The long road through college, medical school, and residency is nearly over. Unfortunately, unlike each step before this, life after residency is highly undefined and ambiguous, especially since there is no academic system or set of advisors to help you along the path. That is why it is so important to take time to mentally and physically prepare for the ways your life changes after residency. Role Changes Your roles, both personally and professionally, change dramatically following your graduation from residency. Being prepared for these role changes by recognizing them is important. They include: STUDENT TO CLINICIAN You are no longer in a position of actively acquiring knowledge, but of putting the knowledge you have to work. That is not to say that the learning process ends, but it does mean that you need to adjust how you approach your practice. INTERNAL TO EXTERNAL As a student and resident, your quest for knowledge led to a lot of internal dialogue and work including lectures, rounds, articles and more. Now, your focus is outside of yourself and your studies. As a physician, your focus must remain on your patients, your practice, and your employer instead. SELF-OBLIGATION TO OBLIGATION TO OTHERS The intense and long term focus of a medical education often leads people to push aside all other needs, including those of friends and family, in pursuit of their goal. Now that you have completed this stretch, you need to take the focus away from you in order to better serve your patients and colleagues as well as your family Lifestyle Changes The changes to your daily roles are only the beginning of how life alters after residency. Each and every aspect of your daily existence and lifestyle must change as well, including: CALENDARS In school everything is divided into nice, easily-digestible chunks called semesters. Even your residency cleanly portioned itself by "years" with clear goals, requirements, and standards to meet by a certain date. Afterwards, you must design your own calendar and your own path. You need to make sure you take time to consciously set goals and work to meet them rather than just simply getting caught up in the day-to-day. ADVISORS From the day you enter college and get your first "academic advisor" assignment, you have had people assigned to you to guide you down the path of educational advancement. This includes teachers, counselors, clinical instructors, and mentors. Now that you are on your own, you still need these more experienced people in your life, but it is up to you to find them. PASSING/FAILING As a student, your life was about grades. They told you where you stand and if you were doing enough to advance. Life after residency doesn't hand out grades. At least not as clearly. You will still be evaluated, but you won't always know when or how. You need to learn to embrace this unknown element of your life as a physician as well as prepare to meet it, whenever it occurs. How to Prepare for the Transition Getting ready to transition to life after residency and weather the changes discussed above is all about proper preparation and control. You need to know what to do and how to do it to succeed: NEVER STOP LEARNING Just because you put away your student hat does not mean it is to gather dust eternally. Medicine constantly changes and there is no way to know everything about every patient and every disease or symptom. Get ready now to go back to the books when needed and realize that you cannot and will not know everything there is to know—but that's okay! SURROUND YOURSELF WITH GOOD PEOPLE Just like the advisors from your student days, you need a team of support which includes personal backup at home as well as professional backup at work. Seek out and start relationships with others in your field for mentorship roles. Consult other practitioners you trust and make sure that you have a family or system of friends to support you. LET GO OF GUILT Life is full of "shoulds" and "coulds" and that is also true of medicine. A lot of the guilt we feel revolves around a pursuit of perfectionism, an ideal that is impossible to achieve. You cannot put your knowledge to use if you focus too hard on what you aren't doing or should have done better. Making the transition from medical resident to practicing physician is one of the biggest and greatest of your entire career. However, just every other aspect of your career to this point the only way to be successful is to plan for these changes and face them head on. source
