Buenos días, amigos,
Last night we danced the night away at our friends’ wedding in Rosario, Argentina, and today we’re bussing back to Buenos Aires for one last day of fun.
As promised, I peeked at residency applications. Over 1400 categorical candidates signaled us, 366 Gold. The pool is strong and the students have great programs to choose from, so it’s our job to show them why they should choose Yale.
In no particular order, here’s why I’d choose our program if I were applying today:
- Clinical Training: Yale-New Haven Hospital, VA-Connecticut, and the Fair Haven, NHPCC, and VA clinics offer exceptional training. Patients come from near and far to be cared for, and no one is turned away. Any illness you want to see, you’ll see it here.
- Graduated Autonomy: Most rotations pair a single intern with a resident, so when you start training, you’ll have a seasoned senior focused solely on you. Before you know it, you’ll be entering orders, responding to emergencies, and making decisions on your own, and well before internship ends, you’ll be signed off on core procedures and ready to lead your own teams. By the time you graduate, you’ll have cared for the sickest and most complicated patients anywhere and ready to handle any challenge you face.
- Scholarship: Our residency offers countless opportunities to do research with leading investigators in all fields of medicine. Whether it’s hypothesis-driven studies, quality improvement, advocacy, or creating educational materials that excites you, you’ll have the support and resources you need to publish and present your work, including funding to share your accomplishments at national and international meetings.
- Fellowships and Jobs: About 80% of our residents enter subspecialty fellowships, about half staying at Yale. Others become academic hospitalists and primary care physicians. Fellowship directors and employers know that our graduates are guaranteed to succeed clinically and poised to become leaders in American medicine.
- Distinctions: At the urging of our residents, we created five Distinction Pathways for trainees to pursue their passions in Investigation, Education, Quality Improvement & Physician Leadership, Global Health & Equity, and Race Bias and & Advocacy. We also offer a POCUS Superuser Pathway for residents who wish to develop advanced POCUS skills.
- MAC Program: To ensure each resident is well cared for, we assign everyone a “Mentor-Advisor-Coach” (MAC), who will be your confidante, life coach, friend, and advisor throughout your years of training.
- Education Leadership: Our department’s education leaders, Chief Residents, Associate Program Directors, Firm Chiefs, Distinction Leaders, and Clinic Directors devote countless hours to developing curricula and feedback tools. We offer a host of teaching conferences, simulation sessions, and workshops, and we’ve created a rich video library so you don’t get FOMO when you’re on nights.
- Wellness: We’re committed to resident well-being. Schedules are humane, and we offer free counseling sessions and coaching opportunities, fun social events (especially Arts Night and Beeson Bomber softball games), and retreats. We provide wholesome lunches every weekday and our 6+2 schedule ensures that you have full weekends off and a color community—Red, Blue, Yellow, or Green—to return to every ambulatory block. This past year, we eliminated 28-hour call because everyone deserves and needs their sleep.
- Resident Leadership: We consider ourselves a “residency by the residents for the residents,” which means residents have many opportunities to influence how the program is run. The Executive Council (our residency governing body) meets with me every month to discuss any and all issues facing the program. We also have many resident-run committees, including the Program Evaluation Committee (which provides feedback to program leadership), the Welcoming Committee (which leads recruitment), as well as resident leadership of our Distinction Pathways, Wellness Committee, and subspecialty interest groups.
- Flexibility: We’re not perfect, but flexibility and a commitment to meeting residents’ needs is our mantra. Do you want to create a new research elective? Let’s do it! Do you want to tweak noon conference, create new opportunities to learn procedures, or work 1:1 with seasoned hospitalists? Our residents asked for all of these, and we made it happen quickly.
- New Haven: I’ve lived in New Haven for 32 years and wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. We have fantastic art museums, restaurants, theaters, and a world-class university. We’re near the beach and the mountains. New Haven is home to people from all over the world. Housing is affordable on a resident salary, and because there are so many places to live near the medical center, many residents walk or bike to work (or take a quick drive), and it’s easy to hang out together after work, which builds community.
- The People: If you’re want to come to Yale for one reason and one reason only, come for the people. Our residents are from diverse backgrounds and they are all smart, motivated, talented, and accomplished, but more importantly, they look out for each other. Yale residents are thoughtful, great listeners, and kind, living up to our motto, “good as any, nicer than most.”
In the weeks ahead, you will have ample opportunity to meet the applicants at pre-interview dinners and you will hear from friends and classmates who want to know if Yale is right for them. The best way for students to choose a residency is to meet the trainees, learn what they’re passionate about, and hear about the community they’ve built. Talented applicants can go anywhere, but they deserve to go to a place that fills them joy and where they’ll work and learn side-by-side with people who share their values. When you meet the applicants, be open, answer their questions candidly, and do all that you can to help us recruit another phenomenal class of interns.
Enjoy your Sunday, everyone! We’re off to brunch before the long ride back to Buenos Aires.
Best,
Mark
What I’m reading: