 Today is July 1st. Today is a day that thousands of new doctors who just recently graduated medical school start their first day as physicians. July 1st is scary for many. It's scary for the new trainees. It is normal to question if you really learned enough to now take care of patients. It's scary for the experienced doctors and attendings who are now having to reset and remind themselves of the patients and guidance that will be required. And finally, it's scary for the patients as a new doctor may sound like a bad doctor, but it's not. Today also marks my third and final year of internal medicine training. And so in today's video, I want to share those lessons that I've learned for those of you who are about to start the journey, those of you who have been on the journey, and those of you who will one day also be in our shoes. Let's get to it. So lesson number one is to don't take your knowledge level too seriously. In medicine, it's very easy to feel too dumb because you don't know enough or to feel overly smart because you know a lot. And so this leads you to be on two sides of the spectrum of either looking like you have a lack of confidence or being extremely arrogant. Bone reality neither approaches ideal, nor is it the right way to look at it. Instead, think of medicine like growing a garden. At first you have nothing to show. You feel incompetent, but really you're just not experienced. But with time as you experience patients, situations, cases, and through your own learning, your seeds of knowledge get planted from both medical school as well as residency, and they also finally begin to show signs of life. And you start to notice, maybe you do know something after all. But as you begin to water more and more of your seeds, you also at times begin to focus on some of those old topics. And so while some knowledge will grow, some knowledge will also decay and die if you don't give it attention. But remember that this is okay because as you're watering more and more pieces of your knowledge over time, it's easier to acquire knowledge because you can use old pieces of information to better understand new things as well as old things that you may have forgotten a little bit stronger. But with that experience that knowledge you currently have will remain firm for a longer period of time. But that doesn't mean that you will always have that piece of knowledge. And it also doesn't mean that the things that you don't yet know won't possibly be something that you will one day in the future. It's an ever-evolving garden, and that's what makes learning medicine so beautiful. And so it's important to understand and embrace that as a brand new physician. Number two, your patients don't care a damn about your credentials. Your MCAT score, your step one score, your step two score, your evaluations, your GPAs, your patients do not care. The only thing your patient cares is your ability to help them. And remember that your degree from medical school, wherever they may have been, is simply permission to do just that. But it doesn't determine the excellence at which you provide that service. And Ivy League education doesn't guarantee you the skills to interact with the art that goes with patient care, which combines knowledge, critical thinking, listening, creativity, and rapport to be successful. And on the flip side, graduating from a lower tier medical school doesn't exclude you from having these qualities either. Just remember that yes, July 1st represents your first day as your life as a physician. Your achievements got you here, but don't hang on them to continue to move forward. Next, remember the importance of both pattern recognition and rapport. There's a difference between a great clinician, a caring person, and a great doctor. Great clinicians can combine their knowledge, their experience, patient complaints, lab values, vitals, and put those together to have critical thinking to come up with both the diagnosis, as well as management. And over time, you will learn how to do this. A caring physician knows how to properly care, be sympathetic, be firm, and also remain confident in showing the patient that they care for them. But a great doctor combines both of these, rapport as well as pattern recognition to truly become successful. So it's important that you focus on both of these as you work with each and every one of your patients. And from personal experience and full disclosure, I've had patients who I thought I've had nothing to learn from. These will be patients who are given labels such as pain seekers, frequent fliers, as well as failure to thrive. And so while it may seem like you have nothing to learn from them, you're wrong. As one of my attendings once told me, you can always learn something from every single patient encounter. Sometimes you can learn about their disease. Sometimes you can learn about the patient. Sometimes you can learn about patient rapport. Sometimes you can learn about charting or interacting with other physicians, interacting with other intrapersonnel health care providers like nurses, PT staff, social work. Sometimes you develop those small skills like how to put an IV, how to work the monitor, how to run the IV pump, or how to get a patient discharged and make sure that they can afford their medications. Little pieces of nuance is that you never thought you would have to know as a doctor, but to truly become a great one, you do. And so remember that every patient is an opportunity for you to improve both your pattern recognition as well as your rapport with that individual patient. And so I urge you to stop looking at every patient like a simple math problem that you get bored of because you've seen so many times. Make their problem your problem and every patient will look like an opportunity that can also help you move forward. Next, it's important that you be aggressive with your self-care. Also from personal experience, burnout is real and burnout will happen to some degree to every one of you that's watching this video. And so it's important to not act like a superhero and watch out for yourself. We all know that if a plane is ever crashing, the first thing that you're