Quoted: Physical illness (cardiac) and school

[Doodledog]

posted for a member

As a pre-clinical student with heart disease, I am contemplating what the future holds for me. My disease is not immediately life-threatening but does cause problems. Externally, I often do not appear to have a disease but in actuality, I cannot do as much physically as others my age. I do not believe this will impair my ability to be a competent, skilled physician. I just cannot do things such as call every 4th night as it would exacerbate my disease. As such, I have asked for some accommodations during my clinical years. Is this sustainable in residency? I don't plan on entering the competitive specialties or anything surgical. What should I disclose to my attendings in 3/4 years and to RDs during interviews? Additionally, what is the view of RDs on a resident adjusting a call schedule or taking four or five days off about twice a year for medical reasons?

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[NotAProgDirector]

Much depends on what field you will be entering, but overall I would say that this is going to be difficult to accomodate in most residency programs.

Programs that have overnight call are not going to be able to accomodate your request without much difficulty. There is no way to have other people take your call for you -- it's part of your training.

Some programs have no overnight call. Usually they have some sort of "late" call, where you work until 9PM or something similar, then go home. Do not be fooled, however, as these programs usually have very busy days every day, compared with call programs where you get "hammered" on your call day, and then can have quieter days in between (but not always...)

Some things probably can be accomodated by some programs:

• Code teams -- most programs have residents on code teams, which usually requires running to a critically ill patient's bedside, sometimes up a few flights of stairs. You might be excused from this. You might not.
• You could request a chair to sit on during rounds, if that would help.
• Time off for medical appointments is fine, if you know when they will be in advance. If you require frequent days off suddenly because of your illness, that could be a problem.

Fields that might be more accomodating / less physically (but not intellectually) strenuous would be:

• Derm and Rads -- but these are both very competitive, and require a prelim year which would be strenuous.
• Psych - does have some IM in the PGY-1 year, but can probably be adjusted.
• PM&R - also requires a prelim year
• Pathology

 

[dragonfly99]

Would do psych or pathology, ideally.
rads or derm OK, but as mentioned above you have to do a prelim year and that requires a lot of hours and call.

Would think you might want to do optometry, pharmacy, etc. if you can't physically do the things you need to do to be able to practice medicine. If you are already in med school, probably go for psych or pathology. Maybe rad onc? (very hard to get in to rad onc though).

Definitely don't do internal medicine or surgery. Neurology is probably out too...though I've met a neuro fellow who uses a wheelchair and basically can't do much physically. I've never understood how he got through internal med prelim year though.