yeah. Um, but I think it's important to kind of recognize when someone is struggling, like maybe they're less focused than they normally are because they are appearing overwhelmed. Are they looking or seeming like flustered? Are they having more issues with prioritizing? One of the things that can be really helpful is just checking in and asking someone how they're doing.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

Yeah, I think just providing that invitation for folks a lot of times, you know, will just allow people to truly let you know because they can tell that you're interested and concerned. I think it can be really hard to tell if someone's just, you know, having a bad day or is taking a little longer to catch on than some of their peers versus if they're, you know, really could benefit from something like a learning plan or a specific mentor to guide them through a clinical scenario.

SPEAKER_00 24:33

Especially in the beginning of the year, that's hard because you're on a rotation for a few weeks and then you're having to switch to something that may require different skill sets. And so I think it's hard to kind of almost pigeonhole someone as a struggling learner early in the year. But I think another thing that can be helpful is at the beginning of a block or the beginning of a week, um, setting goals and so just asking junior residents like the things that they're working on as learning goals. Obviously, there are a million things that we have to learn and that we have to work on, but I think when we don't narrow it down and have a focus, that's when things become more overwhelming too.

SPEAKER_01 25:53

Absolutely, and I think that's true both for the learner and for the teacher. It can be so overwhelming, right? You've seen it as a senior resident, as a teacher, right? I need to teach this intern everything, right? Versus if you let them pick some concrete goals, then you're looking with an eye toward those goals, right? In terms of what tasks you're going to assign them, what you're going to give them feedback on, and it can help you to feel empowered to give meaningful feedback because they've asked you for that then versus it coming off as unsolicited criticism, for example. Kyla, something that is a distinct facet of GME training is this idea of duty hours. That's not something most medical students are tracking, and certainly something we're not tracking after our graduate medical education either. So do you want to explain what duty hours are?

SPEAKER_00 26:40

Duty hours are the number of hours that you are working. An interesting thing that comes up with duty hours is how are you going to log them? Sometimes it can be hard because typically most people will log their duty hours while they're at work. But I think it's very well known that people work at home as well. And so I think that is something that I found lately interns have lots of questions about of like how long should I say that I'm actually working?

SPEAKER_01 27:07

Right. And you should say you're working the number of hours that you're working. Exactly. It's actually kind of a simple answer, but it can seem complicated. There's a requirement, right, to stay within the allotted duty hours, which in our modern day and age is 80 hours per week, averaged over four weeks, as you've heard me say many times, Kyle. Yes. But that being said, you probably can't do all of the things that you're able to do by the end of intern year, right? In well under 80 hours a week, even within 80 hours a week in your first week of intern year, right? So how do you help interns to manage that?

SPEAKER_00 27:43

I actually had an experience with this recently. It was an intern was telling me that they thought they were potentially going to go over their duty hours, kind of when you add call shifts plus like the typical work week. And so actually what we did was we walked through their entire day, including like when they went home in the evenings, but we were able to pinpoint different times within the day where they um maybe had some downtime and could prepare for additional things in the week so that when they went home, they weren't having extra work and they could just, you know, eat their dinner and like socialize and have a personal life. But then also they weren't having to get to work three and four hours before sign out. Oh my god. I'm exaggerating. Okay. But I think I even did this too. As an intern, you're like, the earlier I can get to the hospital, the better my day is gonna be. Because even if you're like preparing things at home, everything just made more sense in the hospital. And then when you leave the hospital, you're like, I don't know what's going on anymore. I think if there's downtime during the day, you can kind of figure out, okay, like let me be more efficient in this area so that I'm not working for way too many hours.

SPEAKER_01 28:52

Yeah, that's a great point. And I also love that you just shared an anecdote that shows the importance, right, of junior residents turning to their senior residents as a resource, right? Because you went through this right just two years ago, right? So you had insight to share with the interns as well. So relying on your seniors as a source of support for this. And then also at the end of the day, right, if our interns are working 80 hours a week and our threes are working 50 hours a week, that's not what we're trying to achieve. So sometimes your senior residents can take some things off your plate, like you mentioned earlier, Kyla.

SPEAKER_00 29:26

So, Mary, as we wrap up, I was hoping to hear about a magical moment from your week.

SPEAKER_01 29:32

Well, this week we actually had the pleasure of doing our first CCC Clinical Competency Committee of the Year. That's another EME-specific situation. Do you want to explain in your own words, Kyla, what you think the CCC is?

SPEAKER_00 29:46

What the mysterious CCC is.

SPEAKER_01 29:48

We need to demystify it for all of our listeners.

SPEAKER_00 29:51

That's that's the whole point of all of this, right? My understanding of the CCC is that it is a group of faculty, I believe nursing, admin, advanced practice providers, and there may be other people that are also involved, but essentially people that engage with us on different levels during our training, and they conduct reviews to make sure that we are meeting milestones with our clinical work, our professionalism. Essentially, they're kind of reviewing our progress through training.

SPEAKER_01 30:25

Yeah, that's a great way to describe it. So it's, you know, ACGME mandated. So every GME program in the country will do this, right? And it's uh exactly like you said, a group of individuals, mostly faculty who work with you all in different capacities, but it is supposed to include kind of 360, 360 degree review. So that's why we have interprofessional colleagues who join as well. And it's really going through for each resident, the ACGME specialty milestones, kind of plotting where you are on those milestones based on all of the data we have from different resources, including you know, written evaluations, test scores, our personal experience, you know, all of these different sources. So we had the pleasure of convening for that just this week. And for us, we do it all in one shot. Not every residency program does it that way, but it's an all-day meeting, which you know can be can be challenging as a as a physician who's used to you know moving around and working with their hands and getting some active things accomplished. But it was really great. We had a few examples of residents where there had been really significant progress based on their own efforts and just the pride that I felt in seeing that. And you know, it's every six months, so seeing how far some folks had come right from six months ago to now was really special and just to see folks' hard work pay off in that really meaningful way. And I'm really excited to be doing our semi-annual reviews now next month, where I get to share everyone's progress. How about you, Kyla? What was your magical moment this week?

SPEAKER_00 31:54

So my magical moment was clinical this week. We were coming to the end of a block for one of our fellows. I guess this isn't super clinical, it was just in a clinical setting.

SPEAKER_01 32:05

That's okay.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

But essentially, everyone was really happy and excited for this fellow. And so we had cake on the floor and celebrated and took pictures and it was a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01 32:18

How lovely. Did you post them on the Insta?

SPEAKER_00 32:21

No. No they're they're just in the camera roll.

SPEAKER_01 32:24

All right, well, gotta get them up. Well, thanks, Kyla. That was great to discuss with you how we can support our new interns.

SPEAKER_00 32:32

Yes, likewise, and I hope this is helpful for all of our listeners as well. It's so important to support our new interns and ensure that everyone feels like they're a part of a supportive and collaborative team. Thanks for listening.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

If you have comments, questions, or ideas for a future episode, please reach out to us via email at longcallpodcast.gmail.com.

SPEAKER_00 32:54

Catch you on call next time.