Urology residency lonely?

[lp92]

For all the urology PGY1/2s, do you ever feel lonely?
This is especially for smaller programs i.e. 2 residents per class, and especially taking consults and doing overnight call, do you just feel lonely doing that stuff largely by yourself?
I'm trying to gauge if this is unique to urology and other specialized surgical fields, because I imagine as a general surgery resident (or even non surgical fields) you have a much larger cohort of residents who can share in the experience. I feel like that might be an often overlooked potential drawback to entering a field that is just so small by nature.

Thanks for any insight

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[DoctwoB]

It’s been a few years for me, but it can be an isolating time to be the junior who is on call or on nights. Probably more so now that programs have less general surgery time to feel like “one of the gang”. I’m sure it’s also much harder this year since going out for beers after work is not an option.

Get to know your co residents and your peers in other surgical programs. I know it can be tough to carve out time when you’re exhausted post call, and you need your sleep, but know that social time is also important to prioritize as well. As you move up in ranks you can choose to be more collegial (or not) with your juniors and often attendings become more collegial with senior residents as well.

 

[cpants]

I wouldn't call it lonely, just different. In my experience you have a much closer working relationship and learn a lot from the attendings while on call, rounding, etc. This is unlike general surgery where its common for junior residents to have very limited interaction with the faculty outside of the OR. This is a positive in my opinion. We were fairly tight knit group socially and also hung out with the other surgical residents (ENT, ortho).

 

[daenschl]

Yeah I actually feel call can be pretty lonely. This was a major adjustment for me moving from intern year taking general surgery call (where you have a 2, 3, 4/5 and attending in house that you see during traumas and run into in the hallways) to PGY 2 Urology call where it’s just me in the hospital. A bit scary early on where I still have a lot of questions about consults I see at night. There is always a chief on backup but they’re asleep and you try to not wake them. As a whole, however, I would not say that Urology residency is a lonely experience. I feel resident groups tend to be close knit, socialize often and support each other. And I agree that you tend to get to know the attendings better earlier on in training compared to general surgery

 

[Fission Chips]

PGY-1 here, I wouldn't use 'lonely' as the word to describe call. I've had plenty of call nights where I need to call my chief because I don't know what I'm doing (priapism takedown, mitrofanoff complications, most peds cases). I've also had plenty of nights where I don't get a single page. I am definitely grateful having my chief as backup and as time has gone on, I feel much more comfortable sending FYI texts to him/her. I think it would be more humbling to have to wake up my attending when I don't know what the right thing to do is.

GS call has been different because its in house, so you have someone next to you sharing your misery. Urology call can be annoying at this stage because a lot of what I've been called in for isn't something I actually need to be there for (Difficult foley when the nurses obviously didn't try, painless hematuria with a draining foley, retention workup initiated by the cross-cover medicine team). GS call is just terrible in general, I don't think I've had a single hour of sleep when taking call for them, and post-call days are for the weak.

 

[theguardsman]

Interesting thread and good to hear y’all experiences. I’m an ms4 currently waiting for match results but def felt a bit of this during my rotations. My home uro program is 1 per year and I didn’t super vibe with few of the folks and sometimes the service felt kind of depressing. On the other hand our GS service was great and my team was a lot of fun. I had been set on applying uro since m1 but really considered GS hard because of this. In the end still went with uro and only interviewed at places with 3 or more residents per year. My top choice also spends more of their time at one site which I know has its drawbacks with no VA and such but I hope will make it feel more like a team.

 

[non prostate owner MD]

I did not have this experience but we had 4 per year And had a great camaraderie. I will say once you graduate, most of us move yet again to a new location where you have even less of a built in network (unless you are lucky enough to be moving back home). Isolation loneliness when starting your first job is very common and not talked about enough.