Rising PGY3 at University of Pittsburgh. We have an awesome panel for you today. We have residents from all over the country, all stages of training, all different types of programs. So I'm gonna turn it over to them to introduce themselves. So just gonna give you kind of lay of the land what today will look like. Thank you so much all for submitting questions. So we'll spend the first like 15-ish minutes talking about life as a resident. And then most of your questions were about applying to residency. So we'll definitely give some tips and tricks about the residency application process and help out with that. So I'm gonna have everybody just introduce themselves. We'll give, you know, class year and where you're at and what your interests are in the field of rehab from our resident panel. So I'll start with Deji, Dr. Olusanya. You can start us off. Hey guys, how you doing? My name is Deji, Deji Olusanya. I am a Rising PGY4 here at Utah State University of Texas, San Antonio. So my interest is MS case medicine, but I love pain medicine, which is the fellowship I'm applying for right now. And I do love physiatry in general. That's the reason why I came here. So I appreciate you, George, for having me. Thank you guys for giving me the opportunity to speak to you guys today. Then we'll go with Connor Foltz. Hi everyone, I'm Connor Foltz. I'm a PGY3, soon to be PGY4 at UPMC along with George. My interests are in sports medicine. So I'm kind of going through the application process now. They're due in a few weeks. So I'm kind of in the thick of things from that standpoint. So any questions specifically about fellowship or some of the senior resident roles as a physiatrist, I'm happy to answer. Thanks for having me, George. And we'll keep going in descending class order. So we'll go with Saray. Hi, I'm Saray Sager. I am at Shirley Ryan Ability Lab, currently a PGY2. I'm getting ready to switch over to PGY3 here. It's very exciting. I have a background in exercise physiology. I was a strength coach for athletes at my college and absolutely love MSK medicine. I'm a huge anatomy nerd, ended up loving neurology as well. And so when I found how good MSK medicine was when I found how PMNR really helps quality of life, but also talks mostly about the topics that I was interested in medicine, I thought that's a great opportunity forward. I think I will end up pursuing a sports medicine fellowship as a way to help my patients in the future. So I'm really excited to see where my more senior years of PMNR residency take me. Awesome. And we'll have Dr. Shelby Sweat. She'll be rolling in soon. She's just doing some patient care. She's also a PGY2 rising PGY3. And then last but not least, I'll have Eddie introduce himself. Hi everyone. My name is Eddie Chang. I just finished my intern year at UC Irvine and I'll be going into a PGY2 starting at UC Irvine as well for PMNR. Really keeping an open mind. Right now I think my interests are in pain medicine and MSK medicine as well. But if anyone has any questions about the application process for a prelim year versus like a transitional year and stuff like that, I'll be happy to answer any of those as well. Thanks for having me. Awesome. So we will get started. I'm going to go right back to Eddie. Just why don't you give us a rundown of what one of your days as an intern looked like? Yeah. I would say I spent most of my time doing inpatient wards medicine. So a day in the life pretty much looks like going in and around. You know, sign outs usually at 6.30, didn't really have to go in too, too early. I think like 6.15, I would kind of show up, get everything ready, get sign out of the events that happened overnight. And then pretty much just chart review and chart check and see all of your patients in pre rounds until rounds, which is at around nine o'clock. It varies per program, but my program itself had some teaching and learning from eight o'clock in the morning to about 9 a.m. And then you would round depending on your attending, either be attending table rounds or, you know, bedside rounding. And then rounds would typically end around noon where we had lunch lectures. And then afterwards from one to, you know, whichever call schedule you're on to the late afternoon, to the early evening, you would just be tidying things up, working on some notes and just managing patient care. Awesome. Yeah, intern year is a little bit different everywhere, but as Eddie said, it's busy, but I think it's a part of the learning experience with rehab. And as we talk about inpatient rehabilitation, you'll see why building those skills is very important. All right, so same thing, we'll kind of keep going in chronological order. Saray, why don't you give us a breakdown of what a day in life on inpatient rehab is like? Sure. So also I'm happy to talk about my medicine prelim here as well, since that's something I did, but as a PGY2 on inpatient medicine here at Shirley Ryan, like George said, it's different everywhere. Our program prioritizes inpatient rotations on second year, and then most of third and fourth year are outpatient rotations. So here we spend one to two months per discipline. We do two months of brain injury, two months of stroke, and too much of spinal cord. Most of the other rehab disciplines are a month at a time. So amputee, medically complex rehab, we see transplants and LVAD patients here. So that's something that we work on. We also have a month of cancer rehab. So it kind of just varies program to program. Typically here we have noon lectures every day. So our mornings usually start around 8 a.m., depending on when the attending wants to round. So get in, do your pre-round, just by chart checking in the computer. We don't generally see our patients before rounds. We let them sleep in here. Rounds are usually an hour or two. We have some time in the morning to work on notes and orders. And then a half an hour before lunchtime, we usually do team conferences. So we spend about five minutes per patient going over how their progress has been in the last week, what our discharge planning process is for them. Then we go to noon lecture. We have grand rounds once a week. And afternoons are really for, like Eddie said, tidying up all the work, attending to patient care issues and admitting patients. We generally sign out pagers by 4.30 in the afternoon to our resident on call. And if you have stuff to finish up, then of course they finishing your admission or whatever is going on for patient care. And then you sign out when you're done. We have weekends off here. Our attendings round on the weekends, but we do have call shifts that you might be on for a 24 hour call. And if you're on during the week, you would stay for rounds the next day. So it's a 28 hour call, but it's been really good experience. Our