Surgical training makes other people’s progress unusually visible. You see who gets the case, who answers quickly, who presents smoothly, who seems comfortable with the senior, who gets trusted with the next step.
What you do not see is everything behind that performance: prior rotations, earlier failures, extra exposure, a different supervisor, a different case mix, or simply a personality that looks confident while feeling uncertain.
Residency is a terrible place for simple comparisons
Two residents in the same year can have very different training weeks. One may spend days in theatre. Another may cover the ward. One may repeat the same operation several times. Another may be moved between services. The calendar says they are peers. Their exposure is not identical.
That is why “They are ahead of me” is often too vague to be useful.
Compare specific skills, not entire identities
Instead of “They are a better resident,” ask a narrower question. Are they more concise on rounds? Better prepared for cases? Faster at documentation? More comfortable escalating? More experienced with a specific operation?
Specific comparisons can teach you something. Global comparisons mostly damage accuracy.
Speed is especially misleading
A resident who looks faster may simply know the service better, have seen the problem before, or use a more reliable workflow. Speed can reflect competence, but it can also reflect familiarity.
That is why the better question is not “Why am I slower?” but “Which part of this task is still costing me time?”
Your own trend is more useful than your rank
Look backward. What feels routine now that felt impossible six months ago? Which calls are easier? Which presentations need less preparation? Which operative steps are more familiar? Which mistakes happen less often?
Training is progression, not a leaderboard.
The resident side of comparison
Comparison becomes most painful when it turns another person’s strength into evidence about your worth. Their good day is not proof of your bad career. Their faster progression in one area does not erase your own.
The useful version of comparison is curious: What are they doing that I can learn from? The destructive version is absolute: They belong here more than I do.
Related reading: Imposter Syndrome in Surgical Residency and How to Get Faster Without Becoming Sloppy.
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