"Hidden Curriculum" in Veterinary School?

Veterinary Science Graduate Certificate from UofI
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Gemgrrrl

Gemgrrrl

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There has been some renewed discussion regarding medical school students experiences of harassment, bullying or intimidation while in school. Some refer to this as part of the "hidden curriculum" of medical school - something that is generally well known, but not discussed. Like hazing, surviving humiliating treatment by residents and clinical professors (who were most cited as exhibiting this teaching style) is often viewed as a right of passage. (There are some specific examples in this longitudinal study: http://www.researchgate.net/publication/230573525_Eradicating_Medical_Student_Mistreatment_A_Longitudinal_Study_of_One_Institution's_Efforts)

There are studies have linked these experiences with increased incidence of job dissatisfaction, depression, and suicide after graduation. With suicide incidence among veterinarians being so high, I was curious about how this translates into veterinary education. What are veterinary students experiences regarding harassment, intimidation and bullying during school? If you had experiences like this, how did it affect you during and after school? Did it have an affect on whether or not you chose to pursue an internship or residency? Your job satisfaction? Has it made you less likely to reach out to colleagues if you are feeling overwhelmed? If you're now in a teaching capacity, have you found that you've used these same tactics?

If you're a pre-vet, are you concerned about these kinds of experiences? Did it affect your choice of schools?
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Well I have not experienced anything like that at all in vet school - if anything the exact opposite. Our class is very supportive of each other and the upperclassmen are as well, some even going out of their way to help our class with study guides etc.

There are some conflicts between people (as there always will be, some personalities just do not clash well) but personally I haven't experienced anything that could be considered bullying or hazing.

Then again, I didn't experience it in high school at all either but part of that is just what circles you run in I would assume.
 
I'm not talking about between classmates. I'm referring to a teaching style that exists in medical school, wondering if vet students have experienced it.
 
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I have never experienced this at OVC and want to return eventually for a residency. 4th year has been my favourite year of vet school by far and it is in large part due to the support of the interns, residents, and clinicians on every rotation.
 
Ah. Clearly I didn't read your first post very well or I'd have had a better idea of what you were referring to :p

Not sure really about that. It's probably something that would be more prevalent in clinics than in classroom. I'm not there yet so I wouldn't know what to tell you.
 
We have one intern right now that I feel likes to try to one up the students. But on the whole, my experience at AVC echoes that of SocialStigma's experience at OVC. Our senior clinicians, residents and interns are very supportive and have been encouraging even when I've given totally stupid answers.
 
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With like 50+ clinicians I worked with during clinics, there were a couple of sour ones that weren't that fun to work with that seemed to enjoy making other people miserable, but they were the rare exceptions. Overall, everyone was super encouraging and helpful and eager to teach. I didn't feel like there was a culture of bullying at all at least during clinical year of vet school. Internship might be a whole different story depending on where you end up. Some of those are hooooorrrible
 
There were a couple of profs at my school who seemed to get pleasure out of making some students as miserable as they could during their rotations. They seemed to pick on just one or two people in each rotation. It was definitely not the norm though. And I did see one student "tell off" one of our profs for bullying him. He did this in front of everyone and I immediately thought the prof would respond by destroying him verbally, but instead the prof apologized and seemed to be walking on eggshells around the guy after that. Some people just like to see what their subordinates will put up with - once their targets stand up for themselves, most of them will back down pretty quickly. Just remember, most bullies are really cowards at heart no matter what their position in life is. All of our residents were great - most remembered all too well what being a fourth year was like and they were all very supportive and helpful, in spite of often being frazzled from working so hard. I definitely don't think the behavior you're describing is typical of the DVM education. Post-DVM is a different story. I think a lot of interns, residents, and new associates encounter this type of behavior from their bosses, and it could very well be having an impact on suicides in the profession. Being emotionally brutalized is never good for the psyche.
 
Gemgrrrl said:
I'm not talking about between classmates. I'm referring to a teaching style that exists in medical school, wondering if vet students have experienced it.
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Eh. I haven't ever felt it was that big of a deal. There are obviously some interns/residents/clinicians who seem to enjoy making life hell for students... but so what. You're on with them for two weeks then you move on and tell stories about how awful they were. And really, most of the DVMs are anywhere from 'ok' to 'excellent' to work with. I've never felt like "OMG, I want to quit because of so-n-so."