attendings are great teachers. So it definitely makes it a good experience. Awesome. That was a great breakdown. I think you'll see as you go along from PGY1 to PGY2, there are some differences between medicine year and PGY2 year, but a lot of our patients come to rehab really sick. The way that the world of insurance works now, a lot of the patients do need a lot of medical care. So the medicine does stay pretty intense and you need a lot of those skills that you build in turn year, but the focus definitely shifts the function and getting people home back where a lot of times came from. Awesome. Thanks for that breakdown, Saray. Now I'll turn it over to our senior residents on the call. I know Deji's in clinic right now. So Deji, why don't you give us a breakdown of what a day in PM&R clinic looks like? So it just depends on what clinic you're at. Here at UTesco, we're in varieties of clinic, but this month I am on my EMG clinic. This month, I am the senior. It's my second month of EMG. So I have a co-resident, it's actually in my class, Aaron Yersley, might be walking in sooner or later where we both go through clinic every day, just doing EMG. So we're at the VA, so it's a little different than being at the county hospital. But a typical day, probably start our day around eight o'clock, 8 a.m., Monday through Wednesday, and then we probably finish, our last patient comes in around three or four. By the time we're done with notes, you know, and prepping for the next day, we're probably out here by four, 4.30. On Thursdays and Fridays, we have didactics from eight to 10, so still start at eight. So a typical day of outpatient, you know, in general, just as a upper level is likely around eight o'clock to four, five o'clock. As a PGY-3 here, upper level, we do have call, but we call every Friday. So, and it's eight of us. So typical, you know, I may have maybe six to eight call days in the year. And when I'm not on call, I am backup call. So I'll have about maybe six to seven weeks of backup call where basically there's a PGY-2 on call during the week and weekends. And if anything happens or if they have any questions, I answer those calls. But typical day, eight to 4.30, eight to five, living the good life. Love it. Connor, anything to add about clinic? Yeah, I would echo that sentiment. Tends to be pretty similar hours around eight to 4.30. I will say, as you kind of transition from inpatient to outpatient, there tends to be more driving, at least at Pittsburgh, our clinics are located more in the suburban areas outside of the centralized hospitals within the city. And yeah, it totally varies on what clinic you're in. You can be an EMG clinic. You can have some focus on sports and spine, which will vary based on the number of patients you see, all the way to amputee and prosthetics and orthotics. That's one of the blessings of PM&R is you kind of hit the whole gambit and get a wide exposure to a number of different outpatient fields. So yeah, you can kind of get exposed to everything throughout your time. At UPMC, we're a in-house facility, meaning we're attached to a hospital. So our call that we take on the weekends is remote. Largely for the most part, we'll go in and round on the patients on the unit. We tend to double cover a service. So if you're typically covering 10 to 14 patients on the inpatient side, we'll cover upwards of around 30 or so patients on the weekend, round on all those patients, and then you take your pager from home, which is nice in a sense that you can kind of provide some coverage from the comforts of your home, but you're typically on call Saturday and Sunday as opposed to a 24-hour on and off schedule. So it has its trade-offs as well. Yeah, you'll see when you all apply for residency, everybody's call works slightly different at each institution, just based on the needs of the different rehab hospitals and the rehab units. Some places do what's called in-house call, like what Sarai was describing where you're physically in the facility. Some places do home call, and there's definitely trade-offs to both, but that's something that's varies almost. It's almost different every single time. So you'll get into the nitty-gritty of that once you're in your application cycle. Awesome. I'll go right back to you, Conor. Why don't you talk about some of the things that you like to do within your residency program, but outside of the workday, some of the volunteer opportunities or advocacy opportunities that you have in your PM&R residency? Yeah, so here at UPMC, we have a number of different clubs that allow us to get involved as a residency, but outside of that, to get involved as a residency, but outside of the specific work hours. We have a wellness committee that's kind of dedicated to having specific wellness events throughout the year, whether it's various happy hours that's coordinated by the different residency levels or PGY levels, as well as Ultrasound Club, which I've helped with the past few years, where we have monthly meetups to go through select body parts with different attendings and work on our diagnostic ultrasound skills. There's a number of different other clubs that you can get involved with. We have a diversity and inclusion committee here at UPMC. Yeah, there's a ton of great opportunities. We have different tracks throughout our program, whether it's the research track, medical education track, administrative track, a wide array of opportunities to kind of get involved outside of just our typical like nine to five work time. So I'm not sure if there's any others you can think of, George, specifically at UPMC. I think you did a pretty great job. And I just saw Shelby Sweat is here now. So I'll let Shelby introduce herself quick and then we'll have her answer. Shelby, why don't you give us some stuff that you like to do outside of work, through your residency program, if there's any opportunities that you have for advocacy or volunteerism through your program. Sure. Hey guys, sorry about that. I have a lady with chest pain, so we've got cardiology things happening, but I guess we're here now. So I go to UofL. I, outside of residency, like to, I would love to say I still weight lift, but by that I mean bodybuilding now, which is lame, but fine. And then I'm also running outside of work now. As far as within work, what we are doing now is Shannon Strader, which she was on the AAP Medical Student Council, I guess last year. She's our chief resident this upcoming academic year. And she has incorporated this really cool like advocacy and volunteerism thing where we're gonna start spending, I don't know if it's quarterly or how often it is, but we'll be going and volunteering our time in the community. And she hasn't released details, so I don't know what specifically, but that's