Program Director’s Note - What They Said About You
Choice Comments from Fellowship Letters of Recommendation
Hi everyone:
With Friday’s fireworks fading fast into the past, I’m spending the rest of the holiday weekend writing fellowship recommendations. With 38 letters to post by Tuesday, I’m using an assembly line approach: one day for research, extracurriculars, recognitions, and special skills; one day for my reflections; one day to collect comments from MedHub; and one day to insert the most salient comments into the letters, which is what I’m doing today.
The MedHub narratives are inspiring, detailing aspirational patient care, medical knowledge, communication, teaching, leadership, growth, and professionalism. For your reading pleasure, here are some of my favorites:
She is one of Yale's treasures. She was my PGY2 on MICU Red, which is our program's most challenging critical care rotation since there is often no fellow assigned. In this context, she went above and beyond and essentially played the role of fellow, which is an extraordinary accomplishment for a trainee at the halfway point of her residency. She is a born intensivist- cool under pressure, versed in physiology, organized, efficient, and unflappable. She gave exceptional support to her interns and was truly a partner. If that weren't enough, she has an exceptional way of speaking with patients, which is both informative and reassuring. She is truly one of Yale's gems.
Despite just coming off of a busy rotation and being pulled while on Jeopardy to a new service with new patients on an admit day while cross covering and holding the consult pager, he managed to tackle it all while supporting his intern and doing so with a great attitude
I recently participated in family meeting that she ran for a mutual patient. My fellow and I were very impressed by her willingness to run the meeting so early in her intern year. She was organized, demonstrated compassion, and was clear in her communication. She had a clear structure to the meeting, preventing it from becoming confusing. She made sure that all questions were answered and highlighted points where all the involved parties were on the same page.
He is an extremely gifted clinician and educator. He is a role model and strong team leader, approaching patient care with compassion and humility. He has a strong foundational knowledge base but also acknowledges areas for growth and seeks to learn more. He works well within an interprofessional team and is approachable, efficient and reliable. One of the strongest residents I have had the pleasure of working with.
He is among the most impressive residents I have had the pleasure of working with. He is a natural leader and teacher with many admirable characteristics. A few reasons I think he stands out: an unwavering positive attitude and team-oriented mentality; advocating for and prioritizing my learning (e.g. offering to cover intern tasks so that I could perform a procedure or attend educational sessions); top- notch clinical knowledge with frequent reference to primary literature guiding evidence-based decisions; big-picture thinking about how to provide the best care and outcome for patients; clear goals and expectations sent out in an e-mail prior to starting the rotation; integrating concise teaching with minimal interruption to workflow on a busy service
He is truly one of the best coresidents I have worked with. He is highly professional, a tremendous team player, and always willing to help coresidents out whenever possible. He is also an outstanding communicator and creates a positive team environment.
She is the best that Yale IM residency has to offer. She was organized, insightful, knowledgeable, and creative. She showed consistent empathy for her patients and was a natural leader on the team. She kept calm under pressure and navigated caring for multiple patients with very complex underlying pathophysiology. She was a total pleasure to have on the team and has a bright future, hopefully as a chief resident!
He is an outstanding resident. Though this was his first rotation in internship, he functioned as a seasoned intern, meaningfully contributing to diagnostic and treatment plans during morning rounds, updating patients and families, and actively participating in discussions with consulting services. He is extremely conscientious, dependable and hard-working. He has solid clinical judgment with a firm grasp of complex medical conditions of his patients. His work-up of new admissions was appropriate and thorough as was his day-to-day management. His notes were clear and concise. He has an inquisitive mind and actively sought to expand his already deep fund of knowledge. He is friendly and professional with calm and poised demeanor. He worked well with the nursing staff. It was a real pleasure and privilege to work with him.
He did a fantastic job during this MICU rotation, the very first rotation of his residency. I was most struck by his enthusiasm, care for details, dedication to the job, and eagerness to incorporate feedback. He deeply cared for his patients, and they and their families recognized this in the time he spent talking with them. I was impressed by his desire and fortitude to run a complex family meeting with a dozen people present for a patient who had had a long stay in an outside hospital; he expertly and professionally helped them understand the patient's difficult course and helped them to make difficult decisions about their loved one's future. He took a lot of care to work on learning how to present at our institution and clearly incorporated feedback. He is a pleasure to work with, and I feel lucky to have been his resident.
