“A lot of medical students start residency and are handed physical pagers, these little boxes that you have to clip to your side,” said Tia Forsman, MD, a second-year radiology resident at USC. On Dr. Forsman’s first day of residency, she was on 24-hour call, covering for the entire surgical service. “By the end of the day, I was holding nine separate pagers, actual physical pagers. I thought that was so funny, but also terrifying because I had to figure out how these little boxes worked.”
Some programs are switching from physical pagers to pager apps, but Dr. Forsman said she actually liked having a pager (or nine) separate from her smartphone. However, she often responded to a page with a text. She and other Gen Z doctors don’t think twice about using their phone to take non-identifying patient photos to text other physicians for a consult, she said.
This comfort level means that residents and other teams often have a group chat on their phones, which can enhance communication, she said. According to Dr. Forsman, this open communication can benefit patients and improve learning. “Medicine is a constant back and forth with your colleagues, and we’re always looking for how to make the systems better.”
And because IR is a specialty at the forefront of technology in medicine, it may attract more Gen Z medical students, Dr. Cyphers said.
Transparency and improvement Gen Z shares more similarities with Gen X—often the parents who raised them— than they do with millennials. Both Gen X and Gen Z tend to question authority and institutional systems; they want to know “why,” said Meghan Grace, EdD,
About half of
today’s residents and traditional-age medical students are members of Gen Z.
a generational researcher, author and consultant focusing on Generation Z.
Gen Z students and adults may ask a lot of questions. To older generations, particularly in hierarchical systems like medicine, this may seem annoying or even disrespectful. But that’s rarely the intent, Grace said.
“I wouldn’t say that Gen Z is walking around with a ‘burn it to the ground’ mindset, but they are okay with questioning authority because their parents gave them the autonomy to do so,” Grace said. Transparency and improvement are important to them. They may ask: Why do we have this policy? Why do we need to do it this way? Is there a better way?
Combining this with strong ethics and desire to do the right thing often leads to social activism. In the workplace or hospital, this could mean wanting to improve a system or make a process more efficient and advocating for more inclusive policies—ideas they may pair with technology.
2016 Association of Chiefs in IR (ACIR) Section created ACIR
The ACIR is dedicated to the advancement of the art and science of interventional radiology by the promotion of medical education, research and patient care, the development of methods of undergraduate and graduate teaching in interventional radiology, and the provision of a forum for discussion of problems and mutual interest among interventional radiology chiefs.
irq.sirweb.org | 31
“We’re very technologically savvy, and that allows us to be able to constantly adapt because we had to adapt through our learning process,” said Ashley Medley, a fourth-year medical student at Howard University who plans to become an IR. Gen Z physicians are interested in using technology to improve healthcare, such as offering telemedicine and incorporating artificial intelligence into diagnostic tools, Medley said.
Gen Z’s social media expertise could also improve medicine, educate patients and elevate awareness of IR among medical students. In fact, Dr. Cyphers first heard of the specialty through IRs on YouTube and Twitter.
“We can be really good advocates for our specialty on these platforms. Sharing cases, learning and mentorship happen on these platforms, which eliminates a lot of the barriers, like cost and geographic location, in learning IR,” Dr. Cyphers said.
Wellness and security Wellness and work-life balance are also important to Gen Z. Millennials, and now maybe Gen Z, are often accused of wanting to turn their medical career into a 9-to-5 job. But, Medley said, it’s more about taking care of your mental and physical health and preventing burnout. Regardless of—maybe because of—how overwhelming medical school can be, Medley said she sets aside time every day to focus on herself by taking a walk, journaling or simply resting. It’s important have a “mindset of understanding that rest is not a reward; it’s a necessary part of being a good physician,” she said.
Like their Gen X parents, Gen Z is more cautious than millennials as a whole. Seeing the fallout of the 2008 recession and living through
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