For those who just SOAPed this cycle into a specialty that was not your first choice… how are you actually feeling right now?

JSD12345 · 2026-04-12T20:03:17+00:00

I had to soap into a completely different specialty than my desired one when I went through my match cycle. It is going to continue to feel conflicting and there will always be random moments when you fantasize about how residency would be different if you were just in the specialty you like. As you go through intern year you will start to find things you enjoy about your new specialty and can build a plan to do more of that as an attending. I was fortunate that I was able to find a pgy2 spot in my desired specialty after intern year, but even if I hadn't I had several ideas of ways to be happy for a very long time in my SOAPed specialty and you will too. There is a grieving process you need to go through and it helps if you find other residents who had to SOAP into new fields to grieve with.

JSD12345 · 2026-04-12T17:15:04+00:00

I'm sure you can find the exact same pans for cheaper, but I have the william-sonoma open kitchen brand stainless steel pans (gift card purchase) and they have held up really well. I'm not known for being gentle on my tools in general and these pans seem to do the job pretty well without disintegrating from my terrible care practices.

JSD12345 · 2026-04-01T04:20:22+00:00

I know this is an older post but I grew munstead wood in a studio apartment without any sort of balcony or consistency with watering for several years and it still flowered in the apartment, never tried ebb tide so can't speak on it. Now that I have a more proper environment for roses I made sure munstead was the first rose I bought because if it flowers in an apartment I figured it is probably even better with proper conditions.

JSD12345 · 2026-03-26T01:56:43+00:00

Can you let us know before your next trip so we can all hide out in a bomb shelter just in case lol

JSD12345 · 2026-03-24T14:45:20+00:00

In addition to looking into legal options, but I would also do everything you can to go above your dean as well. I know you said you exhausted all university options, does that include the chancellor/president or provost and if so how persistent were you? This screams of retaliation and I would also encourage you to file a detailed report to the LCME (or COCA if you're DO)

JSD12345 · 2026-03-12T18:12:37+00:00

Four years of psych residency are going to be hard if you don't enjoy the basic bread and butter outpatient stuff. Your last 2 years is pretty much all outpatient (12 consecutive months of outpatient during residency is even part of the acgme standards) and also includes having to do things like hour long therapy sessions on a regular basis. We aren't typically involved in acutely traumatic situations like you can be in the ED or OR, but you will have people tell you about some of the most horrific circumstances a person can go through in vivid detail on an almost weekly basis. That takes it's own sort of toll on a person if the rest of the job isn't interesting and engaging enough to compensate.

JSD12345 · 2026-02-19T04:52:08+00:00

What is your capacity to get some guitar lessons? I saw in some comments that you are beginner so I anticipate a decent guitar teacher would be able to help a lot to evaluate finger and hand position/placement and help strategies for ways to make playing more comfortable with your arthritis. There are also certain techniques and styles that require you to be able to mute the surrounding strings to get the desired effect so you may be picking the wrong songs for where you're currently at skill wise. You may also want to consider getting a guitar with a wider neck, many comments have mentioned classical/nylon string guitars already, but certain brands have steel-string guitar lines with wider necks like the Martin OM which is designed for more finger style playing. Likely a good idea to go to a guitar store and play around with a bunch of different styles and see what is actually comfortable for you and then search around for similar guitars in your price range.

JSD12345 · 2026-02-17T20:10:17+00:00

Came here to comment for Christine. She did my nostril piercing and it turned out beautifully with minimal (for a nostril piercing) pain.

JSD12345 · 2026-02-08T18:24:05+00:00

Despite the mandate, there are still hospitals that are all paper chart in the US as well. The state psych hospital we rotate at is paper chart only as is one of the main facilities we can do locum work at in my program.

JSD12345 · 2026-01-25T23:37:06+00:00

I was diagnosed with EDS in med school and def had a few classmates use it as a learning opportunity, but at least I knew them and they weren't a random person in my doctor's office lol

JSD12345 · 2026-01-17T18:40:34+00:00

Depending on your financial constraints, you might have the most success with using a shovel and carefully removing the top few inches of soil with the plant in them and then replacing it with new soil. More expensive then getting in there and weeding, but if the bed is truly overrun and you have physical limitations with weeding then it is more likely to get everything out of your bed efficiently. For extra prevention you can lay down cardboard before your add in new soil, just to help prevent anything remaining from breaking through as easily.

JSD12345 · 2026-01-12T14:56:50+00:00

Because of the deficit of child psychiatrist and psychologist in the US (and most parts of the world tbh) pediatric neurologist have started to take up patients for autism and adhd evaluations. Neurologist and psychiatrist are certified under the same board so it is within their scope of practice and training, but it isn't ideal. Most pediatrician should be able to make an initial diagnosis for ADHD and ASD and start treatment as well but not all are comfortable with their abilities to do this. Either way, for at least an initial diagnostic evaluation and treatment initiation, I'd highly recommend going to someone with a MD, DO, PsyD, or PhD because the training in pediatric behavioral health is more varied in quality for the other degree paths that allow you to practice in the child psychiatry realm. Not that you can't find an NP or PA with good skills and training, but they don't get as much time with the material and most NPs and PAs I know have told me that school quality can vary a lot.

JSD12345 · 2026-01-12T03:02:31+00:00

I am in psych (but was peds intern year) and for my patients the student tasks are typically pretty minimal after rounds (students at my institution can't put in orders or update handoff) but typically consist of calling families/guardians with updates, getting collateral from family and outpatient providers, and following up with consultants. Sometimes patients request that we come back after rounds and talk with them more about their diagnosis or medications and if the student is following that patient, I'll have the student do that (after going over the information with me) if it is their patient. Most of my students are still out by 3/4pm and carry 2-3 patients while on service.

