CV Resident Physician: Example and Template
This is how to show rotations, shift statistics and your postgraduate training status per SIWF logbook at a glance.
Currently 18 open Resident Physician positions in Switzerland, across 7 cantons, 1 of them from the last 7 days. Psychiatrie St.Gallen advertises the most.
CV example — two-page template
This template is editable straight away — or upload your existing CV and it is carried into this layout automatically.
Which qualifications and permits belong in a resident physician's CV?
Show the federal diploma or MEBEKO recognition, your MedReg registration and your current status in the SIWF postgraduate training programme.
State the federal diploma in human medicine first, with the year of examination and university. If you studied abroad, include MEBEKO recognition (or the status of the ongoing procedure) in the same line, along with your entry in the Medical Professions Register (MedReg) and, if relevant, the cantonal licence to practise. Applicants from the EU/EFTA area should also note their residence permit, so HR can plan the start date.
Directly below, make your postgraduate training status visible: the specialist title you are working towards, the number of months already recognised, the category of your previous training hospitals (A, B or C) and how complete your SIWF e-logbook is. Senior physicians read exactly this first, because they need to know whether you fit the open rotation and how much supervision is required. A sentence like '36 months of GIM recognised, including 12 months at Category A' says more than a list of departments.
Add courses and skills certificates that count in day-to-day hospital work: ACLS, ATLS, BLS-AED-SRC, SGUM ultrasound courses, radiation protection certification, skills certificates such as SGNOR emergency physician or KHM practice laboratory. List a dissertation (Dr. med.) and publications with title, journal and year - for university hospitals this is a genuine selection criterion, for regional hospitals more of a bonus.
How should I structure work experience and rotations?
State hospital, category, number of beds and rotations for each position, and back up your work with case numbers, shifts and procedures.
Describe each position with role, hospital, specialty, period and training category. Follow this with a short context sentence: size of the ward or emergency department, number of consultations per year, rotations and type of supervision. This lets the reader immediately understand whether you come from a hospital with 19,000 emergency consultations or a 24-bed acute geriatrics ward.
Then quantify your performance. Useful figures include beds managed, admissions and discharges per week, number of night and weekend shifts, documented ultrasound examinations, central lines, punctures or procedures as first assistant, as well as improvements such as shorter door-to-CT times or more timely discharge reports. Avoid phrases like 'caring for patients on the ward' - that appears in every resident physician's CV.
If you already have several years of residency behind you, group sub-internships, elective study year and clinical clerkships together in their own concise block. Explain gaps factually in one line (maternity leave, military service, work abroad, research period). State an 80 percent part-time position openly - this is common in Swiss hospitals and only affects the crediting of postgraduate training months.
How long should the CV be, is a photo needed, and what is Swiss practice?
Two to a maximum of three pages, a professional photo is customary, and hospitals explicitly expect references from senior colleagues.
Two pages is the standard; three pages are acceptable if publications, courses and case numbers justify it. Attach a separate list of publications, presentations and completed courses as an appendix, rather than overloading the CV. Also include your diploma, MEBEKO recognition, all FMH training references and work certificates as PDFs in the application - incomplete dossiers are the first to be screened out by HR departments.
A professional portrait photo remains common in Switzerland and is expected for medical applications, though not mandatory. State your place of residence, canton, citizenship or permit, phone number and a professional email address. Date of birth is optional; omit marital status and religion. Name two to three references with their role (chief physician, senior physician) and contact details, or note 'available on request'.
Tailor your CV to each application: for a rotation in the emergency department, put shifts, ESI triage and ultrasound first; for a position in internal medicine, emphasise the ward, coding and discharge reports. Mention your availability, desired workload and salary expectations in the cover letter if the job posting asks for it - entry-level salaries for resident physicians typically range between CHF 85'000 and CHF 110'000 per year, depending on canton and year of training, excluding shift and night allowances.
Where Resident Physician are hired in Switzerland
How the 18 open positions are spread across the cantons.
Figures as a table
| Canton | postings |
|---|---|
| Luzern | 4 |
| St. Gallen | 3 |
| Graubünden | 2 |
| Basel-Stadt | 1 |
| Aargau | 1 |
| Freiburg | 1 |
| Zürich | 1 |
Which languages the postings require
Of 13 postings that state a language — in brackets, those requiring professional level.
Figures as a table
| Language | postings |
|---|---|
| German | 13 (13) |
| Italian | 1 (0) |
| French | 1 (0) |
Who hires Resident Physician in Switzerland
Employers with the most open positions. Staffing agencies are excluded.
