You Matched With A Residency Program. Now What?

First, early congratulations to the podiatric medical schools’ Class of 2018 on completing the arduous task of studying for and completing residency interviews as well as studying for and taking the boards exam.

Now that you have all of this newly found “free” time on your hands not preparing for boards and interviews, you may wonder what to do next. The answer is easy: start preparing for residency. The next few months offer a key time in your development from student to resident. While you may not be quite as busy, this time is an opportunity to lay the foundation of your residency education.

What did I do during this period? Here are suggestions I would recommend …

• Reach out to current residents of your future program and ask them what they wish they prepared as they look back on their start to residency.
• Understand what types of types of procedures your program does more of, less of, etc. Start brushing up on these topics.
• Start to review and learn common hardware sets that your hospital uses. Read the technique guides. Watch the online videos. Know what instruments are in the set (and where they are located), steps of instrumentation use for that procedure, etc. Learn the drill/tap/screwdriver sizes. (Ever heard of a T7 vs T10 driver? I didn’t before residency.) Know the sizes of the screw, not just diameter but length and head type as well. Common sets will count length of screw by twos for a range, then jump to fives, with heads the shapes of hex, cruciate, T7/T10. This is important in screw choice during certain procedures as well as being prepared for a hardware removal.
• Pick up a podiatric textbook and read it front to back. In my opinion, every student should have read McGlamry’s Comprehensive Textbook of Foot and Ankle Surgery (4^th Edition) and/or Mann’s Surgery of the Foot and Ankle (9^th Edition) in its entirety before graduating podiatry school. These books can establish the foundation of your knowledge and save you time later when you need to brush up on a specific chapter/section before a case. These textbooks also give you a good springboard into reading current journal articles on those procedures to remain up to date on the literature.
• Pick some of the more pathology-specific books that may relate to your program and review them as well. This could include a book on external fixation (External Fixators of the Foot and Ankle, 1^st Edition), Charcot reconstruction (e.g., Surgical Reconstruction of the Diabetic Foot and Ankle, 2^nd Edition), total ankle replacement (e.g., Total Ankle Replacement: An Operative Manual, 1^st Edition), skin/plastics (e.g., Lower Extremity Soft Tissue & Cutaneous Plastic Surgery, 2^nd Edition), etc.
• Stay up-to-date on journals you may not have had as much time to read lately. Key journals include the Journal of the American Podiatric Medical Association, the Journal of Foot and Ankle Surgery, and Foot and Ankle International. Additional journals include Clinics of Foot and Ankle Surgery, the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery and the Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (related foot/ankle topics), Foot and Ankle Specialist, and Techniques in Foot and Ankle Surgery.
• If your schedule is not already full, start preparing for off-service rotations through reading and education on internal medicine (e.g., Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine, 19^th Edition), general surgery (e.g., Surgical Recall, 8^th Edition), infectious disease (e.g., Mandell Douglas and Bennett’s Principles and Practices of Infectious Diseases, 8^th Edition), etc. Find out what residents in the past used to prepare for these rotations.
• Reach out to current residents to see if they are working on any case reports, abstracts, posters or research that you can give them help with ahead of time, or take over a project for a graduating resident.
• Update your resume and cover letter. The job search is just around the corner.
• Figure out where you want to live during residency. You may have an idea but the whole process of finding an apartment and moving can be stressful, especially with the short window between school and residency. Try to get a head start to minimize this unneeded and avoidable stress.

All this sounds like a lot of work. Trust me, the work never ends. However, you should also use this time for the more enjoyable things in life.

• Read a book. Any book. Not medical. Go wander around Barnes & Noble (if you can still find one) and pick something out to get a break from medicine.
• Visit family and friends. You may be moving somewhere that will be difficult to travel between home and work for visits. Furthermore, residency often limits your free time to do these things due to night or weekend call, holiday call, fatigue and the need to catch up on sleep. When you do get time off, make the special effort to go see family and friends, even if it requires driving or flying four to five hours just for an overnight trip.
• Go on a vacation. The further and longer, the better. Again, once residency starts, especially as a first-year resident, there is limited time for this. Now might be the last time you can take more than nine days in a row off (i.e., one week with flanking weekends) for a long vacation.

Hopefully, some of these suggestions will establish the foundation for a clear minded, well rested and prepared (i.e., academically, socially, mentally) resident to hit the ground running from day one. Good luck to all.

The author of this blog has no disclosures (e.g., stock, equity, or consultant status) related to the textbooks mentioned in this submission. The use of the textbook names was taken for representation purposes without bias and based on his personal medical training and experience. All opinions expressed in the presentation are that of Christopher R. Hood, DPM, and not that of the textbook publishers or Podiatry Today.

Dr. Hood is a fellowship-trained foot and ankle surgeon. Follow him on Twitter at @crhoodjrdpm or check out his website www.footankleresource.com, which contains information on the transition from student to resident to new practitioner, with information about each of these segments and transitions between the stages of becoming a podiatric physician as well as academic resources.