Although Jürgen Klopp1 was describing his professional soccer players, he might well have been describing resident physicians.

Many residents start residency in a state of arrested development.

They may never have held a real job until they graduated from medical school and started an internship.

They may never have had to function in a team before where the stakes were high.

Likewise, most physicians entering academia do so without any formal

training in educational theory.

This situation is analogous to that experienced by a new parent. The time I felt most unprepared for a task was when my oldest daughter was 2 years old and seemed to only have the word “No” in her vocabulary.

How do you raise and discipline a misbehaving child? I did not think the predominantly disciplinary theories of the previous generation worked well, so my wife and I took a class in Active Parenting, a curriculum developed by child and family therapist Michael H. Popkin, PhD.

I have found this training invaluable for the 30% of the time that I, as a residency program director, function as a surrogate parent to my residents.