#PGY1FL

The transition to residency can be a difficult one. New roles and responsibilities quickly make you realize you are no longer a med student. In clerkship, when code blue was called for a patient you would have to fight through the scrum of healthcare providers around the bedside just to see what’s going on. Now during a code, people are looking to you for instructions – sometimes you’ll wish you were a med student again.

If you’re changing cities for residency, you’ll have to contend with new and unfamiliar surroundings. Add to this the fact that you now have a real J-O-B, for some it will be the first time ever having a job. The Ontario government will come knocking on your door and you’ll have to pay back OSAP. Your mom might refuse to continue filling your taxes, or maybe that’s just me.

In a three part series for Scrub-In, the Ontario medical student magazine, I try to be as candid as possible in sharing my experiences as a PGY1 in the biggest and busiest post-graduate medical program in the country.

If you want the play-by-play of my residency experience follow me on twitter and check out #PGY1FL. The tag stands for “Post-Graduate Year 1 for Life”. It’s a throw back to my days at McMaster University. Students of the Health sciences program – many of whom were my friends – had a saying, “Health Sci 4 Life!” or simply HS4L. I wanted to re-capture that same nerdiness as I make my way through what will prove to be the biggest transition of my life.