So I am posting this because I am SO TIRED of my sub-I, actually he/she drives me absolutely crazy!!!!!!!!!!. I have some advice on how NOT to piss off your residents, so that you may actually get to match someplace.
1. First and foremost you really don’t need to show me how smart you are, I know you are smart, you are going into neurosurgery. I can also read, I learned that in 1st grade, I can look at your board scores, I read your dean’s letter. You really don’t need to show off. Saying something to show off and then watching your resident slaughtered by staff is the way to ensure that you will not be matching.
2. What I really need you to do, however, is not to mouth off to me, not to question me in front of the nurses, not to question me in front of my senior resident or the staff. Statements like “I don’t know why Mr. X did not get labs this morning” during rounds in front of my chairman, to make me look bad, are not appropriate. Actually this backfired because the patient did have labs, you just forgot to check them. If you have a concern you can address it to me in private.
3. Do what I ask you to do, don’t sit around and kiss ass to the chief. We can see straight through all the brown nosing.
4. Don’t randomly start talking to the patient’s families when the nurse specifically asked me to talk to the family, sometimes I don’t even know what the plan is and I have to talk to the chief. How the hell do you know what to tell them? You actually have created more work for me in more than one instance when you talking to the family has created major issues and big waves that I had to smooth over.
5. Stop giving orders to the nurses, I am the resident, you are the student. If I tell you to do something, do it. Otherwise orders on the patient are issued by those who have an MD after their name. Don’t assume you know more about patient management than me. I don’t care if you have read Greenberg cover to cover, you are still a student, and believe it or not, I have done this for a while now. I really don’t need you to teach me neurosugery, my attendings and chiefs are there to teach me.
6. Remember something, although the junior or the intern on the team don’t have the power to hire you, they really have the power to screw you if they choose to. The staff asks us about you guys, I can just say one word, only one, and you will not be getting the stellar letter you wanted. Just remember that the chairmen of the programs take into account what the all the residents have to say, not just the chiefs. Actually sometimes the juniors have a lot more to say about who the program will hire than the chiefs, because as an intern on the service you will work directly with the junior.
So to summarize stop trying to show off! I am busy enough with all the stuff that I have to do, and I have enough stress in my life. I don’t want my blood pressure to go up when I see you!
This is from a post from last year. I think it should be ressurected each year, for guidance and advice for the SubIs.
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The purpose of this post is to help clue in some of our medical students. I dont know why and I dont know how else to explain it, but there are some medical students that cannot see how annoying they are or how they are shooting themselves in the foot with every stupid action and word out of their mouth.
Whether it is right or wrong there is a hierarchy. The residents on the top can pretty much do and say whatever they want and those below usually just take it. Once you are a RESIDENT you can talk back a little and bitch a little (its something you earn when you have an MD after your name, once you have taken it up the backside a few times from your chief and attendings, and when you realize the 80 hour rule does not apply to you).
Anyhow, these are my few suggestions for you, the annoying medical students who just for some stupid reason or another cannot see how it is that you are supposed to act or what you are suppossed to do. Again, I know that this is not ethically, morally, or politically correct, but this is the system that we went through and if you want to join the club then F-you, start doing what we did. I know this does not apply to every resident nor every program, but I can tell you that there are residents that think and feel like this at EVERY institution and you will be safer if you play by these rules and live by this advice.
- Despite that fact that you are paying for an education, the truth of it is that residents feel that Medical Students are on a rotation to help us and to impress us, NOT the reverse. This is the test of your work ethic, show us you can get there earlier, stay there later and work more than 80 hours. Don’t find excuses or ways out of things.
- The team and chief come before everything else that is personal (except for emergencies). You can schedule your rotation, so don’t schedule it if you are going to be busy that month or if you have appointments and weddings and that sort of sh*t. You only get one shot to impress and no, doctors appointments, dentist appointments are not acceptable to me.
- If you volunteer to help with a presentation, a project, or writing up a paper… remember you are there to HELP and to IMPRESS ME (not the reverse) so dont make it more work for me than it would have been should I have done it on my own and don’t bitch about where I put you on the paper or abstract… I could have done it on my stupid… you were expendable and I just saw this as a win-win for both of us.
- If I ask you to do something, do it. Dont complain, dont ask why, dont take your time getting it done, do it now. If you cant get it done or dont know how to do it, find someone right away who can help you. If you cant find someone else, come back to me and I will do it myself (and yes you will loose points in my book if this happens, but you will loose even more points if you didn’t come to me and it didn’t get done).
- Sh*t rolls down hill, you will be made fun of and be picked on just like the interns. Take it, you day will come to pass it down to if you can learn to do that. Be sensitive to the hierarchy and learn that a junior resident’s job is to make life easier on the upper levels. A medical student that sees this and does this will be looked upon much more highly than one who does not as they will likely continue this during residency.
-As a medical student never screw over one of the lower level residents when it comes to procedures or the operating room. Some of them don’t get to do much and there is nothing worse than when the damn medical students takes their 2 seconds of glory or when the damn attending finally wants to show some interest in the medical student when it is finally the junior’s turn to do something. If the attending tells you to do something then leaves, ask the junior if they can walk you through it or share it with them.