Figures as a table
| Employer | postings |
|---|---|
| Psychiatrie St.Gallen | 4 |
| Luzerner Kantonsspital | 4 |
| Kantonsspital Graubünden | 2 |
| medicjobs.ch | 1 |
| Spital Emmental | 1 |
| University Hospital Basel | 1 |
Full-time or part-time?
How the positions are advertised.
Figures as a table
| Workload | postings |
|---|---|
| Vollzeit / plein temps | 16 |
| Teilzeit / partiel | 1 |
| Temporär | 1 |
The CV in full
To read through and reuse.
Nadine Brunner
Resident Physician, General Internal Medicine, Dr. med. (Federal Diploma in Human Medicine)
Resident physician in her 4th year of postgraduate training with a focus on General Internal Medicine and broad emergency experience at Category A and B training hospitals. Independent care of 12 to 14 beds on the ward, 24-hour shifts in the emergency department with around 45 patient contacts per shift, and 320 documented emergency ultrasound examinations. The goal is the specialist title in General Internal Medicine (SIWF) in 2027, followed by a subspecialty focus in Emergency Medicine.
What sets me apart
Postgraduate training transparently documented: SIWF e-logbook, workplace-based assessments (WBAs) and references from training hospitals are documented without gaps, including 12 months of Category A credit in internal medicine.
Emergency ultrasound at SGUM level: Completed SGUM courses in abdominal and emergency ultrasound, 320 supervised examinations, independent FAST and eFAST assessment in the trauma bay.
Coding and length of stay in focus: Confident use of ICD-10-GM and CHOP coding in the SwissDRG context, resulting in 18 percent fewer queries from medical controlling to the department.
Reliability in scheduling and teamwork: Over 110 night and weekend shifts within 24 months, helped shape ArG-compliant shift scheduling and structured induction of three sub-interns.
Key achievements
Admission process accelerated. Introduced a structured admission template in KISIM, reducing time to a complete admission report from 95 to 55 minutes, at 30 admissions per week.
Antibiotic stewardship implemented. Co-authored a local guideline for community-acquired pneumonia, reducing the share of unnecessary broad-spectrum antibiotics from 34 to 19 percent within 6 months.
Discharge reports on time. Established a tandem dictation system with the secretariat, increasing the share of discharge reports sent within 48 hours from 61 to 88 percent.
Experience
Resident Physician, General Internal Medicine — Kantonsspital Aaretal (Category A training hospital), Since 03/2023
28-bed ward, rotations in cardiology, pulmonology and the consultation service; interdisciplinary rounds with a senior physician.
- Independent care of 12 to 14 beds, around 30 admissions and 28 discharges per week
- 68 night and weekend shifts in 2024, providing initial care to an average of 45 patients per shift
- Reduced the ward's average length of stay from 7.4 to 6.6 days together with the team
- Rolled out delirium screening (DOS score) quality project to 100 percent of patients over 75
Resident Physician, Emergency Medicine and Surgery — Regionalspital Seetal AG (Category B), 04/2021 - 02/2023
Interdisciplinary emergency department with 19,000 consultations per year, 12-month rotation in general surgery including the trauma bay.
- Treated over 4,200 emergency consultations, triage according to ESI levels 1 to 5
- Performed 140 FAST examinations and 62 chest drains or punctures under supervision
- Reduced door-to-CT time for stroke alerts from 34 to 22 minutes through a checklist
- Served as first assistant in 210 procedures (appendectomy, cholecystectomy, hernia repair)
Resident Physician, Internal Medicine (first year) — Klinik Sonnhalde Emmental, 05/2020 - 03/2021
Acute geriatrics and palliative care, 24 beds, close supervision by senior physicians, start of SIWF e-logbook.
- Helped care for around 260 patients with an average age of 82
- Conducted 150 medication reviews per STOPP/START criteria, reducing polypharmacy by an average of 2.3 substances
- Held 42 discharge-planning meetings with family members and Spitex
- Contributed to 12 internal lunchtime training sessions, personally presenting 3 of them
Education
Dr. med., Dissertation on cardiovascular risk factors in primary care — University of Bern · 2022
Federal Diploma in Human Medicine, Federal Examination in Human Medicine, Master of Medicine — University of Bern · 2020
Bachelor of Medicine, Human Medicine — University of Fribourg · 2017
ACLS Provider (AHA/SRC), valid until 2026 · ATLS Provider (Swiss ATLS), 2022 · SGUM courses in abdominal and emergency ultrasound, 2023 · Radiation Protection Certificate for non-radiology physicians (FOPH-recognised), 2021