She was a stellar intern. She singlehandedly advanced the care of multiple patients on our team, coordinating very complex care to ultimately transfer two patients to Yale for necessary specialty services. One of her goals for the rotation was to gain more autonomy and do more "senior level" tasks; she definitely accomplished this from my perspective. I trusted her to pay attention to the many small but important details involved in day-to-day patient care and more complicated disposition planning. She has a really wonderful bedside manner, too, kind and thorough and never seeming rushed
Able to manage severe decompensations overnight and complex admission/transfers across different services. Took the extra time to circle back and talk with the team in the morning about a challenging overnight situation and check-in on a patient. Her senior note addendum showed excellent clinical rationale and new admissions/transfers were managed very well.
A fierce patient advocate, she will do whatever it takes to progress patient care. She searched tirelessly for a nebulizer machine for a patient to take home, doing everything she could to facilitate a safe discharge in a resource-scare setting, namely a weekend at the VA. She took the time to go to the bedside and POCUS a patient when signout was just minutes away to ensure her patient was properly evaluated for pulmonary edema. She takes complete ownership of patient care and is not afraid to put her foot down on management decisions, which will serve her well as she transitions to PGY-2. On top of all of this, she is exceedingly kind and fun to work with!
She is amazing! She is hardworking and puts everyone else first. She ensures that her patients get stellar care. She goes above and beyond to make their hospital experience as positive as possible. She stayed late many days to take her patients to the healing garden. She would always take coverage for her intern so that he could concentrate during teaching sessions. She is a true team player and wonderful to work with.
She also really prioritized my well-being, and was always making sure that I took a break to eat, was able to leave before the last shuttle left, and that I was not taking on too much. She also created a positive, fun, and enjoyable environment in the workroom and I looked forward to sitting next to her every day. She also really made me feel like my work, my thoughts and my plans were valuable, which helped me to build confidence in the inpatient medicine environment. She is a great leader, she inspires and motivates those that she works with, and models the type of senior I hope to be one day.
As a team leader, you are a dream, and an aspiration. It's been wonderful watching you at work guiding your intern and student through thoughtful differentials and management plans, patiently helping them learn system- based skills, and being a role model at bedside. Always keep that compassion, kindness, and efficiency dosed with patience.
He is truly one of the best residents and further one of the best physicians I've worked with in my career. Each day I was in awe of his ability to engage patients in a person-centered way weave in directly applicable teaching on the fly (with such a broad range of knowledge and topics), and provide the intern and sub-I on the team with autonomy (with the right amount of supervision). I genuinely felt like I learned a ton about medicine working with him. Truly an exceptional doctor and person!!
Blown away is an understatement for my impression of him- we only worked together for a very brief time however it was hard to believe it was his first week of internship, his fund of knowledge, presentation quality, ability to synthesize information and form a plan was so far beyond his level of training. It was an absolute joy to work with him and reminded me why being part of a teaching hospital is a privilege for patients and educators alike. I think he will shine in residency and I hope he chooses to return to hematology/oncology for fellowship!
She is a star in every sense of the word! Everyone knows and it is no secret that she is an excellent doctor with phenomenal clinical knowledge and skills. I could make this feedback comment about how she demonstrates exemplary leadership skills and all other good things - but what I personally cherish the most is what a joy she is to work with! Most residents/teams are brilliant and have brilliant clinical acumen. However, what sets her apart is truly her daily attitude. If there is anyone who knows how to turn around a seemingly busy and rough day – it’s her! Always radiating so much positivity and joy, a quality not everyone has, and a quality that deserves a mention in itself!
While I can’t minimize how much time it takes to write these letters, I also can’t overstate what a joy it is to read comments like these and many more. Each one inspires me to learn more, work harder, be kinder, and be ever more grateful for the gift of working in this wonderful community.
Enjoy you’re Sunday, everyone. You already know what I’m doing!
Mark
P.S. What I’m reading:
Acting because you don't have to By Oliver Burkeman
Here Is the Science of Why You Doomscroll By Emily Falk
I’m a Pediatrician. I’m Afraid of Diseases I Thought I’d Never See. By Perri Klass
The Blockbuster That Captured a Growing American Rift By Tyler Austin Harper
Bowling for Nobels By Steven Strogatz
I Worked at U.S.A.I.D. for Over 8 Years. This Is Our Biggest Failure. By William Herkewitz
How to Wreck the Nation’s Health, by the Numbers By Steven H. Woolf Graphics by Taylor Maggiacomo
July 4 on East Rock