My name is Jung and I am a board-certified, full-time anesthesiologist privileged to be involved in resident education and training, after having worked in private practice for a few years after residency and fellowship.
Working with residents – who are uniformly motivated to do well – I notice how curious they are about the world beyond residency. Not only do they want to have a glimpse into what their professional life would be after training, they are equally curious about the “logististics” of being a real world physician that involve issues such as practice management, personal financial planning, etc. When I was a resident, I have to say that I was also curious about the same things. Sure, I was training to be proficient at managing difficult airways, placing an arterial catheter, or interpreting ABG’s, but I didn’t know much about the answers to questions like the following: ‘Should one get disability insurance as a resident?,’ ‘How do private practice anesthesiology groups operate?,’ or ‘What is an RVU when it comes to billing?’ I had very little idea about any of these issues, but had this vague hope that I would be able to figure it out once I was done with training. After having gone through the experience, I can tell you that it doesn’t have to be this way. I believe that learning about the “logistics” of being a real-world physician is an important and anxiety-alleviating part of being a resident physician. While we train hard to be good clinicians, there is a lack of education for physicians when it comes to the logistics and business of being a physician. By learning about this aspect of being a real-world physician, we can free ourselves to focus on the patient care that we have spent so much time training to provide.
I am the first to tell you that I don’t have all the answers about the issues that lie beyond residency. The best I can do is to share my experiences – some good, but mostly bad stemming from my mistakes and miscalculations. Then I thought to myself, why not create a forum for discussion about different topics from which residents can benefit? Physicians in private practice and academia, as well as residents in training, can share their knowledge and experiences about being physicians in the real world. I feel that if we can learn from each other, we have a better shot at being more successful – however you define success. Some say success is not perfection but going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. This website is by no means perfect, but it is with much bated enthusiasm that I’ve created this website. Let’s hope I don’t screw this up.
Cheers.
If you want to contact me or would like to guest blog, please email me at [email protected] or tweet me @MereResidency.