a brand new thing to the program that I'm excited about. Any of the other residents have anything that they wanna plug at their programs? Anything that they're doing outside of normal work hours? So here at UTesca, there's a couple of things we love to do. I feel like physiatry, any of my fellow DO people out there, we know that it's kinda, it's great going from DO school to physiatry. So we do have an OMT club where we do practice and we get to teach our MD counterparts how to do some OMT, even though they laugh and scoff at us, but that's fine. So that's pretty fun. We do have ultrasound club, but that's kinda embedded into our didactics. We do have parts where we kinda like go do weightlifting together or CrossFit. This is Texas, so we do love to eat and clog our arteries. So one of the, between myself, usually or one of the attendings, we either once a month or once every quarter try to have a lot of barbecues, whether that's brisket, ribs, wings, all that. We like to get together once in a while to go to happy hour and just enjoy ourselves and go from there. So at San Antonio, we find things to do. We have a great house staff council. I was just vice president of house staff council where they're the ones who organize these events. We just went to Six Flags last week free for us. So we do things where we can go to like chicken and pickle or go on bowling. So we try to make sure our wellness is very adequate because medicine can be so serious at times. So you need that outlet. You need that outlet to go do things, to go work out, to go enjoy yourself, whether that's party, relaxing, yoga. So not only at the PM&R program level, but we also have it at the institution of Utesca where they are embedding wellness into us and making sure we're doing activities outside of medicine. Awesome. Sarai, do you wanna plug anything at Shirley Ryan that you've been up to? Sure. I think we have a lot of similar programs here too. We have Musculoskeletal Foundations every Thursday where we do ultrasound teaching, physical exam skills, reviewing the anatomy that's really pertinent to our musculoskeletal issues at work. And we are doing some sessions with OMT. We do a lot of adaptive sports work here, both volunteering in the community. We always do the Chicago Sky Rise. We have an adaptive sailing here, the Chicago Marathon. So lots of opportunities to go out and volunteer with the adaptive community. We have also a robust wellness program here led by one of our chief residents and some of the other residents. And one of the things that we do is actually called a family. So we take a resident from each class year as well as some of the attendings and fellows and kind of make mini families so that people have resources to go to with questions, but also we do family social events. We're a very social program. There's about 40 of us residents, 12 in each class year and a few of the prelims. So we all really get along. It's amazing to see how supportive each other is. And there's always people to find whether fitness is your thing, yoga, if you want to go out and explore all the restaurants downtown. So we have a very social group of people and it's lovely to see people outside of work. Like Desi was saying, it's nice to have all that support. Eddie, have you had time to do anything fun at UC Irvine yet or? Yes, I'm so, I'll definitely have to get back to everyone on how the PM&R side of things are. I'll be honest, not much time during the internal medicine year, but one thing I did appreciate for our UC Irvine PM&R group was after didactics, they would always do kind of a wellness day where they do like a wellness dinner or some sort of activity. Whether it's going to the beach or going bowling, for example, and events like that, which I was able to make to a couple of times, but not much. Awesome, awesome. Yeah, PGY two years, you'll have a lot of time to explore some of the things that UC Irvine has to offer. So that'd be great. Awesome. All right, well, that was a great breakdown of a day in the life, I think. Most of the questions we got were on the residency application process. So we could talk about that in a little bit more detail. I'll try and get these questions in somewhat of a understandable order. We'll start with this first one. And Eddie, since you went through this the most recently, you can plug some of the things that you did. How do you think you set yourself up to match? Well, what are the things that you did during medical school or during your application cycle that you think really made a difference in your success matching PM&R? Yeah, I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. Yeah, I think being proactive was probably the most important thing. I think I found out a little bit later that I wanted to go into the PM&R field. So the way I kind of did that coming from a DO program, we did not have a home clinical institution. So it was a little bit of a challenge finding those rotations. So it's really up to me to reach out to different people. Sometimes it'd be just cold emailing different physiatrists around the area and getting as much experience as I could. I think my first elective that I did was in pain medicine. And pain medicine does a lot of great stuff, but it's only one part, one subspecialty of PM&R. So it's trying to get as much information as possible. And for me, I think the route that I took was through kind of social media, just because I knew that I was very limited in the resources I had. So honestly, I connected with George online as well, just seeking some advice of how to apply and how to get more involved. And through that process of getting connected to different mentors, online, we had the virtual, for PM&R scholars, getting acquainted and connected with a lot of different leaders in the field was amazing. Attending virtual conferences at that time and just getting those connections was really great. I think for me, I valued research in the sense of taking it as a learning opportunity of learning all the different things in the field. So I would say, you know, just really growing your network and really trying to be as proactive as possible and being very open-minded and coming from a program that was on the West Coast, just really reaching out to other leaders from the community and trying to connect with them. And I think that was a big part of the journey. Just really reaching out to other leaders from the East Coast and just kind of, you know, West Coast PM&R can differ a little bit from East Coast PM&R, with the East Coast PM&R being a little bit more impatient-heavy. So just understanding what the day-in-the-life was like as well. So I think, you know, all of that circling back to just being proactive, just keeping all ears open as well, and each different, keeping a mind open