NEPHROLOGY
Was there an aspect of the residency program that was unexpected and required adaptation on your part?
For my residence, a few months of weariness, demotivation. Coming from Cégep, no break through the 9 years of medicine and residency, the impression of missing life experiences in my youth. I took 3 months of typical backpacking trips after my residency which greatly satisfied me in addition to the fellow himself.
Yes, the management of fatigue and anxiety related to internal medicine calls at the start of each new year of residency. However, we adapt very well after a while.
What is your favorite alcoholic drink?
Southern Comfort and Coke, particularly enjoyable playing a game of Carcassonne in the evening
The White wine
What personality traits are typical of your profession?
Embrace complexity, dislike technical gestures
OCD
What specialty would you never do? Why?
Any surgical specialty, you have to know your weaknesses, putting needles and knives in a body stresses me out
Psychiatry, not “hands on” enough
During your medical studies, what did you do on a Friday evening?
To dance
I was studying!
How many hours of work per week on average?
One week no call: 45 hours. One week with 2 evening calls (hemodialysis round) and weekend call (60 hours). Frequency depends on the number of colleague in the team. For me, every 2 months. The work also overflows a little on weekends and holidays (student work to correct, courses to prepare, presentations to refine)
60 hours on average excluding on-call duty
It depends on the guards and the assignments. Weeks heavier and others lighter. Average of 50 hours.
Without guard, 50. With guards, 100. Basically, too much. (that's what my wife and children say and the more it goes the more I find that it is also the case)
50 hours except guards
What do you dislike most about your practice?
Dependence on others: surgeon for a transplant, another for a peritoneal dialysis catheter, another for a fistula, administration to modify or start a program (I dream of nocturnal hemodialysis in the hospital)
Administration management
The workload is getting bigger, the patients are getting sicker and the guards are busy
Administrative problems and lack of human resources
A few things.
Do you follow the recommendations you give to your patients?
As far as possible.
The most possible
What do you think is the most difficult medical practice?
Announce the dx IRCT to young patients because we know the chronic side of kidney disease.
The difficulty does not come from the specialty.
Family medicine takes care of many patients and diversified practices far from major centres.
In your opinion, what is the easiest medical practice?
Chronic follow-up of elderly patients with mild or moderate CKD.
I don't know of an easier one, but an overspecialized outpatient practice may be less demanding.
Would you be friends with your colleagues if you had met them outside of work?
Some yes because we have the same affinities. For others, I got to know them and we became good friends.
No for almost all.
With pleasure and it is.
What do you think is the most important factor for a successful residency in your specialty?
Scientific curiosity.
Good mental health
To be able to appreciate the management of chronic illness and its global approach to the patient and also to take pleasure in analyzing results.
What is the most common criticism you receive?
Wanting more than my patients and wanting too much.
Late
Being too patient and too meticulous which could be translated otherwise...
How would your colleagues describe you?
Organized and optimistic...my glasses are often too pink...
Late. (in truth I think they would answer with a quality)
Competent, dedicated and hardworking
If you had to specialize in something else, what would it be and why?
Hemato-oncology for privileged patient-doctor contact.
Infectiology
Hemato-oncology or psychiatrist
Does your specialty take jokes well at work?
Most of the time.
Yes
Yes, a certain sense of humor especially in dialysis
Do students/residents sometimes make you feel overwhelmed?
Yes, because the workload and the patients are heavy and complex. But the work is often rewarding, which compensates for the heaviness.
Yes, but not necessarily on a professional level!
N / A
If your specialty had to have a romantic relationship with another which one would it choose?
I will name urology because urologists love the KIDNEY like us...; it's our surgical side!
I will cheat and choose a social worker (and not just because I married one!)
Internal medicine 😉
What is the best advice you have received?
The right to error; there are indeed good days and bad days!
Never make anything an absolute (desire)
Listen to patients because they can teach us a lot and they know each other
What do you think is the most important factor for a successful career in your specialty?
Loving supporting patients with a chronic disease for several years.
Good mental health
To be able to appreciate the management of chronic illness and its global approach to the patient and also to take pleasure in analyzing results.
What does everyday nephrology look like?
Clinical work: hospit, internal and external consultations, multi-clinics for IRC, transplant, home dialysis, in-centre hemodialysis, return of patient calls or follow-up of patient results, course preparation and presentation.
That's wonderful! For me, half of my clinical work is in the kidney transplant clinic. Otherwise, huge outpatient clinic component in general.
Very, very diverse depending on the assigned task. A day at consultations is completely different from a day of outpatient follow-ups for transplant or dialysis patients.
Working with chronically ill people every day
The days can be very diversified with hospital and external consultations or in the emergency room; visits of known patients in renal support and cases in intensive care and end with a call for organ donation and kidney transplantation in the next few hours
Are there “hands on” aspects in nephrology?
You can practice nephrology without doing any technique, which is what attracts people like me. However, we need several technical gestures and nephrologists perform some of them to control their accessibility: Hemodialysis or peritoneal dialysis catheter, kidney biopsy, arteriovenous fistula. Some nephrologists "read" their patho slides, some are intensivist-nephrologists
Not a lot, but I have the privilege of being able to read my kidney biopsies myself, which is very stimulating!
Not sure I understand...like installing and removing dialysis KTs, yes we do!
If you want, yes. (Create arteriovenous fistulas for hemodialysis, install peritoneal dialysis catheters, perform kidney biopsies, etc.)
Yes, since our clientele is shared with the whole group.
What are the difficulties, the least pleasant aspects that you encounter in your specialty?
The management of patients who do not want to help themselves and who are very sick
Is it repetitive as a specialty?
I find that there is a nice diversity but just enough repetition to develop a comfortable expertise
I don't feel like it's repetitive because I really like what I do.
NO really very diversified...the weeks are not alike if we do everything...dialysis, transplant, floor, consultations, external follow-ups. In addition, we cover other hospitals such as Granby, Magog, Mégantic
Yes if we consider that we see the same patients very frequently and no, if the global approach to the patient makes us feel the uniqueness of each person.
No more no less than the others
What car do you drive?
A Smart then a Mini Cooper then now a 100% electric Bolt. I keep my cars for a long time.
Mitsubishi PHEV
How do you plan your vacation?
A congress in an original destination attracts me. A week of sun destination with the children at school break. Time at the cottage by the lake in the summer. I balance a bit of couple, family and solo holidays.
6 months in advance depending on my spouse's vacation