Starting residency can feel overwhelming. New city, new hospital, new responsibilities, and suddenly everyone expects you to know what you're doing.

In this episode of Cut & Tell, graduating plastic surgery resident Dr. Liz Malphrus shares her most requested advice for incoming interns. Drawing on six years of residency experience, she breaks down the physical, cognitive, and psychological strategies that helped her survive, and ultimately thrive, during training.

From building sustainable study habits and protecting your sleep to finding community, seeking therapy, and learning how to navigate the constant feeling of not knowing enough, this episode is a practical guide for anyone beginning residency.

Topics discussed:

• Intern year survival tips
• Physical readiness: sleep, food, movement, and gear
• Building effective study habits during residency
• Learning from your patients
• How to study when you have no free time
• Finding community in a new city
• Managing stress, anxiety, and burnout
• Why therapy can be an important part of residency
• Personal mantras that helped through training
• What every new intern should know

Whether you're starting residency this summer or simply remember what it felt like to be an intern, this episode is a reminder that you don't have to figure everything out on day one.

Host: Liz Malphrus, MD

Connect with Liz: https://www.hippocratic-collective.com/members/liz-malphrus-md

IG: @dr.malphrus

Produced By: The Hippocratic Collective

Subscribe to @hippocraticcollective on Youtube for all of the other shows and content the Hippocratic Collective has to offer.

Residents today earn roughly the same inflation-adjusted salary as residents did decades ago. So why does training feel so much more financially difficult?

In this episode of Cut & Tell, plastic surgery resident Dr. Liz Malphrus explores the economic realities facing modern trainees—from exploding medical school debt and rising housing costs to childcare expenses, delayed financial independence, and the growing gap between resident compensation and the true cost of becoming a physician.

This is the second installment in the "Back in My Day" series, examining how residency has changed over time. Rather than debating which generation had it harder, Dr. Malphrus argues that the conditions surrounding medical training have fundamentally changed—and that understanding those changes is essential if we want to improve graduate medical education.

Topics discussed:

• Resident salaries then vs. now
• Medical school debt and rising education costs
• GME funding and resident compensation
• Housing, childcare, and cost-of-living pressures
• Why many residents struggle financially despite being physicians
• The changing demographics of residency training
• Single-parent households and residency
• Why "back in my day" misses the bigger picture
• Moving beyond the suffering Olympics in medicine

Cut & Tell explores the realities of surgical training, medicine, and the systems shaping physician life today.

Subscribe for new episodes and visit the Hippocratic Collective for more conversations about the future of medicine.

Attendings often tell stories about residency "back in the day" - more autonomy, more responsibility, more independence. But was training really better, or has the entire system changed?

In this episode of Cut & Tell, plastic surgery resident Dr. Liz Malphrus explores why modern residents often report feeling less prepared for independent practice despite performing similar case volumes to previous generations. From duty-hour debates and supervision requirements to RVU-based compensation and the growing pressure for clinical productivity, she examines the structural forces reshaping surgical education.

This isn't a conversation about whether residency is easier or harder. It's about understanding how the training environment has changed, and what that means for autonomy, burnout, and the future of medical education.

Topics discussed:

• Why case numbers don't tell the whole story
• Resident autonomy and surgical confidence
• The impact of RVU-based compensation on teaching
• Academic medicine's productivity pressures
• Why more residents pursue fellowship training
• The relationship between autonomy and burnout
• How surgical education has evolved over the past two decades
• What attendings and residents can learn from each other

Cut & Tell is a podcast exploring the realities of surgical training, medicine, and life beyond the operating room.

Subscribe for new episodes and visit the Hippocratic Collective for more conversations about the culture of medicine.