That said, there are a couple stories I know of where clinicians broke someone down into tears in front of rotationmates. Or where a clinician knew an animal was getting euthanized but didn't tell the student on the case (intentionally.... I was there firsthand to witness that one) so the student worked it up all day and was in tears after finding out it was all pointless. But it never struck me as systemically rampant or unstated hazing or anything like that - just the occasional one-off jerk that you'd find in any job.
 
The things I could say here.

I have never experienced this in academic veterinary medicine.

However, in the realm of academic research, including veterinary research...that has been my life for the last few years. The abuses that went on (and are still going on) in my research lab would take pages to discuss.
 
MassDVMMPH said:
Post-DVM is a different story. I think a lot of interns, residents, and new associates encounter this type of behavior from their bosses, and it could very well be having an impact on suicides in the profession.
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Some practice managers and long-term techs can be brutal and catty to new associates and other staff as well. When you have a fairly small group of people working together like that with bullies amongst them, and no one of power that can or will correct it, it can be a miserable miserable existence.

Wtf, yup... my older sister who quite literally is one of the smartest most capable people I know, got bullied out of her PhD program 5 years in. She had enough strong publications, even in one of the nature journals as a grad student, that she wouldn't have really needed to put much effort into putting together a dissertation. At some point she decided she absolutely could not take the abuse any longer, and decided to master out and never do science again. I know a couple others who actually switched labs and tacked on a year or two of their program because their work environment was so bad.
 
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I've never experienced this at school, but bullying at work is a very real thing for most people. For the most part, our faculty is incredibly supportive. They really like to drive home the point that it's now less of a student-teacher relationship and that we're all colleagues now. I definitely haven't seen any hazing... at least since I left undergrad!
 
Minnerbelle said:
Some practice managers and long-term techs can be brutal and catty to new associates and other staff as well. When you have a fairly small group of people working together like that with bullies amongst them, and no one of power that can or will correct it, it can be a miserable miserable existence.

Wtf, yup... my older sister who quite literally is one of the smartest most capable people I know, got bullied out of her PhD program 5 years in. She had enough strong publications, even in one of the nature journals as a grad student, that she wouldn't have really needed to put much effort into putting together a dissertation. At some point she decided she absolutely could not take the abuse any longer, and decided to master out and never do science again. I know a couple others who actually switched labs and tacked on a year or two of their program because their work environment was so bad.
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That's exactly what I am doing. I will happily take an extra year at a place where I am treated with basic human decency rather than spend any more time where I am right now.
 
There is one particular clinician we have who has been belittling and cruel "behind the scenes" to particular students (heard from those students personally, not through the grapevine) while they are fine with others. There are a handful of others who just don't get along with some people for whatever reason. My current rotation clinicians are tough on me, and one specifically can be harsh but I don't think he means it in that way. Overall, I wouldn't say there has been anything close to hazing or harassment, but life as a fourth year vet student is a lot of long hours in stressful scenarios, and sometimes people's emotions get the better of them.
 
No personal experiences yet....but I have been 'warned' by several vets that the technicians in your clinical years make you feel like garbage, and that doesn't change as a recent graduate. Any thoughts on that?? My current boss told me that she never encountered a helpful tech during clinicals, and that they all jumped at the chance to make her feel small and stupid. For example, not placing a catheter in one try opened the door to insults.

Also, some advice on here has made me think like some vet school professors treat students like crap because they can. Is this a frequent occurence? It's a little intimidating as a future first year...

Edit: it didn't affect my school choice, no. To be told from multiple vets from multiple schools that techs generally make you feel like an idiot every day...well that tells me no school is immune. But overall, I have been told on here that profs can and will treat you badly, and there's nothing I can do about that. I disagree with the latter portion of that statement, though.
 
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pinkpuppy9 said:
No personal experiences yet....but I have been 'warned' by several vets that the technicians in your clinical years make you feel like garbage, and that doesn't change as a recent graduate. Any thoughts on that?? My current boss told me that she never encountered a helpful tech during clinicals, and that they all jumped at the chance to make her feel small and stupid. For example, not placing a catheter in one try opened the door to insults.
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One of the vets I worked for told me that the techs would purposefully touch her during the surgery portion of the foreign vet examinations, causing her to automatically fail her first time because she didn't notice and didn't rescrub. The second time she was super paranoid and wouldn't even let them go near her. Techs are what I fear most about clinics. I'm gonna be super paranoid haha!
 