and each person that you talk to offers a different scope and a different, they come from different backgrounds and different experiences. So I would say that's pretty much, you know, there's a lot more details for sure, but that's a pretty overall general approach that I took. And I think that it would help medical students be, set themselves up for success, definitely. Awesome, awesome. Any of our other residents have anything to add about that? Anything that they think they did that really helped them set up for success? I think what really helps, for like intern year, it could be sometimes daunting because, you know, you're doing physical medicine and rehabilitation, but you're doing all these other rotations, so like internal medicine, sometimes geriatrics, orthopedics, you know, like all these sometimes surgery rotations. And sometimes you can be like, hey, like, you know, what am I doing here? Like, what am I learning? I just would go into interning with an attitude of try to do everything you can to be the best physician you can to make sure we're giving patient care. Because, you know, if you're on internal medicine, if you're on orthopedics, there's something, there's something you can learn in that rotation that you can take with you at the physiatry level. For example, on our inpatient rehab, we tend to manage diabetes, hypertension, emergency, urgency, all those things. We learn that best when we're on our internal medicine rotations. Don't think, oh, I'm just wasting time, or I'm just, what's the point of this, you know? When you're in the orthopedic clinic, you know, you're trying to learn MSK medicine, know a good physical exam, because that's what we're known for. So I would urge anyone that goes into PM&R and go into the intern year, don't just go through intern year going through the motion. See that extra patient. Be a good team player. Do all the things that you can to be a good team player and a good physiatrist. That way the foundation is built. And when you get to your PGY2 level, when you get to your PGY3 level, when you get to a PGY4 level, it's all there. It's not like something you feel like you're learning all over again. So just make sure you make every, make every encounter with your patient, every interaction with your co-fellows in your attendings, make it intentional. I think just going back. Sorry, Joe. Get Connor, get Connor now. I was just going back to like, when you're a medical student, I think it's important just to keep in mind where your interests lie in trying to emphasize and get, expand your involvement on what you're interested in. So like Soraya had mentioned, if you're interested in MSK and anatomy, is there an opportunity for you to get more involved with that and continue following that passion and kind of paint that picture of what you're interested in looking towards when you're actually applying? You just want to have a narrative that makes sense in terms of what you're looking for. Yes, it's nice to get involved with research and it checks a box and, you know, leadership opportunities, X, Y, Z. We know the things that reviewers of your application are looking for, but I think what's more important is finding things you're passionate about because then that comes across way more impressively when you're reviewing an application, when you can tell someone's passionate about what they're working on and they're interested in promoting that field or getting more involved in that field. So if you can find the things that you're really interested in and explore those opportunities and maximize your influence in those fields, I think it'll really benefit you as opposed to just doing a number of different things just to get those boxes checked. Yeah, absolutely, Connor. That's exactly what I was gonna say. A big part of what I thought made me successful in interviewing for residency was being really genuine about what I was interested in and how I wanted to help my patients. I had done all those opportunities because they were things that I loved and I enjoyed. And I got to a point in third year where I was like, oh no, what am I going to apply for? I was thinking family and sports med, but that doesn't feel right. And I found a mentor, which I think is amazing. If you think you're interested in PM&R or some other topic, find somebody you can talk to. And even if they're not the best person, they might be able to guide you in a good direction. That person that I talked to was going into PM&R and he said, look at all the things you're interested in, look at how you want to help people. Now go look at PM&R and come back to me and see if that feels like a good fit for you. And it was. So find somebody you trust to talk to or meet somebody, whether that's through AAP, AAPM&R, go to a conference, find resources and students online that you can reach out to. We're here for you. We're a small community and everybody's very, very nice. So if you've got questions, just reach out because we're really happy to help and share with you. And I think those are some of the points that I would really suggest. Yeah, quick plug on mentorship before. I'm sure Shelby and Eddie have some more stuff to add. Quick plug on mentorship. The AAP Mentorship Program is phenomenal. And now you all have the Big Brothers and Big Sisters or Big Buddy, I think program it's called, which partners you with third and fourth year medical students. And those are fantastic opportunities. The people that went through it the freshest, those PGI or those fourth year medical students or those interns, they're the ones that are gonna give you the best information on the application process, but it's also great to have a resident or an attending mentor to kind of guide you past that point of just your ERAS application. And I still talk to my AAP mentor from when I was a medical student on a weekly basis. So it's a really great way to get connected. Yeah, I think a couple of things I wanted to add was just like, just as like Connor was saying, just being intentional with everything. I think it's really important because sometimes as medical students, you get really honed in on, I have to check these boxes and this is how I'm gonna make myself the best applicant. But for example, like if you're really interested in research, then I think a great approach of being intentional is just, kind of bringing forth the light when you're talking to residents saying, hey, I'm interested in the XYZ. Do you have any additional projects? How can I get involved in this process? I realized that, you probably know a little bit more about this, can you help explain a little bit more how I can get involved with XYZ? I think that's a lot more important than saying, hey, do you have any research opportunities? It's in PM&R because it's so broad. And