Part 7: Advice from the experts: Helpful information for current residents

In this series, experts in the field advise current residents and offer insight into how they can make the most of their time and experience moving forward with their careers.

Video Transcript:

Editor's note: The below transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Kamran Riaz, MD:

What advice would I give to our resident today is, I think, really embrace the word 'reside'. I know that work hours can be difficult, it can be overwhelming at times, but embrace the reside part of residency that you are really there to learn for 3 years. Embrace every single patient you see as a learning opportunity, no matter how seemingly mundane. I'm about 10 years out now, and I still am amazed by how many times I find I'm implementing something that I learned from residency for a patient that I didn't think was that interesting. And so I think when we really embrace the opportunity to care for patients, every single patient is a learning opportunity. It's really going to do well for your career no matter what you choose to do, whether it's stay comprehensive, go into a subspecialty, academics, private practice. But my biggest advice, therefore, would be to just embrace the reside part of residency, and there's time for work-life balance. After you're done, it's only 3 years. Try to learn as much as you can, because we have so much to learn. And I just look at myself now 10 years out, I would say about a third of what I do, I was never trained to do. You sort of have to learn it on the fly, but when you have a good knowledge base, a good clinical and surgical base, you're able to learn these new techniques and new treatments to really serve patients holistically and completely. So hopefully you embrace that and embrace the reside part of residency for 3 years.

Weijie Violet Lin, MD:

I was a resident just not very long ago, so I would say, you know, important to attend meetings, get to know your mentors. Try to just be present. And I think having a positive attitude is better for yourself, as well as everybody around you. And it helps to just get the day going so much more easily.

Ty Alvin Liu, MD:

My advice is, I think AI technologies are here to stay, and the importance of AI technologies will get more and more in the future. I often get the question of whether AI is going to replace the doctor. I really do not think AI is going to replace ophthalmologists. However, ophthalmologists who use AI may end up replacing ophthalmologists who don't. And AI ultimately is just another technology. It's no different from OCT. And I think a good example will be OCT is not replacing retina specialists, it's simply making us much better at what we do. So again, nowadays, a retina specialist who does not use any OCT imaging will likely be replaced by retina specialists who do. So it's really the same concept. So my one advice would be, pay attention to what's happening in the AI world. You may not have to understand all the technical aspects of it. At least, you should be open minded and be willing and be ready to use AI and incorporate that in your daily clinical practice.