Do you get to select clinical attendings during clerkships?

[Etorphine]

Quick logistical question about clerkship attendings. Is it ever possible to *tactfully* select/request which attending you get in 3rd year for a core clerkship like Surgery, IM, OB-GYN, etc.?

Along the same lines, on the departmental webpage at your school, do faculty members with the designation "associate professor" and "assistant professor" ever serve as your designated attending (that evaluates you), or is this only individuals with the title "clinical instructor/professor?"

The reason I ask is because I've been talking with a few upper classmen who have independently said there is one specific attending who has a track record of having a difficult personality and consistently giving scathing evaluations. I obviously want to avoid this type of individual if at all possible, as well as calculate my odds of getting him/her based on number of teaching faculty (small sized department).

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[evilbooyaa]

Not really, but it depends on the site. The most you can do is ask your clerkship director to not use that professor's eval, citing some BS reason about personality differences, etc. etc.

Professor to me means they teach at least one MS1/MS2 lecture per year. I believe clinical instructor means they are somehow more entwined in student education. However, there are many attendings you will work with who have neither of those titles.

Asking for a specific attending, again, is difficult, and seems like you may know that person outside of the hospital, and thus want them to give you an easy honors. The best thing to do is ask to not to be put with that specific attending (or avoid that specific attending's service if possible, i.e. avoid vascular on your surgery rotationto avoid the malignant vascular surgery attending). The worst that can happen is that they'll say "No, you can't do that".

 

[Etorphine]

Not really, but it depends on the site. The most you can do is ask your clerkship director to not use that professor's eval, citing some BS reason about personality differences, etc. etc.

Professor to me means they teach at least one MS1/MS2 lecture per year. I believe clinical instructor means they are somehow more entwined in student education. However, there are many attendings you will work with who have neither of those titles.

Asking for a specific attending, again, is difficult, and seems like you may know that person outside of the hospital, and thus want them to give you an easy honors. The best thing to do is ask to not to be put with that specific attending (or avoid that specific attending's service if possible, i.e. avoid vascular on your surgery rotationto avoid the malignant vascular surgery attending). The worst that can happen is that they'll say "No, you can't do that".

Thanks for the response. That is about what I figured; I can definitely see why coordinators would want to avoid allowing students to pick! I guess as medical students, this is one area that we have to just work with what we get, and cross our fingers that we get matched with reasonable and objective evaluators down the road.

 

[JJMrK]

Quick logistical question about clerkship attendings. Is it ever possible to *tactfully* select/request which attending you get in 3rd year for a core clerkship like Surgery, IM, OB-GYN, etc.?

Along the same lines, on the departmental webpage at your school, do faculty members with the designation "associate professor" and "assistant professor" ever serve as your designated attending (that evaluates you), or is this only individuals with the title "clinical instructor/professor?"

The reason I ask is because I've been talking with a few upper classmen who have independently said there is one specific attending who has a track record of having a difficult personality and consistently giving scathing evaluations. I obviously want to avoid this type of individual if at all possible, as well as calculate my odds of getting him/her based on number of teaching faculty (small sized department).

Often you are able to choose who evaluates you. Sometimes it's possible to request a certain attending if you're doing an outpatient rotation with a bunch of clinic and are assigned to one particular place. If you're on a surgical rotation, you can often choose which cases to go to if there are multiple different attending on the service.

Assistant professors are typically younger faculty, and as they move up the ranks of academia they become associate (and then full) professors. Typically this has nothing to do with who evaluates you. At many programs I've seen "clinical instructor" as the title given to fellows; YMMV.

Finally, some things you can't control. "Calculating your odds" sounds like a giant waste of your time. Request a "nice" attending if you must, but be aware that the students in question might have earned their evaluations. You never know where you'll learn something, who you will learn it from, and who will end up supporting you when all is said and done.