I think whenever you have those interactions with your residents, and I think whenever you have those interactions, whether it's with faculty or residents, it's just a lot more meaningful when you're intentional and the questions are more geared and show and demonstrate that you have an interest in the field. I think that's very, very important. To piggyback off of the research question, because I know that especially with step one going pass fail, there's a lot of uncertainty about like those scores and then your research versus volunteerism. And I go, my program is very clinical. We don't have core faculty that are PhDs, MD, PhDs are really super involved in a ton of research. We do have like spinal cord injury research going on here, but you really out. And so it's worth it for you when you're looking at programs that you want to apply to. If you're looking at somewhere like Shirley Ryan or UPMC, like research powerhouses, that you have that research background and you know that that's something you want to do, those may be where you're targeting and you go and do all of that research. I had a ton of research because I had a master's and I had a research job before I went to med school. However, I talked to some faculty recently to answer this specific question for someone who was interested in PM&R and they care about longitudinal commitment to the field. So if your interest lies in clinical, not even research, just clinical skills and being a good physician and moving on and not ever doing research again, because you never want to hear about a chi-squared or an ANOVA another day of your life, like me, then that might be the way to go. And I've showed that I was interested in PM&R through like volunteer work outside of the research that I had already done. Did it help? Yeah, should you have some, it's probably good to check that box, but you don't need to go and write a book chapter in med school or get all of these publications if you're applying to smaller programs that are more clinically heavy than, you know, not applying to those, whatever George just got, the AAP research grant and all of that. So I would be very intentional, like everyone is saying on what you want to do, have your story, have it make sense, and then have the volunteer and research experiences that support that aim. I would say even at Shirley Ryan, yes, we do a lot of research here and it's a requirement for our residency program that we do some sort of research project, but it doesn't have to be anything really big and complicated in a new clinical trial or anything like that. I'm not a person who loves research, to be honest, and I didn't have as much as I was hoping before I applied to residency. That was something I was worried about, but I was very honest with them that, you know, here's some qualitative studies that I was a part of. We had a program at my school where I was in a skilled nursing facility for 10 days as a patient. Like that was one of my major research projects. And I was very frank and honest with them that I did not have the opportunity to do as much research. You know, we didn't have PM&R mentors at my medical school. You know, is that okay? I'm happy to learn about research in residency, but it wasn't something that I was able to do before. And I got the impression that PM&R applicants need less research than if you're going into something like a surgery specialty or something where research is very, very important to everything that they do. Like Shelby said, it's more longitudinal. Like, are you willing to do research in your field if your program requires it? And so they cared a lot more about your whole application that you knew what PM&R was, that you were interested in the field for the right reasons, and that you were very genuine about that more so than checking all the boxes as this amazing academic applicant. So it felt like it was less important than maybe for some other specialties. And if you have it, great. If not, you know, see if there's some ways that you can get involved, even small things like case studies, but it's not as something that you should stress out all the time. And if you are interested in research, that's okay. Everybody has, everybody finds their spot. That's the one thing that I tell my mentees. Everybody finds their spot and finds their passion. And some people find, I didn't think I wanted to be a researcher until I got here. And then, you know, kind of opened my eyes to what a research career looks like. So everybody's path is different. And I did some really great advice from everybody. If you follow me on Twitter, you'll be able to follow me on Instagram. I'm also on Facebook. Did some really great advice from everybody. If you follow your passion, you're gonna find the place that's right for you. Fantastic. That was some great advice. I knew I picked some awesome residents, but that was some great advice. All right. To build on that, we had some questions about, you know, during the application process, when med students come on their away rotations or their sub-bis, what can really make them shine? And I think probably, you know, Eddie was one of these students real recently and the rest of us here have probably had medical students on sub-bis recently. So if you could just give some advice for those students. Yeah, I think showing up, you know, early and on time is always a great start, I think. You know, just being really, really eager and ready to learn. I think having the right attitude is one of the most important things. I think a lot of the times I will say this, I think a lot of the times, you know, you get really stressed during audition rotations because everyone wants to do well. So a lot of the things that really, you know, matter are how you interact with patients, the residents, and also with faculty members. And I think sometimes we're, you know, you know, the stress curve when we're in moments of high stress, sometimes we feel like we're not ourselves. So when people really, you know, they say just be yourself, I know it sounds really cliche, but it is very important because in those moments of high stress, it's just important to be genuine and interact well with the patients. I think a lot of the times during auditions, people think medical knowledge or knowledge about the PM&R in the field is the most important. You have to kind of flex that or bring that, you know, bring that forward, but it's not always the case. That's what residency is for. I think it's just important. Everyone sees how you interact with patients, how you perform physical exams, just really knowing your neuro exams and just being really, really eager to learn, I think is the most important being on time. I would say that is definitely important. I think as a medical student, you have to be