Ericka Henriquez

Form-fitting scrubs, hot attendings and love-making in the storage closet.

The drama series “Grey’s Anatomy” popularized the romantic and professional lives of fictional surgical residents. But how much of it is true to the trade? 

“I watched maybe 15 minutes of Grey’s Anatomy,” Andrew Esposito, a seventh-year general surgery resident, said. “I really, really hate those shows. It was too stupid and it’s not how anything goes.”

Esposito said that shows like “Grey’s Anatomy” have made it harder for doctors because they enable patients to have unreasonable expectations.

Reality of general surgery residency

In actuality, the lives of surgeons may not be as glamorous as TV makes them out to be.

Most days, Joshua Sznol, a hospital resident at the School of Medicine, wakes up by 4:30 a.m. and arrives at the hospital by 5:15 a.m. His position entails day-to-day staffing of the entire surgical residency across all four of Yale’s hospitals, including subspecialty interns who rotate while on their service. He also remains on call 24/7 to respond to potential staffing emergencies, including surgeons calling in sick. 

When asked how he deals with the long hours, Sznol wrote in an email to the News, “Coffee. Lots of coffee.”

The workload may be a deal-breaker for some, but for a select few, surgery is their calling. According to Esposito, few other professions allow such camaraderie, personal connection and ability to impact a life the same way.

“That, combined with seeing myself from becoming an intern who doesn’t know anything in the [operating room] to being a surgical resident having high-level discussions with attendings and other residents,” Esposito told the News. “It’s great seeing myself go that far and become a better doctor and take care of my patients.”

Alex Kim, a postgraduate first-year surgical resident, went to the University of Chicago for college and USC Keck School of Medicine.

As a high schooler, Kim loved science and helping others. After completing his general surgery residency, he hopes to go into thoracic surgery.

“Becoming a physician was the perfect career choice since it allowed me to leverage my scientific knowledge to impact people’s lives in a tangible way,” Kim said. 

For Kim, no two days are the same. He starts his days early, usually around 5:00 a.m., to update patient lists and information ahead of rounds. While Kim typically concludes a day at around 6:00 or 6:30 p.m., like all residents interviewed, he does have 24-hour calls every so often.

Emotionally and physically fatigued

Overnight shifts are becoming less and less common in medical residency programs, according to Esposito, and are generally reserved for junior residents. Earlier this year, Yale announced that its internal medicine residents would no longer be required to take 28-hour shifts.

This change was welcomed by many and is seen as part of a shift in the greater physician training culture.

In 1984, the death of 18-year-old Libby Zion was charged to the fatigued and overworked physicians. Under new guidelines set by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, residents are not allowed to work more than 80 hours a week, averaged over a four-week time frame. 

While reduced work hours did not affect patient outcomes, a study found that the changes were effective in reducing burnout, increasing happiness and improving performance.

Part of this cultural shift also includes protecting the emotional well-being of residents. A paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that over 30 percent of surgical residents surveyed reported physical or verbal abuse during residency programs.

Yale has taken its commitment to resident wellness a step further. According to Esposito, the School of Medicine has policies in place that deter instances of verbal abuse or yelling.

“Some people believe that surgery has to [be] a miserable experience to become a good surgeon; you have to work long hours, can’t leave the hospital, embarrassment is okay,” Esposito said. “The practice has mostly gone to the wayside, but in some places, it’s still okay.”

In addition to workplace stress and sleep deprivation, the profession also has its emotional hardships, a direct result of emergency procedures and dealing with patient deaths. 

Esposito recalled performing two thoracotomies, a procedure done in the trauma bay in which ribs and chest cavity are opened up, typically when a patient comes in with a gunshot or stab wound. The procedure is only performed in specific instances, like when it is the only chance to save them. 

In the instances when procedures don’t go as planned, physicians often don’t have the time to grieve.

“It’s tough figuring out how to handle [patient death],” Esposito said. “When the patient outcome isn’t positive, I look back to see how I can change things.”

Physicians-approved show

All the residents the News spoke to agreed that “Grey’s Anatomy” and many other medical TV shows do not do the profession justice. According to Esposito, fans of the show should not base their assumptions of surgery on the series alone. They did all, however, agree on one stand-out series.

“The only medical drama that I have seen that did any justice to being a physician and resident is Scrubs,” Sznol told the News. “The rest are horribly inaccurate.”

“Scrubs” is a medical drama centered around the fictional Sacred Heart hospital in California.

Esposito said that the first five or six seasons are “super accurate” in depicting the residents’ lives. But even then, “it kind of goes off the rails after that,” he added.

Scrubs concluded its final season in 2010.