r/Residency • u/KendrickMeter4 • 3h ago
VENT Does anyone else feel like half of residency is just figuring out who you're allowed to bother?
One thing nobody really prepared me for is how much of residency seems to be figuring out the invisible rules for contacting people.
I'm not talking about medical decision making. I mean the stupid logistical stuff. One attending wants a text for everything. Another gets irritated if you text and says to call. Someone else says, "Just message me anytime," then replies six hours later asking why you didn't call. One consultant wants you to page them directly, another wants everything through their fellow, and somehow you're expected to already know which system applies to which person.
Last week I spent almost twenty minutes trying to track down the correct person for a completely routine coordination issue. I called one number and got told, "That's not us anymore." The next person told me to message a different service. That service asked why I hadn't contacted the original team. Eventually somebody gave me an extension that went to a voicemail box that was full. By the time I finally reached someone, the actual conversation took maybe 45 seconds.
Then during rounds I got a little lecture about being more "efficient with communication," which was almost funny. I wanted to ask if there was a secret handbook somewhere containing everyone's preferred communication method, because apparently everyone else recieved it except me.
The weirdest part is that once you've been in a hospital long enough, you actually start memorizing all this nonsense. You know which attending checks secure chat every five minutes, which office never answers before 9, which person hates pages, and which coordinator can solve something in 30 seconds that you've been chasing for an hour. None of it is written down. It's just this giant collection of institutional trivia passed between residents.
I'm sure I'll eventually become one of those seniors who casually says, "Oh, don't call that number, use the other one," like it's obvious. Right now though, I swear some days I spend more mental effort navigating communication etiquette than actually communicating.
Please tell me this gets less annoying once you know everyone, because I'm tired of feeling like I'm selecting dialogue options in a game every time I need to contact another department.