very self-directed. You don't wanna get to a rotation where it's good to ask for help, but you don't wanna be, do you need something? Do you need something? Do you need something every second? But be self-directed, like go see that patient, go to the physical therapy sessions, let the residents know what you're seeing, do things that are going to help the resident get through an easier day, whether that's looking up objective information on the EMR and letting them know this is that, or maybe taking a self-direct and calling a consult for them while you're on inpatient with them. Just be an asset to the team. Don't feel like you're dragging them behind. So that's one of the important things, showing up on time, that's very important. Being eager, that's very important. Interacting with everyone is very important, but take into account, you're not only interacting with residents and faculty, but it's how you interact with the nurses. How do you interact with the program coordinator? How do you interact with the janitor? How do you interact with the medical assistant bringing in the patient? Because that matters. If you're being cocky or if you have a wrong attitude, they will tell the attending, they will tell the residents, and that will look bad. So make sure you treat everyone equal. It doesn't matter if they're a resident or if they're faculty, make sure you treat everyone with respect because you want to be treated with respect. So that's my advice as you go on these audition rotations. Deji killed it as usual. I just want to add to that, that my program is very social. And so when we, like we went to trivia every week this last year and those residents are gone now, so I have to keep it alive, but we invited our med students to that. So if you're invited out, like go out, get to know the residents in a less stressful environment, I guess. We ultimately want to get to know you, see if you would like it in the city and where we're at, ask them honest questions, especially outside of that professional environment and let go a little bit, because this is a very stressful job and you're in a very stressful time of your life. And I think that the thing that I saw in all of my med students was they just had a hard time opening up about who they were. So take those opportunities to get to know the residents, to get to know the attendings on a more personal level, if that's offered to you. Yeah, I think what Shelby said really rings true. You are, in a sense, auditioning for a potential position at the residencies you're at, but you're also feeling out if this is a program that you can see yourself fitting into. So you want to try and immerse yourself in the culture of the program that you're at as much as you can and see if you can visualize yourself being there for three to four years moving forward. The simple things are, like Eddie said, are what you're expected to do on every rotation. Be professional, show up on time, be eager and try and help out as much as you can. I think a lot of medical students stress out about having this medical knowledge specific to the PM&R topics or the inpatient rotation they're on. That's not as important. You should show progression during your rotation and improved understanding while you're there, but you're not expected to bring in a bunch of prerequisite knowledge when you're on that rotation. I think it's more important to be eager and try and help out as best you can, but like Deji said, not in a kind of nuisance manner where you're always asking, can I help? Can I help? And you're in a interruptive manner. It's more so how can you get creative to contribute to the team and help ease the burden on the residents? So I think it's important to see if you can fit in and just try and be as friendly and as cordial as you can with the residents, but also just the usual things that you're expected to do on a rotation. And I think one really good advice that I got from one of my mentors too was just being a little bit, just being aware. So for example, if there's something that comes up on rounds that the residents aren't really able to answer, I think one thing as a medical student that you can do is after rounds, when you have that downtime, just asking the resident, is it okay if I make a presentation or something about that the next day? It doesn't have to be, of course, like a 30 minute presentation, but just even like a brief handout, just going over hyponatremia, for example, and just the specific management behind it and just kind of asking the resident, checking in with them first, being like, hey, I kind of want to bring this up during tomorrow, during teaching at some point. And then my mentor actually did that during one of our rotations and got really great feedback. And I think it kind of helps ease the burden on the residents too, because they're going through a stressful time and they're going through a long day. And sometimes after a long day of work, last thing you want to do when you go home is do an in-depth look at specific topics sometimes. So I think as a medical student, you can do that the next day and kind of help ease the burden that way. And also use that as an opportunity to shine as a medical student and kind of teach everyone, remind everyone about hyponatremia, something like that. Asking for feedback can be awkward and uncomfortable, but it can be something that can be really beneficial, especially if you have time as your friend and you're doing a longer, like say four week rotation, checking in like two weeks in and saying, hey, I'm about halfway through. How do you feel I'm doing so far? What are things I can work on that can really benefit you if you're looking towards trying to get a letter of recommendation or you're at a program that you're really eager or interested in applying for and ranking highly. That way you can set kind of more concrete goals that you can work on in the second half of your rotation. And it can give you that opportunity to kind of prove yourself. Like Eddie had mentioned, say you're doing, you want to focus on your knowledge of the rotation. So you're going to do a presentation or you're going to give a five to 10 minute talk, something along those lines, something concrete that shows you're interested and you want to be a contributing member to the team and you're enthusiastic about this program. One thing I wanted to add, and it's not dire, but it's something small, but anything helps, right? When they're doing these social events, all of us, Connor, Edward, everyone was saying how they have these social events at their program. If they invite you guys to go to that, you should definitely get out your comfort zone and go to those social events. Because at the end of the day, our former program director, Dr. Alright, loves him. He