Six Pieces of Advice for New Physicians

On advent of the medical new year

The Frontier Psychiatrists is a daily-enough health-themed newsletter. Healthcare in America has a new year, just like a regular calendar. It's July 1. On this day, residency training programs for medical doctors begin every year.

Today's column is addressed to those new doctors.

Welcome to the most difficult year of your life. That is, until the next most difficult year of your life. The hours are unreasonably long. The strain that will take on your relationships is more than your non-physician friends will understand. This will be a formative year. You've heard that term before, formative? That means it forms you. It forms you in the same way that tremendous pressure forms rock. Or, perhaps, the tremendous heat and pressure form the molten iron and nickel at the center of the earth. If I were to tell you that these were not overstatements, you wouldn't believe me. Next year, you will.

1. Support your Residency Classmates.

Have you already met your Residency classmates? Those …