Junior Resident

What Should I Be Doing My First 1-2 Years of Residency?

• Explore your interests and confirm that pursuing a toxicology fellowship is what you would like to do. While you might have a strong interest in toxicology when entering residency, make sure to come into residency with an open mind and explore other interests.
• Find a toxicology mentor at your institution. If there are no board-certified toxicologists at your institution, meet with your Program Director to work on ways to find a toxicology mentor outside of your institution.
• Explore your toxicology interest more by attending toxicology symposiums, national conferences, and section meetings and events.

Toxicology Rotations & Electives

If your institution does not have a toxicology rotation, inquire about a toxicology elective. Even if your program does have a toxicology rotation, consider a toxicology elective to further explore your interest within the toxicology realm.

• If you are specifically targeting a toxicology program for fellowship, consider organizing an away elective for PGY2 (if three-year program) or PGY3 (if four-year program). Many are receptive to rotating residents from other institutions as they know a large percentage of emergency medicine (EM) residents do not have a home toxicology program. Otherwise, there is no formal need to complete an away rotation.
• Consider looking into shadowing or elective opportunities at regional toxicology centers if your institution does not have a toxicology rotation or elective. Alternatively, there is significant interdisciplinary overlap with pharmacy/pharmacology and reaching out to these departments at your institution may be helpful if medical toxicologists are not available.

Research Opportunities

Toxicology is quite academic and evidence of successful research productivity (even if not in toxicology) in residency is valued. The earlier you start in this respect, the better.

• Identify a case report or abstract to present and submit it to a conference. This is the bread and butter of toxicology academic output and you will be expected to do this in fellowship. Showing you can do this in residency is a big positive.
• Larger scholarly projects, such as systematic reviews and retrospective observational studies, will carry more weight but are more difficult to accomplish in residency. If you have the passion and bandwidth for research, taking a project of this magnitude to completion (conference abstract, publication) will make you stand out.
• Although great to have, many successful applicants into toxicology do not have toxicology-specific research in residency.