Hello Dr.! As Christmas season is coming up, what sort of gifts would you recommend to help improve the well-being and life-enjoyment of a pediatric resident? She loves to read and enjoys beauty products, so I’ve considered a few books (I wouldn’t mind some more recommendations) and hand creams (to soothe that constantly sanitized skin), but I was wondering what other ways I could help make her life a little less stressful? Thanks so much!

What a terrific question! I’m gonna ask my medical Cranquistadors to please add their own suggestions to this post (since I usually just buy whatever was rated the highest on the other person’s Amazon wish list, BOOM finished, moving on).

But for what it’s worth, Dr. Cranquis would consider these Potential Holiday Gifts for Residents (and Med Students too!):

• Books: healthcare-related books (memoirs, fictionalized, history, political, etc.) are an obvious choice, and you’ll find quite a few recommendations from me (and from Cranquistadors!) in my #books tag. As for non-healthcare-books, that depends on your knowledge of your friend’s tastes — and whether you think that receiving a “just for fun” book will just rub salt in their wounds as they reminisce about the days when they actually had time to read something that didn’t have Latin anatomic terms in it. :)
• Media (movies, music, Netflix subscriptions, etc.): Sometimes all your numbed post-call brain can handle is a few hours of Battlestar Galactica or Monty Python. (Or maybe they can watch ‘em while they’re ON call, if their call-karma is way better than mine ever was.)
• Gift Cards/Cash: Most med students and residents live on a combo of loan money/paltry stipends + gifts from friends and family. Gift cards to coffee shops, bookstores, shoe stores, big-box stores, and good old Amazon are fantastic! Even a roll of small bills for vending machines will make a resident smile. Don’t worry about the “But giving money is so impersonal” argument — they will appreciate it and USE it.
• On-Call Hygiene Products: Travel-size personal grooming-kit items (or an entire kit, if you want to go all out) are so handy when you’re doing all your grooming in the hospital! Sometimes, the only thing that keeps you going at 4 in the morning (the Dead Zone between admitting the last patient and starting pre-rounds on all the other patients) is two minutes in the bathroom to brush your teeth and apply another layer of deodorant.
• Drugs: (No, not THAT kind of drugs). Despite working in a hospital, residents who need pain relievers/anti-histamines/gas-reducers/antacids for personal use are usually out of luck! Toss a few handy OTC meds into that grooming kit.
• Mugs: You can never have enough (spill-proof, easy-to-carry/clean) containers for hot stimulating beverages.
• Pens: Yeah, yeah, we’re all “paperless” and “electronic” in healthcare now. Whatever — our clinic printer goes through more paper now than it ever used to before EMR. So pens are ALWAYS needed by/being stolen away from students and residents. Find out if they prefer the “click” (YES!) or “uncap/twist” (BOOO!) style. Only buy black pens (medical records have to be in dark color ink, and some facilities don’t allow even blue). No felt-tips (can’t write through carbon-copy forms). No fancy/engraved/expensive/meaningful pens (didn’t I mention these things get stolen all the time?). But not super-cheap-crappy ones (it’s considered bad luck to have your pen die in the middle of a call-night) (not really) (well maybe NOW it is).
• Phone plug-ins (micro USB or Apple whatevers) or emergency quick-chargers: Having your smart-phone die while on call is like getting a surprise lobotomy. Anything which can prevent/remedy that situation is priceless!
• Subscriptions to medical reference websites/apps (maybe): Some residency/med-school programs provide these for free, so check with your recipient before dropping $100+ on a subscription to Epocrates, Up to Date, etc.
• Diploma Frames: Help them look ahead to the glorious day when all that they’ll have to show for these years of toil and tears is a really nice piece of paper and a sizable financial debt (well, and a lot of knowledge/skills, of course.)
• Plane Tickets: Just in case your gift-giving budget is REALLY loaded. But be sure to either discuss the travel dates WAY ahead of time, or buy tickets with simple no-fees exchange/refund policies.

Hope that helps. Oh, and just for kicks, a few things which the average resident/student (probably) does NOT need/want for Christmas:

• Scrubs: Either they already own enough, the hospital provides them, or they won’t dare to wear that uber-nice set you gave them around actual patients.
• Medical Equipment: Exceptions exist, but for the most part, they already have a couple of functional stetho/oto/ophtho-scopes, and more tuning forks than the New York Philarmonic. However, if they plan to work in mission fields/under-served areas, extra equipment is ALWAYS needed.
• Textbooks/Reference Books: They need to pick what works for them, without feeling guilted into carrying around that deluxe copy of Gray’s Anatomy (the book) you gave ‘em. If you really want to contribute to their medical reference library, talk it over with them first (or go with a gift certificate to a bookstore).
• Phone card with a passive-aggressive “Try calling me more often next year” note: Med school is hard. Residency is hard. Right now, they need your support and your permission to focus on surviving, not your demands.

Any other to-give (or to-avoid) ideas, Medblr folks?