Generation Z has entered the workplace. Born between 1997 and 2012, the oldest Gen Zers will turn 28 in 2025: This means that about half of residents and all traditional-age medical students are part of this generation.
Gen Z is the first generation of digital natives—most don’t remember a time before smartphones and high-speed Wi-Fi. “A lot of us haven’t experienced life without the internet, so we’re comfortable integrating technology into our daily lives and using those tools to streamline work,” said Eric Cyphers, DO, a general surgery intern at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City who begins his radiology/IR residency in July at the University of Southern California.
Each generation is affected by the world they grew up in. Gen Z students and adults don’t remember 9/11 but grew up in its aftermath. They are the most racially and ethnically diverse generation the U.S. has seen; as children in 2008, they watched America elect the first Black president. But in 2020, nearly all of them were either in high school or college when COVID-19 halted everything and upended their academic plans.
No generation is a monolith. Generalizations can quickly become stereotypes. But each generation shares certain characteristics and historical events that shape their lives. How will Generation Z affect and change medicine, particularly IR?
Comfort with technology
The most obvious area is technology. As digital natives, Gen Zers are comfortable carrying tiny computers in their pockets all day. They don’t think twice about researching a question on their phone or storing notes in an app. They also find it funny when they enter the hospital and see new-to-them technology, such as scanners and fax machines, still being used.
“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, 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.
“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 the pandemic, Gen Zers are more interested in saving their money and negotiating for workplace benefits that provide security and stability.
Not only are they financially cautious, but they are also wary about the dangers of the world, Grace said. They grew up with school shooter drills and frequent violence in society. “Mass shootings feel commonplace to them, and they’ve been prepared to confront that. In some cases, it’s not an if, but a when, in their minds.”
Bringing that mindset to the workplace, Gen Z physicians may be more interested in benefits such as quality health insurance with lower deductibles and premiums, mental health benefits, retirement plans and gym memberships.
Many Gen Zers spent a lot of time during COVID-19 by themselves. Depending on their age, they may have missed out on key high school and college rites of passage. Because of this, some Gen Zers are rebuilding—or just forming—their interpersonal skills, such as effective communication, networking, collaboration, emotional intelligence and adaptability, Grace said.
“Many of them are a little bit delayed in building those critical interpersonal skills that are necessary not only to succeed academically, but professionally,” she said. “I think we’ll see some of that trickling into their early career years.”
Mixed generations in IR
No matter what generation you fall into, Grace said it’s helpful to consider the generation of the person you’re communicating with. Take a step back and try to understand the lens they’re seeing the situation from.
“Oftentimes we’re just motivated and driven by different things,” she said. “What some people would call ‘common sense’ in the workplace is workplace culture that has been passed on from generation to generation. And Gen Z might look at that and say, ‘Well, why is it like that? Is that the best option for us all, or is there a better way we can do that?’”
As residency programs become filled with Gen Z physicians, Dr. Cyphers acknowledged, it’s important for residents to remember the origins of IR.
“We owe it to those above us. IR is a unique field where we can still meet a lot of the people who founded our specialty and who were brave and insightful enough to carry this specialty to what it is today,” Dr. Cyphers said. “We hope to do as good a job as they did for those that come after us and for all of our future patients.”
