How Long Is Medical Residency In Medical Study | How Long Is Medical School?

How Long Is Medical Residency, Are You Crazy To Know?

How Long Is Medical Residency

 

How Long Does It Take To Become A Doctor?

Are you thinking in mind how long is medical residency is? If  You thought you are done after Medical School, residency lasts anywhere from four to seven years in the US and in other countries, after this final stage of medical residency between you and practising medicine clinically as a fully trained doctor.

 

How is The Medical Residency Calculated After 10+2?

-Medical College Study Will be completed in Four Years or 8 Semesters.

-After Completing the MBBS or 1st level of Medical college, you need to accomplish an internship or medical residency or practice as a doctor, For which you need at least 1 year of time.

-Once you have targeted for any Medical Speciality Program (Post Graduate Program or PG), you need another 2 years or 4 semesters to complete.

From the above, you might be understood how long medical residency is.

 

What Is Medical School and Residency?

The first key aspect to understand is that in medical school. You are in a medical school, and pay tuition to earn your MD. In Residency, you’re working a job.

Congrats, you’re now a doctor, but you still need to hone your craft before you’re fully licensed, board-certified and can practice on your own without supervision. 

During the first two years of medical school, you primarily learn in the classroom through didactics and smaller groups.

In the last two years, you are on your clinical rotations where you learn how to apply principles to patient care, tune your ability to work in teams, and practice your bedside manner. 

In residency, you’re no longer a student. You’re now the doctor with real responsibility. You take care of your patients and are ultimately the ones responsible for their care.

All residents require an attending physician to overlook and ensure patient safety. 

As the year progresses, however, you are expected to be more independent and rely less and less on this attending supervision.

By the end of the residency, you should be ready to take care of patients on your own out in the real world. 

How Long Is Medical Residency In Reality?

As for the length, Medical school is generally four years. Many students do however opt to take an additional year to conduct research or earn another degree such as a master’s. 

Residency is highly variable in length and it actually just depends on your speciality. Generally, surgical specialities are longer. For example, the longest is Neurosurgery at 7 years, although certain programs are eight years because of a mandatory research year. 

I matched into plastic surgery which is the second-longest at six years although a few programs also require a mandatory research year extending that to seven. Internal medicine and pediatrics are on the shorter end, each at three years. While almost all residences fall within the three to seven years. 

Certain sub specialities do require additional training in fellowship, which is essentially part two of residency. Next, let’s talk about grading and evaluation. 

While many medical schools are transitioning to a pass/fail grading system for the first two years, it is ultimately still insanely competitive to get into certain specialities. For example, plastic surgery has the highest average Step1 score, which hovers around the low 250s. 

Getting the 90th percentile on Step 1 makes you only an average plastic surgery applicant. And the second two years are your clerkship years, which are generally graded on a honours Pass/fail system or some variation of the sort.

If you want to go into something competitive like plastic surgery, dermatology, or orthopaedic surgery, you’ll need to work your butt off to earn an honours grade.

Clinical grades are usually on a curve so that only a small percentage of the class can earn them. This means you have to outshine your colleagues. In this regard, Medical School is much more stressful than residency. 

In residency, the pressure to outperform your peers is an order of magnitude lower. There are no grades. You’ll take a yearly in-service exam specific to your speciality and you’ll be evaluated by your attendings. But overall, it’s much less high stakes.

Now, let’s talk about the cost and finances. The most recent figures place the average medical school graduate debt at approximately one hundred and ninety thousand dollars.

That’s right, nearly two hundred thousand dollars in debt to be a doctor. 

This includes both college and medical school loans. So I have good news and bad news about residency. 

The good news is that hey, you’ll be making money so you can start paying off your loans. The bad news is that you’ll probably be making minimum payments and accruing significant interest since residency salaries are usually around fifty to sixty thousand dollars per year. 

You aren’t just required by your residency contract, you have patients whose lives and well-being depend on you.

You’ll start to discover that your time at the hospital doesn’t always end exactly on schedule the way a class would.

If I’m operating on an emergency trauma patient and my shift is over, I don’t leave the operating room, I stayed to finish the surgery and wait until care has been transitioned. 

At the end of the day, the most important difference is that being a resident is the first time in your life that you are taking care of patients as their own doctor. It can be stressful, tiring, and even frustrating, but most importantly – being a resident is incredibly rewarding. 

You’ve spent years and years of studying and hard work first to get into a good college, then to get into medical school, and finally to match into a strong residency program.

I think this article helped to understand the question “How Long Is Medical Residency?”  Finally, Medical Residency is the culmination of all of that hard work. This is the moment you’ve been waiting for, and you’re finally becoming that doctor you’ve always dreamed of being. Thank you, doctor.

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