A choice to change from traditional rheumatology to a path less traveled
Work hard > Medical school > Work hard > Residency > Work hard > Fellowship > Academics or private practice > Work.
Most of us take this path as physicians. It’s the path presented to us as medical students, and it’s the path our mentors took. It’s the path I took, too—until I didn’t.
Residency
I was your typical type A, overachieving medical student. I studied hard, I worked hard, and I matched into the Osler Medical Residency Training Program at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore.
I chose Hopkins for its “work hard, play hard” reputation. I had three years to learn how to take care of human beings, and I wanted to learn how to care for patients as best I could—call schedules be d***ed. Deep in the Hopkins trenches, I slept little, worked a ton and made the best friends of my life.
A co-resident of mine, now an interventional cardiologist at the University of Michigan, says it best, “Osler residency is the best thing I ever did that I would never, ever do again.”
As residents, we were required to spend two weeks on the rheumatology service during our intern year, which I was not looking forward to. I didn’t understand rheumatology labs, I certainly did not understand rheumatologic diseases, and I did not like that—or so I thought.
At Hopkins, the inpatient rheumatology service essentially functioned as the diagnostic medicine service. In other words, if a patient had been admitted for weeks and multiple specialists had not figured out what was wrong, they called rheumatology.
When on the rheumatology service, I would get home late and call my long-distance boyfriend to complain.
“The chart is 15 years long. I’ve read everything in it. I’ve been up since 2 a.m. scouring the literature, and I still can’t figure out what’s wrong with this guy. I hate this,” I said.
He laughed and replied, “I think you’re going to become a rheumatologist.”
“Were you even listening to me? I said that I hate this,” I retorted.
“No, you need this,” he said. “You need something to obsess about. You need something that you don’t understand. Otherwise, you’ll just get bored and watch Netflix.”
He wasn’t wrong.
Fellowship
I had the privilege of staying at Hopkins for my rheumatology fellowship. Patients with common and rare rheumatic diseases flew in from all over the world to get care from an expert—and awesome—faculty. It was a veritable Candyland for a rheumatology fellow.