- You are allowed 1-2 questions per procedure and make sure it is not at a critical time. Ask them before the procedure or after it- that is usually the safest. Nothing pisses an attending or chief resident off more than a student who asks 50 questions during a complex skull base dissection when they are TRYING to concentrate on not killing the patient. Remember the dictum in neurosurgery, less is more, this also applies to your questions and opening your mouth.
- If there is food, or a course, or any sort of handouts make sure you are LAST and that all the residents have gone before you. This shows great maturity. Nothing pisses a resident off more than having taken all not call and showing up to conference the next morning and there is no food left and the damn medical students have heaping plates that they are eating. Or there was this one time when I went to a course and a goddamn medical student had a cadaver to himself and 2 residents had to share (I don’t care if you helped prepare the cadavers… this was not for you, you are not yet a resident, your time will come).
- Have enough self-awareness to take the nonverbal and indirect subtle cues that the residents are trying to portray to you or they will make sure that you don’t match at their program.
I know this advice will make some medical students mad and that it is not politically or academically correct… the truth is that there are many residents that don’t act like this or hold this against medical students, but there are many that do. That is the purpose behind getting this information out- not the perpetuation of these methods.
I may add that many of us have friends at other programs, neurosurgery is small. If you piss me off I will let my friends know, and if I like you I will tell my friends about you as well.
Its always amazing when you see people this tactless and blinded by ambition that they have no idea how to work in a team. The student is the low man on the totem pole, but should be a valued member of the team. As a student, you shouldnt be afraid to ask questions and speak your mind, but there is a time and place for everything and its always important to be aware of that. In the same vein, residents and attendings should remember that students are future colleagues and should also be treated with respect.
Its always amazing when you see people this tactless and blinded by ambition that they have no idea how to work in a team. The student is the low man on the totem pole, but should be a valued member of the team. As a student, you shouldnt be afraid to ask questions and speak your mind, but there is a time and place for everything and its always important to be aware of that. In the same vein, residents and attendings should remember that students are future colleagues and should also be treated with respect.
This thread is good, but the OP is clearly a giant man-coward. Uncle Harvey is not the place for this: your operating room is! You should tell the little shit to straighten the fuck up, and let him know how much he sucks if he doesn’t fly straight. Because as of right now, I bet that little bastard student thinks he’s the greatest MS4 in the history of neurosurgery, and YOU let that happen you bastard!!!!!!!
And because this is uncle harvey, aren’t we supposed to say something like ‘amen brother’?
Why is it that we have people in the field like the OP that are basically douchebags? Dude get the stick out of your ass. Seriously. Get some sleep and chill out.
Why is it that we have people in the field like the OP that are basically douchebags? Dude get the stick out of your ass. Seriously. Get some sleep and chill out.
Why is it that we have people in the field like the OP that are basically douchebags? Dude get the stick out of your ass. Seriously. Get some sleep and chill out.
Why is it that we have people in the field like the OP that are basically douchebags? Dude get the stick out of your ass. Seriously. Get some sleep and chill out.
Why is it that we have people in the field like the OP that are basically douchebags? Dude get the stick out of your ass. Seriously. Get some sleep and chill out.
You ain’t no neurosurgery resident if you think it is possible to “get some sleep”. Thanks for contributing med stud ass nuget.
This was intended to be helpful to the SubIs. Unless you are a resident with some advice please refrain from posting crap here. At every program that are going to be people who believe in an hierarchy in neurosurgery, no matter how liberal the program. Since most places are one or two per year, it is enough to piss off a single resident and this will ensure you don’t match there. The match is a delicate process, you can have good scores, and good letters, but if through the resident grapevine people hear that there is something wrong with you, you might not match. That’s why is good for the med students to know what the expectations are, what they should do, and when they should shut up.
Why is it that we have people in the field like the OP that are basically douchebags? Dude get the stick out of your ass. Seriously. Get some sleep and chill out.
signed,
ms 4 that the op was posting about.
I sincerely hope that you do not match. If you can’t respect your residents, how are you going to function in a team? The most valuable asset to my team is that we can trust each other, who the hell is going to trust you? We really don’t need smart asses here. I hope you don’t apply to my program.
Why is it that we have people in the field like the OP that are basically douchebags? Dude get the stick out of your ass. Seriously. Get some sleep and chill out.
signed,
ms 4 that the op was posting about.
I sincerely hope that you do not match. If you can’t respect your residents, how are you going to function in a team? The most valuable asset to my team is that we can trust each other, who the hell is going to trust you? We really don’t need smart asses here. I hope you don’t apply to my program.
well, then, when the attending asks the junior resident a question on rounds, and the junior doesn’t know the answer, and the attending turns to me and asks me if i know, what am i supposed to do? pretend i don’t know the answer?
look, i understand what the OP is talking about here...i reallyl do. and, though i haven’t posted in this thread yet, i honestly don’t know what to do in that situation. look, i know it pisses off the res- but instead of just flaming us med students, how about some helpful hints?
i am a total team player- and i would never knowingly do anything to piss off the hierarchy which i know exists. but, sometimes the attendings/chiefs put us in impossible situations, where we’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t.
That attending may very well have been testing your social skills, and not your knowledge. It’s a tough situation to put someone in, but very informative for the prospective program.
