To the new class of FM interns

Thoughts on being a Family Doc…

This is a hard year. You will learn more this year than at any other time in your professional life, with the possible exception of your first year in practice.

Remember that you are NOT a pediatrician, obstetrician, intensivist or surgeon! You will never know as much as they do about their fields. And you don’t need to. That’s not your job.

At the end of this year, your pediatric and internal medicine colleagues will not be competent to deliver a baby. You will. Your OB colleagues will not have a clue about what to do with a sick newborn or a young woman with chest pain. You will know. You will be able to manage a patient’s diabetes AND their hypertension AND their skin cancer. You will know which patient with a headache needs a CT scan and which one needs to learn about stress reduction. You will care for everyone in a family, from newborn to geriatric. You will understand how their history and family and community impact their health. None of your colleagues in other disciplines will be able to do all of that.

Try to remember some of this as you feel stressed and poorly prepared in your intern rotations. You are an intern and you are learning. Every one of us has been there. At the end of this year, you will be more prepared than the interns of any other field. It will seem like eternity and then suddenly the first year will be over. You will be amazed how much you’ve learned.

Welcome. We’re glad to have you here. It’s going to be an exciting and rewarding year.