told to do is to put on your oxygen first before you help others around you. In residency and as a physician, it's important that you help yourself first and so then you can properly help all your patients effectively. This means that you get your rest as much as you can. If that means you have to schedule days where you plan on getting more sleep to count for those days that you were shorted, do that. This also means that you make sure to move. Your job likely as a doctor is going to be much more mental than physical but make sure you use your own body. Next, it's important to remember that you need to energize and energize correctly. Being a doctor often is an excuse for excessive caffeine, carb, and quick processed foods. But remember, garbage in, garbage out. Imagine how much more sharp and aware you could be if you could avoid those energy slumps from the decisions that you can easily avoid. And finally, focusing on some of those life skills that you will need but have been delayed because of your career choice as a physician, such as learning things like personal finance and investing. And finally, and probably the most impactful lesson that I've learned in two years of residency is to be comfortable being uncomfortable. I always remember this saying that progress happens at the other side of failure, so don't be afraid to fail. Now, that doesn't mean that you need to make risks with your patients and their own well-being, but that does mean that you can be creative and ask questions when you're not comfortable. But if you think in the regards of your patients' care that something is an option but you're not quite sure, ask the question versus not doing anything. Because in the future, that may be an option that you can turn to or learn that there was never something you should have considered. But regardless, that's a lesson that you've learned that has now helped you progress your knowledge as a physician. But this idea of being comfortable, being uncomfortable, really surrounds this idea of being a training because you're going to be working with other attendings, other fellow colleagues, and as you move up the ladder, you will also start to work with medical students and other people who have worked one year less than you, like me currently as a upper-level resident. And so while it may seem like you have to put this facade of looking like you know everything and not asking questions, not saying things in the fear of being wrong, understand that you are getting in the way of your own personal progress and the people that you think that are paying attention to your wrong answers never even noticed in the first place. So be okay looking foolish in front of your team and your attendings to better understand something for the future because again, it's an ever-evolving garden. The more mistakes you make, the more connections you can reign for the long term. And that also means going into situations where you don't know everything you need to do because in all honesty, you never will. But you will know more if you actually put yourself in those situations. But those guys are some of my favorite tips and strategies and advice to brand new doctors. And I also want to say a big congrats to making it this far in your journey. This is a huge step. You worked your butt off and you deserve the recognition. But remember to truly make the most of your experience going forward. Remember some of the things that we talked about in this video and make the most of each and every patient encounter. And for those of you guys that may not be at this journey just quite yet, hold on to this video, save the link, put it somewhere that way you can come back to it, understand a few things because again, we learn more and we learn from the experiences of other people. I've made some of these mistakes that I've made in this video. I've made all of them actually. And so just to avoid making them as much as I have, enjoy the process a little bit more than I have. Hopefully this video was helpful. But with that being said guys, if this video was helpful, then help me out, help the YouTube channel out, help this video out get in front of more future physicians by hitting that like button. That's really all you have to do. Hit that like button, hit it again, comment down below with any questions that you guys have about being a physician, what it's like, is it worth it? What should I do? Relationships, finances, how you manage patient care, I'd love to answer those questions either personally or making future videos for you guys out. Now this is by no means the first video I've ever made about residency, so check out our full playlist about residency, life as a doctor down below. And again, if you're new here or if you're a lurker, consider hitting that subscribe button for getting more videos just like this to help you on your medical journey but doing it with less stress. But with that being said guys, thank you so much for being a part of my journey. Hopefully this video is a little help to you guys and yours. Remember, congratulations for making it this far. Finally, for those of you guys are interested, if you want to make the most of your first year of residency, doing it well, doing it with less stress, but want to learn some of the nuances of how to take care of patients, how to do skills like AKGs and chest x-rays and again, make sure that you look like a superstar doctor despite not having more than a few months under your belt, check out the intern survival guide down below. This is a program that I've created that include all my favorite tips and strategies that I've used my first year of residency as well as things that I wish I had done during that intern year. So if you guys are interested, check that out down below. But with that being said guys, thank you so much for watching this video. Thank you for being a part of my journey. Hopefully it was a little help to you guys on yours. Congratulations for making it this far. If you did enjoy this video, then check out this video and how you can use Anki like a pro to help you on your medical journey. But until then, I'll see you guys in the next one. Peace my friends.