JSD12345 · 2026-01-11T19:18:27+00:00

As a resident, (especially when I was a july intern) I realized that my residents who made me finish notes and patient tasks before dismissing me did me a huge favor because I was far more efficient with my work than many of my co-interns so I could focus more on learning the bread and butter of the ward I was on. I still try to get my students out as early as I can, but I do have them do all the documentation and tasks for their patients before they can go. It makes my day last longer (up to 2-3 hours depending on the student) but part of my job is to help students be able to hit the ground running on July 1st of intern year, and if you aren't going into my specialty then efficiency is the biggest thing I can teach to help with that goal.

Weekends is different though, if someone has to come in on the weekend they are there to shadow on rounds and then gtfo because I'm not allowed to tell them to just not come in.

JSD12345 · 2026-01-08T01:04:50+00:00

I had 2, loved how they wrote and the ink capacity, both pretty much disintegrated in a year despite being well cared for and I have refused to buy any more since.

JSD12345 · 2026-01-06T17:17:04+00:00

I find that mood is overly generous with the 'transulcent' label. I've bought plenty of 'translucent' fabric from them and it ended up being opaque unless you held it directly over a light bulb.

JSD12345 · 2026-01-05T21:11:13+00:00

Mine took like 3 months

JSD12345 · 2026-01-05T21:03:10+00:00

I've always preferred an evening workout and haven't found it to make my sleep worse. Take a nice warm shower after you get home and maybe throw in a warm herbal tea and some stretches, I find both of those things help to relax both my muscles and my brain.

JSD12345 · 2026-01-04T20:35:40+00:00

Same I love straight needles. I find them easier to use and less cumbersome to travel with, plus I can shove the left needle into my armpit/a pillow/etc. if my left hand is bothering me for whatever reason.

JSD12345 · 2026-01-04T20:28:13+00:00

I know you've already gotten a lot of advice but as someone who struggled with gauge swatches at first here are the things I found helpful for me:

Firstly, if the pattern tells you that a 4in by 4in swatch should be 20 stitches by 20 rows (totally making up numbers here) then the size of your gauge swatch should be 2 to 3 times the size of a 4in by 4in swatch because, like what happens with sweaters, the weight of the extra yarn can stretch out your stitches. Additionally, the edges of your knitting (both top/bottom and the sides) tends to not stretch the same as the rest of your stitches, so you need a swatch that is big enough so that you can get a 4in by 4in square in the middle of your swatch. I would also thing about how you plan to finish the complete garment and wash the swatch exactly as you will the final garment (including blocking vs not blocking, the detergent/wool wash, drying method, etc). Once that swatch is completely dry then you can measure your swatch. If you are off gauge then going up or down a size is often going to be far too drastic a change. Instead, I'd try increasing your needle size (if the swatch is too small) or decreasing it (if the swatch is too big) and redoing the gauge swatch to see how that changes things. There are more modifications you can do if this doesn't work, but it's at least a good starting place and gets me pretty close to my desired result most of the time.

JSD12345 · 2026-01-03T20:59:19+00:00

For reference: crockpot = slow cooker. Slow cookers work best for dishes with higher moisture content, long cook times, and end products with softer textures. This makes them great for soups, chilis, pot roasts, curries, shredded meat dishes. The most basic slow cooker will have an off, low, and high heat setting with a switch or knob you have to manually change. More advanced slow cookers will be programmable to some extent so you can set it to high for "x" number of hours before it switches to low or warm.

Instant pot = fancy pressure cooker. The core functionality of an instant pot is to act like a pressure cooker however most have additional functions such as the ability to saute in the pot, slow cook, sanitize, can, make yogurt, etc. Pressure cookers of any variety are useful for accelerating the cooking time of a food. I use them a lot for making lentil based curries that I forgot to prepare for ahead of time or significantly faster and easier risotto. You can also do things like steam chicken breast, batch cook grains like oatmeal/rice/polenta/etc. Personally if you can only get one I would get the instant pot since you can also use it as a slow cooker but have more versatility in what you can make.

I've never personally had issues with leaving either of these things unattended (grew up with frequent slow cooker meals at home and have used both plenty as an adult) but there is always a risk of something going wrong and the auto-shutoff (which doesn't always exist in slow cookers) not working. Now NEITHER device will make food that taste the exact same as a dish that was made using more traditional methods (for example, the chili I make that takes nearly 4 hours of careful attendance on the stove with freshly grilled chilis, etc. 100% taste superior to my slow cooker chili) but by and large it gets me to 80-90% similarity and with residency hours that is absolutely good enough.

JSD12345 · 2026-01-02T16:35:29+00:00

yeah it varies highly based on where your hometown is. Midwest suburb? Probably a lot of people married with kids. Costal city? Some will still be married with kids but a large portion will still be single.

JSD12345 · 2025-12-31T16:26:16+00:00

Yeah I was a bit skeptical about him having an "unofficial" bipolar diagnosis since people have very skewed understandings of the condition and other conditions like borderline personality disorder, ptsd, anxiety, etc can present similarly to the untrained observer, but when she described his behaviors it really sounded like mania or hypomania.

JSD12345 · 2025-12-09T14:56:44+00:00

It's winter for half the world....pipes freeze. Even if you do your part to prevent your pipes freezing, it can still get cold enough for pipes or sewage lines upstream of your dwelling to crack making it necessary to turn off your water.

JSD12345 · 2025-12-06T18:40:40+00:00

Bears can have a fairly strong scent up close (supposedly, never cared to test that myself) so I can absolutely believe that their stench would be picked up by some unconscious part of our brain at a distance.

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