Life as a PGY1:
“This is the year spent getting acquainted with vastly different clinical experiences and populations. You’ll learn everything from delivering newborns to declaring someone deceased. You’ll work with the Beverly Hills crowd, the Westside mix of young professionals and the homeless, and also the immigrant population in the San Fernando Valley. You’ll make a lot of friends in other specialties as you rotate through various hospitals and departments. All this makes for an awesome and comprehensive experience in LA.”
-Jennifer Logan, Graduate
Life as a PGY2:
"Awesome. You have a solid knowledge base to build upon while rotating. You also have plenty of teaching opportunities with your juniors and medical students. Having more weekends free balances everything out."
-Jason Ngo, Graduate
"Second year is the year that you feel like a real doctor. Your confidence grows as you realize how much you learned during your intern year. Your focus turns more to the outpatient setting as you rotate through a variety of subspecialty clinics, like peds and derm. You spend this year expanding your medical knowledge and working on your leadership skills in order to prepare for third year – plus you get more free time to enjoy Santa Monica!"
-Monica Plesa, Clinical Instructor
Life as a PGY3:
"Third year is the best. Hands down. You have nine months of outpatient rotations, which gives you lots of time to relax with friends and family and enjoy LA. You really get to hone your clinical and inpatient management skills as a senior resident this year, and you also help to teach the junior residents and the medical students. You gain leadership skills by running the Code Blues in the hospital, as well. All of this builds great confidence and prepares you for any career after residency. My classmates ended up doing so many different things post-graduation because we felt comfortable in any setting."
-Leanne Zakrzewski, Graduate