said, hey, give me stupid. I'll work with stupid all day. I can train someone who lacks the knowledge, but are they going to work hard? And do they work like me? And when you're in a social event, can I talk to this person? It's very important. Can I have a conversation? Because I'm with this guy over here and I have to talk to him all day. And luckily we get along, right? So you want to make sure you get along with your co-residents. So when you have these social events, go to these events, get out your comfort zone, talk to them. I remember on my audition, it was me and Nicolette. You guys may or may not know Nicolette, but she's one of my co-residents that she's awesome. Me and her, we're best friends. We just talk and talk and talk. And we were the only ones on that audition to go to that social event. And we were the, out of those group of people, we were the only ones to match here. So that tells you something. So if you have the opportunity to go to these social events and interact with the residents, please, please do. Awesome points. And the second part of that question that I forgot to burn out was, are wave rotations recommended? And I think the most important, some places have more availability to do a wave rotations than others. Some medical schools have four or five elective slots. If you don't have that many slots, it's okay. I think the important thing to be able to do is intelligibly talk about rehab on interviews. Be able to give good reasons why you wanna do rehab and be able to understand the whole field, not just the sports and pain side of the fields or why would you put PRP in this tendon? It's more so the entirety of rehab and what it's all about. So I think as long as you get one quality PM&R rotation in, you're gonna be fine. And you don't need to do auditions across half the country. All right, a couple more questions here. I think this was an awesome question. I definitely wanted to leave time for it. So I'll leave this one for Shelby and Saray. One of our students asked, if you're a woman, how do you navigate the field since it's quite male dominated? So I'll leave that to the two of you. So that's very true, especially in my program. We traditionally have matched males and white males on top of that. So it's very, we have one girl per class right now, I think. And you go to conferences and it's all of these like six foot tall yoke dudes. And so you're, I think that I am a little bit biased and I don't know how other people feel, but I'm a very bro kind of girl. I bro down and my co-resident Shannon is very much the opposite of that. She does not. And we've had two very different experiences in this program because of that. So I think that being in a male dominated field as a woman almost forces you to be more assertive. And sometimes those boys think that you're aggressive, which is not the word that they would give to their male colleagues doing the same exact behaviors that you're exhibiting to try to stand up, not get cut off, not get overlooked or have someone else I've seen not here, not just specifically here, but I've seen some, a girl have a good idea and then a dude repeats it and they listen to him and not her. That happened to me in med school. I think it just happens to women in medicine in general, but it's also not bad here in PM&R because I think that our male colleagues are very friendly and open and social. And that's something that a lot of other types of medicine and surgical specialties don't have is quite the extroverted personalities and kind people that I've met within PM&R. So not to speak too much, I definitely want my colleague to have the time to give her experience. But I do think that it's been an interesting place to be just being assertive and being called aggressive, but not backing down from that. And I feel very comfortable in this kind of male dominated environment in PM&R specifically. Yeah, I definitely echo what you say, Shelby. I also kind of grew up as more of a tomboy with an older brother and a lot of guy friends. So I had to learn at a young age to be a bro, to speak dude and understand where I stood in that I had to learn how to hold my own. And when I went to college, I was around a lot of people from cities and other places who did not share the same childhood experiences I did. And they took my joking and my assertiveness as a negative trait. So I had to learn how to soften up and then how to adjust depending on who I'm talking to. Sometimes I can be a bro and that's fine. And sometimes it's not appropriate and that's okay. So I think you have to really learn how to be comfortable in your own shoes and how to confidently speak up for yourself. I think applying to PM&R and our program here it has about 50% male to female, I think. And we have a lot of female attendings that are actually really good role models. So I would say here not is the same as all other programs but we have great role models here which I think makes it a lot easier to be a woman here. And so I think you just, you have to find the program that's the right fit for you. If you're applying to a program that you love but it's all males and are you comfortable in stepping into that space and being that first woman there and if you're not and you want to find somewhere that has more female role models, that's okay too. Know who you are, know where you stand on that range of feminine to tomboy. And do you feel comfortable speaking up for yourself or do you need a mentor and somebody at your back like helping you learn those skills through life? And that's okay if that's still where you are. So I would say, I don't think that navigating PM&R has been the most challenging part of my career development as a woman but I do think it's always an ongoing thing. Maybe as I get into my outpatient rotations and sports fellowship in particular, I'm sure there's gonna be a lot more males that I'm competing with for those spots and same thing with being an attending. So we'll see what those challenges bring but I know that I will be fine no matter what because I will find the resources that I need and I will find a way to speak up for myself in a way that's collegiate and respectful and appropriate for where we are. Thank you to the both of you, amazing answers. All right, so I think we covered most of the questions that I had submitted. Amy, do we end at two? Two, awesome. So we can take a couple of questions in the chat. We probably have time for, I would say one, two, maybe three more questions if they're kind of quick hitters. So if anybody has questions in the chat, you could drop it there. While we're waiting on questions, I did wanna mention that AAP is also hosting this year four-part series on the road to residency where we're gonna actually have program directors talking about the