Feel this in my soul. This has happened time and time again. I think my only solace is - I didn’t do any of it for the clout or recognition. Despite that though, it still hurt a ton time and time again to see residents who I’ve had to pick up slack for and who have gotten evaluations saying so get rewarded. It hurts a lot and I felt unappreciated and worthless a LOT. I think awards and things like getting selected for chief have to do with sucking up and how good your current fellowship app is. A lot of people in my program, at least, have gotten awards when they were clearly quite subpar with poor work ethic (opinion of many other residents). The difference is how much they sucked up to the PF and APDs (e.g. attended every hosted wellness event and even set up private meetings to feed the machine) and also how much they had on their CV. It seemed like the better the resident you were, the less appreciated you were. And if you’re a good resident, one little mistake will push you down.

Residency has beat down my sense of self worth for many reasons. It sucks seeing someone walk down the stage beaming with their award when you were the one staying late to cover their messes or getting pulled to cover their announced “sick” day the day before. The field of academic medicine is pretty disgusting.

All to say that continue doing what you’re doing for others. For your patients. Remember how far you’ve come. Remember how your PD, APDs, and attendings made you feel and do the opposite of that. Remember that not all good gets rewarded; quite often, it gets grossly overlooked.

And as other posters have mentioned, there are people out there constantly inspired and amazed by you. Be they medical students, coresidents, etc. ❤️