A residency with kids - tips that worked for me:
There is no doubt that completing a surgical residency with young kids presents its challenges (mine were 3 and 4 when I started).
Here are a few things I found that helped;
- Having dedicated family time, dedicated study time and dedicated 'life-admin' time each week.
- Talking to the kids about the patients I see. They often asked about this little kitten and we talked about broken bones ;)
- We coloured in 'The Dog Anatomy Workbook' together (and I liked this book for basic anatomy) https://www.amazon.com.au/Dog-Anatomy-Workbook-Learning-Students/dp/0851319831
- If I only have a few patients to check in the hospital on the weekend I try to take them in.
Training programs in general:
I would like to see more surgical residency training programmes being offered with a flexible rosters e.g. part-time over 4-5 years versus the standard 3 years. There is no reason that training programmes have to be designed as a 'one-size-fits-most'
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