application process and what they're looking for and answering specific questions related to the, like the time of year, what part of the application process they're looking for and what they're looking for in terms of the application. So we'll have a little bit of a chat about like the time of year, what part of the application process you're in. So if that's something that you're interested in, check out our webinars page. Our next one is July 18th. So we're working on setting that up. And they're all like perfectly timed for the time and the application cycle that the information is gonna be relevant for. They paid a lot of attention to that in terms of when you're gonna be submitting VSAS versus your residency application on ERAS versus the information for first and second year medical students. So it's gonna be a really great program and the program directors are very aware of the questions and the challenges of a lot of you are facing. So it's gonna be a great series. If we have no questions, I mean, I think our residents did a great job, but, oh, here we go. Any advice on how to research programs that align with your values as you go through the process? Anybody have an answer for that? I would say not being afraid to just reach out to the residents. Well, thanks. Just one minute. Those are some comments in the background, but yeah, I would say the residents, they'll really offer just firsthand knowledge. And I think when you reach out to the residents, it's a little bit more personal and they'll kind of go through the pros and cons that they felt. So I think that's a great start. I agree with that. So I applied during COVID. So I only got to see two residency programs on rotation. Their websites for the residency programs were not that great, did not have a lot of information. So I had to figure out other ways to see what these programs really valued. If you're a person who's learning about business, I would say, you know, if you're a person who's learning about business and leadership like I am, I'm kind of a nerd. I looked at like the mission statement and the vision for the rehab hostel itself. That was something our program director actually talked about during our orientation. So it's a little non-traditional, but that's one way to see something. And then I did a lot of the, you know, the online events. So there was the stuff that George did with all the little snippets from each program so that you could do like the online. George, what do we call that? I'm blanking on the word. Virtual residency fair. The residency fair. I listened to all of those. A lot of them were still on Instagram. So they went through a day in the life of the residents. They talked about their values. They talked about if the program listened to their concerns and made changes. That was a way I got to virtually see what it was like without having to reach out directly to all of the programs that I was interested in. And then having that conversation during the social event or your interview itself. If you have particular concerns or questions that you haven't been able to get answers to by the time that you interview with those programs, that is a great time. There was a couple of residency programs that I thought I would really like and, you know, didn't quite match with when I interviewed with them. And then I didn't know if I would like Shirley Ryan because I'm a person from a small town and not a big city. And they really blew me out of the water with what they valued and how they prioritized it and the experience of the residents. So you never really know until you get to the interview itself. But I think there are lots of good resources out there. And if you need help trying to find some of those things, reach out to us. Awesome. Yeah, I think, like, like, sorry, I said, you're going to get a lot of information thrown at you. So, you know, when you boil it down and then you get in your interview day, the best thing to do is trust your gut. I think the. We got one more question, we could probably wrap up on this one Eddie if you could just elaborate on the differences between East and West Coast PM&R programs. Yeah, so I think, you know, I did, me purposely, I went to a DO program in California. So, I think a lot of the experiences I had were, what I mean by West Coast PM&R is it's a lot more outpatient focused. I do think, you know, especially in Southern California. It's driven to like pain medicine is a big thing at UC Irvine so I think if you want to get that inpatient experience, doing away rotations in the East Coast is very beneficial so I did a spinal cord injury rotation at Mount Sinai actually, I think that and just speaking to residents there it's a little bit more inpatient heavy, and you can just kind of, I think, utilizing the national conferences, and the program layouts, you can kind of see a little bit of the differences so I think for the UC Irvine program it's about 50% inpatient and 50% outpatient even as a PGY2. So it's kind of a geared like that and I think PGY3 is a little bit split like that as well but certain programs on the East Coast, it can be a lot more inpatient focus, where, you know, you do your intern year in preliminary medicine where it's mostly inpatient and then you do your PGY2 year a lot of it is acute rehab, and the ARU and a lot of inpatient focus I think that's, that's a little bit of the different feel and the vibe that I got during my rotation at Mount Sinai versus the one here at Irvine. Yeah, I'll just tack on that and said, I wouldn't, I wouldn't generalize it as East Coast and West Coast but there are definitely programs that vibe differently and have different focuses and have different strengths. And you when you go through the process and you see the layout of the different rotations and what your schedule is going to look like as a resident, and they provide that to you know you know up front either on your interview or even before that, with opportunities like the virtual residency fair, just kind of sit through to see what kind of things you you kind of mesh with. There's every program is going to have have their strengths and every program is going to have their deficiencies it's just finding which one is is targeted towards the career that you want the best. It's 159 so we'll wrap up here I would like to thank everybody Eddie Sarray Shelby Connor and Desi before she left Amy for helping us set this up and for you all for coming it was it was awesome. The questions you all submitted were great. Really happy to see how this event turned out I hope you all thought it was worthwhile definitely, you know, email, Amy and I if there's anything that we can do better, or if you guys think it's worth worth having this event next year.

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