A place for residents to emerge from the dark.

  • What is Rethinking Residency?

    Rethinking Residency is a place for residents, current, former, prospective and their families, to emerge from the darkness that is residency training and come together to share their stories and insights.

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    About Rethinking Residency
  • Overcoming Addiction In Residency & Fellowship

    Overcoming Addiction In Residency & Fellowship

    Dr. McKeown tells her story of battling, and overcoming, addiction in both residency and fellowship. She tells her story so that others struggling with addiction or substance abuse can know that they are not alone.

  • How I Switched Residency Programs & Specialties

    How I Switched Residency Programs & Specialties

    The Nitty-Gritty – how I switched career paths two-thirds of the way through a residency program and the questions I asked myself as I contemplated doing a second residency.

  • Intimate Partner Violence in the Medical Community

    Intimate Partner Violence in the Medical Community

    Though this is frequently unacknowledged, physicians experience intimate partner violence (IPV) at a rate consistent with or higher than the national average (Reibling, et al., 2020). Some progress is being made, but there are still a number of significant barriers to reporting this experience. Physicians and other healthcare professionals may be reluctant to seek medical…

  • Healthcare Advocacy in an Age of Turmoil

    Healthcare Advocacy in an Age of Turmoil

    Healthcare workers will tell you that it is their job to, first and foremost, ensure that the health and wellbeing of their patients are at the highest levels possible. The general public, of course, wants to be healthy and have access to quality, affordable healthcare. Even (some) politicians want the same. Benjamin Disraeli, an English…

  • Psychological Safety and Acknowledging Error

    Psychological Safety and Acknowledging Error

    At first glance, healthcare teams that work well together seem to have higher rates of error. But when we dig just a bit deeper, we can see more accurately.  In fact, teams in which there is a high degree of psychological safety are more willing to acknowledge error, paving the way for a continuous learning…

  • Upstander Intervention in Bullying and Incivility

    Upstander Intervention in Bullying and Incivility

    Bullying and incivility are serious issues in healthcare. These behaviors have been associated with distress, anxiety, posttraumatic reactions, medical errors, and even patient death. There are some effective strategies you can use if you are the target of bullying or incivility. And while they are less widely known, there are also some effective strategies you…

  • Addressing Bullying in Healthcare

    Addressing Bullying in Healthcare

    Bullying and incivility in healthcare do more than cause pain to the individuals experiencing them (although that pain alone is a significant issue). These disruptive behaviors have been linked to medical error by 71% of physicians and nurses surveyed, and to patient death by 27% of those professionals surveyed (Lewis, 2023). Using effective conflict resolution…

  • Addressing Abuse of Power Dynamics in Medical School

    Addressing Abuse of Power Dynamics in Medical School

    Rethinking Residency spoke with Sierra Norman, a fourth year medical student and now activist working to change the culture of medical school and prevent the abuse of power directed at learners. We could tell immediately that Sierra was poised and confident, but that this was a difficult subject. She shared with us an incredibly personal…

The Premise

Now Is The Time To Rethink Residency!

Developed over 125 years ago in the US, modern residency training remains largely unchanged from its infancy. This site may not be able to spark a revolution, but helping even one resident is enough to justify the effort.

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