Introduction “Medical School is bad for your health” – a direct quote from orientation on my very first day of classes. Along with this statement came a myriad of statistics highlighting the risk of burnout, depression, anxiety, and suicide for medical students, residents, and physicians. My excitement for my first day started to be replaced by a feeling that I was not so comfortable with, like catching a fish that is too big …
Learning to fly in #PGWHY5: Five tips for survival in the exam year
Five practical tips on surviving the Emergency Medicine Royal College Exam!
Murphy Mondays: An Emergency Department Therapy Dog Program
View PostFighting Fire With Words: Journaling and Physician Wellness
Burnout and physician wellness are two sides of the same coin. With the use of journaling, one can flip the coin with the odds in their favour. Burnout, a prevalent term in emergency medicine, is defined as a mix of emotional exhaustion, lack of control, and depersonalization.1 Importantly, studies demonstrate that 65% of emergency physicians may experience burnout for a portion of their career1. This staggering rate is, in fact, more than double the …
A letter to my younger self
I recently took an extended vacation at the end of residency, and had some time to reflect upon nearly an decade of medical training. I write this as an letter to my younger, naive self, in hopes that trainees may learn from my experiences. Dear PGY-1 Shahbaz, I have some big news for you: things are going to change. Don’t bother memorizing the SIRS criteria, its going to be gone in a few years. …
Lessons Learned in Academic Scholarship
During my PGY-4 year, I had the opportunity to pursue a specialization in Academic Scholarship.1 My year had two primary components: (1) I was the inaugural Editorial Intern at the Canadian Journal of Emergency Medicine,2 and; (2) I was the Digital Scholars Fellow at CanadiEM.3 Over the course of the year, I learned many lessons about publishing in academics. I wanted to share three of the most pertinent lessons with our community to …