July 1st, the calendar New Year of teaching hospitals. It's a bittersweet moment to see the departure of our graduating senior residents as they go out into the wild world and begin their practice as attendings or fellows.
But with this comes new faces and new responsibilities. Interns are often a breath of fresh air to renew our enthusiasm for medicine and education. Taking the excited and somewhat terrified new doctor and driving them towards becoming confident and capable physicians is one of the most gratifying experiences we have as teaching attendings. And now the newly senior residents must also step up and educate, manage, and continue to refine their practice.
To new interns: be proud of what you are. You have spent thousands of hours and years of your life just to get to this stage. You are scared not because you are unprepared or not capable for the challenges of residency, but because you know exactly the gravity of the field of medicine and the sheer depth and breadth it contains. You are "Doctor" now, and while initially strange and challenging to introduce yourself as thus, remember you have earned it and you owe it to your patients to set the tone and demonstrate your education while you care for them in their most vulnerable moments.
In the spirit of the new year, I will also be taking on a new role. I will be serving now as the Faculty Editor-in-Chief with the departure of Shyam Murali from the residency and start of his critical care fellowship. I would like to take a moment to thank Shyam for his immense dedication to making this website and bringing it to the quality it has produced over the past several years. The resources we have here would not exist without his tireless work. Good luck to you Dr. Murali and I am sure we will see your name proliferating throughout academic emergency medicine and critical care as your career unfolds.
Happy New Year Everyone!
-Alex Dzurik, MD
Faculty Editor-in-Chief