Hey future med students and residents—pull up a chair, grab whatever caffeine source is closest (yes, even if it’s lukewarm), and let me tell you what it’s actually like being a third-year family medicine resident.
Spoiler: it’s messy, exhausting, kinda hilarious, weirdly beautiful, and occasionally smells like betadine mixed with pure regret.
Let’s Talk About the Glamour of Residency
Residency is marketed like some noble, heroic rite of passage. That’s cute.
Here’s the reality:
- You will eat at least one meal standing up. Per day.
- You will Google “is it possible to die from tiredness?” at some point.
- Your badge photo will slowly evolve from bright-eyed student → confused raccoon → cryptid haunting the hospital halls.
- Someone will ask you how you “stay balanced,” and you will laugh so hard you choke on your own coffee.
Yeah. Balance.
The Famous “Self-Care” You’ve Been Promised
Look, I’m all for wellness. I love wellness. I support wellness. But I’m also going to say the thing no one puts in the shiny brochures:
Sometimes you don’t have the bandwidth for self-care. Sometimes you’re literally in survival mode.
And that’s not a personal failure—it’s just residency.
Some days self-care means a bath bomb, meditation, reflection journaling.
Other days self-care is:
- Not crying in the clean supply room (the dirty supply room is fine, though).
- Finding a graham cracker and pretending it’s nutrition.
- Sitting in your car in complete silence for 7 minutes before driving home.
- Going to sleep at 7 p.m. without answering texts from any human being, living or dead.
This is wellness enough. I promise.
Residency Is Basically a Marathon Where People Keep Throwing More Marathons at You
Year 1: Pure panic.
Year 2: Panic but you walk faster.
Year 3: The panic has settled into your personality like background radiation.
But here’s the thing—if you try to give 110% every single day, the residue of your soul will begin to evaporate somewhere around month 14.
I’ve seen it. I’ve been it.
So the real trick is learning how to give “the correct amount of effort,” which is not the same as “all the effort you have.”
Save your energy like you’re rationing the last 2% on your phone at the airport.
Use it wisely.
Use it sparingly.
Use it on what actually matters.
Your Co-Residents: The Only People Who Understand Your Descent into Chaos
Find your people. They’re the ones who:
- Grab your fourth cup of coffee.
- Make eye contact during rounds like, “Are you also dying? Cool, same.”
- Know exactly how you feel based on your hygiene or lack thereof.
- Have seen you at 3 a.m. and still voluntarily speak to you.
These are your survival partners. They’re the reason you will actually make it through this.
The Wild Part? You Really Do Become a Better Doctor
Somehow, in between the exhaustion and the caffeine and the existential dread, you transform.
You learn.
You grow.
You start trusting yourself.
You handle situations that once terrified you.
You realize: “Holy crap . . . I know what I’m doing. Mostly.”
You don’t notice it happening, but it does.
So to the Ones Just Starting Out . . .
Here’s what I want you to hear from me—the slightly frazzled, semi-upright PGY-3 who has lost three water bottles and possibly part of my sanity.
- You’re not supposed to have it all together.
- You will not always be “well.”
- Not doing self-care is not a moral failure.
- Surviving is still succeeding.
- Don’t sprint the whole marathon—it’s long, and the terrain is nonsense.
- Protect your energy like it’s the last granola bar on nights.
- You WILL make it.
Residency is absolute chaos—but you grow in the chaos.
And one day you wake up as a third-year, look back, and think:
Damn . . . I really made it this far by just surviving?
That’s actually kind of badass.
