Intern Bootcamp: Medical Students

Behind The Knife: The Surgery Podcast

Science, Health & Fitness, Medicine, Education

4.8 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 2 July 2025

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

RE-RELEASE
This was first published in 2023 but it's so good we are running it back!

Buckle up, PGY-1’s! Intern year is starting whether you’re ready or not. Don’t fret, BTK has your back to make sure you dominate the first year of residency.

You’ve been a doctor for about 3.5 seconds, and suddenly that bright eyed, bushy-tailed medical student on service is looking to you for advice? Don’t fret, in this episode we’ll give you some tips for how to handle it.

Hosts: Shanaz Hossain, Nina Clark

Tips for new interns:
REMEMBER HOW INTERNS DO AND DO NOT TEACH
- Nobody, not even the med students, expect you to be an expert in everything or give a fully-planned formal lecture
- You WILL however spend a ton of time working with students on your team – and via modeling and teachable moments, you can help them learn how it’s done!

MODELING
- Remember how hard everything has been in the few days since you started residency? Think about all the information you’ve picked up, tips and tricks you’re developing for efficiency, and best practices you’re learning in the care of your patients. ALL of these are things you can pass on to students.
- Presentations, case prep, answering questions from senior members of the team are ALL excellent opportunities to teach (and show students how you learn yourself, so they can do it independently).

TEACHABLE MOMENTS
- Find small topics that you know or are getting to know well – things like looking at a CXR, CT scan, etc.
- Once you’re getting more comfortable caring for specific disease processes, think about high yield lessons for students:
- Acute trauma evaluation and management (ABCDE’s), appendicitis, diverticulitis, benign biliary disease all make great 5 minute chalk talks that you can have in your back pocket

IN THE OR
- Watch students practice skills, and try to give some feedback and tips that you use (you learned knot tying and suturing more recently than ANYONE else in the OR and probably have some tips that you’re still using to improve)
- If you’re not sure where or why the student is struggling with a particular skill (like tying a knot), model doing it yourself in slow motion while watching them do it – often the side by side comparison can help you identify where they’re going astray

BE THE RESIDENT YOU WISH YOU HAD
- Refer to EVERYONE with respect
- Model being a kind, conscientious, and curious physician
- Try to find universal lessons and crossover topics that non-surgeons need to know
- A great student makes their interns look even better – be explicit about how they can be successful, then advocate for them to have opportunities to show everything they’re learning!

Please visit https://behindtheknife.org to access other high-yield surgical education podcasts, videos and more.

If you liked this episode, check out our new how-to video series on suture and knot-tying skills – https://behindtheknife.org/video-playlists/btk-suture-practice-kit-knot-tying-simulator-how-to-videos/

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Behind the Knife, the Surgery Podcast, relevant and engaging content designed to help you
0:11.6	dominate the day.
0:25.5	Hey, behind the night, the weather's getting warmer, the days are getting longer, and that can only mean one thing. It's time for new interns to hit the hospital. Don't worry,
0:30.0	though. We've got your back. I'm Nina Clark. And I'm Shanan's with San, and this series will give
0:34.8	you some practical tips and tricks for dominating your intern year.
0:43.4	Next up in our series is medical students. You've been a doctor for about 3.5 seconds at this point and now you're supposed to teach medical students. It's okay. Take a breath. Today we'll talk about
0:48.0	how to do it without making it feel like we're adding too much to your busy schedule already.
0:53.1	Shanez, I remember when I was a medical student coming on to my MS3 surgery rotation,
0:57.9	I was told by many, many people in the hospital that I should be terrified and afraid of all
1:02.9	the surgeons and they were going to be so mean and harsh.
1:05.9	And it's become since my personal goal in this life to dispel that myth.
1:10.7	I think that working with students is
1:12.5	one of the most rewarding parts of academic medicine. And as an intern, I think it really made me feel
1:17.7	great about my own knowledge base because I was realizing how far ahead of these people that were
1:22.5	just a few years behind me, I had already come. So I think it's a great opportunity for interns to really flex their
1:28.7	skills and feel confident in teaching people. 100%. And I agree with you. I am also on the same
1:36.2	goal to dispel surgeons as this mean and harsh stereotype. And I think interns are also very key in this
1:42.9	because you're going to probably get some of the most face time with them. Yes, they're going to be into OR with the attendings. But in terms of rounding patient care on the floor, that's all going to be with the interns. These medical students are only just getting used to a hospital setting.
2:01.0	Even if it's like the end of the year and it's at MS3 almost about to turn to MS4,
2:05.8	they still haven't done all the rotations yet.
2:09.5	They haven't been on surgery as long as you have.
2:11.4	So there's always little things on the floor that you can teach them.
	...

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