A Critique of the Transitional Internship

Abstract

Way, way, way back in 1968–1969 I pursued and completed a year of post graduate training which could be considered a prototype of the transitional year experience that approximately one third of prospective radiology residents opt for today. In many ways, my internship provided the perfect introduction for a career in radiology, exposing me to clinical encounters of such diversity and with many insightful interactions that I recall many of them vividly today. My training consisted of 8 months of medicine, including one ER month, and 4 months of surgery. The medical experience also encompassed 4 months of general medicine, 1 month on an oncology service at Montefiore Hospital—a full service academic medical center—and 2 months of medicine at Morrisania Hospital—a now defunct city hospital which served mostly indigent patients from the, South and West Bronx. Morrisania was designed, can you believe it, into a series of open wards, 35 patients in one large room. The elevators often did not work and the lab was six flights up. Managing diabetic ketoacidosis patients was like marathon training.