Felixor90 said:
One of the vets I worked for told me that the techs would purposefully touch her during the surgery portion of the foreign vet examinations, causing her to automatically fail her first time because she didn't notice and didn't rescrub. The second time she was super paranoid and wouldn't even let them go near her. Techs are what I fear most about clinics. I'm gonna be super paranoid haha!
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:scared:
 
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pinkpuppy9 said:
No personal experiences yet....but I have been 'warned' by several vets that the technicians in your clinical years make you feel like garbage, and that doesn't change as a recent graduate. Any thoughts on that?? My current boss told me that she never encountered a helpful tech during clinicals, and that they all jumped at the chance to make her feel small and stupid. For example, not placing a catheter in one try opened the door to insults.

Also, some advice on here has made me think like some vet school professors treat students like crap because they can. Is this a frequent occurence? It's a little intimidating as a future first year...

Edit: it didn't affect my school choice, no. To be told from multiple vets from multiple schools that techs generally make you feel like an idiot every day...well that tells me no school is immune. But overall, I have been told on here that profs can and will treat you badly, and there's nothing I can do about that. I disagree with the latter portion of that statement, though.
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I've never heard anything like that here. Our techs are awesome from what interactions I've had with them so far. Really there to help us and teach.
 
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My experience with technicians was mostly the opposite. In vet school, the equine techs were often a bit rude (which I understand, as they had to spend much of their day working with SA people with limited horse experience) but the rest of the techs were all fabulous. In my first job out of vet school, I learned far more from the techs than from my employers!!
 
I've always been focused on non-clinical practice, so I can't give an opinion on bullying in the workplace. I echo everyone else that the people I've met in veterinary school, both students and professors, have been wonderful and supportive people. However, the pace of curriculum itself can be brutal. Sometimes, I feel that it unites vet students by shared trauma - that's why vet med parody videos can be so relatable, and why vet students on here tell pre-vets to enjoy life while they can.

I'm not sure it can be any different, though. There's just that much information to learn. As I said above, I think the people at veterinary school do their best to support students going through it.
 
pinkpuppy9 said:
No personal experiences yet....but I have been 'warned' by several vets that the technicians in your clinical years make you feel like garbage, and that doesn't change as a recent graduate. Any thoughts on that?? My current boss told me that she never encountered a helpful tech during clinicals, and that they all jumped at the chance to make her feel small and stupid. For example, not placing a catheter in one try opened the door to insults..
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Luckily, most of our technicians are fantastic. One can be a bit of a problem, and I've had a bad experience with her already. A student wasn't holding off when I went to place a catheter on what turned out to be the tech's mother's cat... so I obviously didn't get the catheter in. When I did go to put it in the second time, she backseat drove the whole time, I blew the leg, and she blew up. I thought it was entirely inappropriate and if I was someone with less experience putting catheters in, I probably would have been frazzled. That being said, it was a tiny kitten and I wasn't heartbroken that I didn't get one catheter out of the many that I've done.
To play devil's advocate, I could see teaching students all day every day to be trying for technicians that specifically went to school to know most of these clinical and hands-on skills that we struggle with. I tutor high school and college students a fair bit and I've had a couple students who just don't get a particular concept and it's difficult to explain it over and over again, and show it different ways -- and that's just for an hour or two! I couldn't imagine having to deal with the same mistakes from 100 different students every year.
 
Except for the rare exception, the techs I worked with my senior year were all fabulous and super helpful (again, same thing with clinicians in that there are a few bad apples in every profession).
 
The SA side of the hospital had some ego issues at times, but was generally ok. At least it was for the amount of time I spent there. 2 weeks in a rotation and out. I did see some interns get some fairly rude talkings to from residents. But I would have never wanted an internship for a million other reasons.

The LA area of the barns was always very friendly. TOTALLY different in the equine barns. One of the Equine surgeons had a reputation for being extremely hard to work with. He'd throw things at people, even during surgery, and it would be very ballsy for a student to attempt to talk to him. There has been many rumors about sexual harassment and gender bias (male residents getting more opportunities). The residents would take most of the heat and talk to him so he wouldn't have to deal with students. We were also told not to bother him, don't try conversation and even to avoid eye contact. I can't personally vouch for any of the rumors since I limited my equine time, but I could see how everyone was visibly more tense and on edge when he was around. Supposedly he's a great/famous surgeon and that's why he's gotten away with so much. It's a shame that's acceptable in an educational institution.
 
Good to hear that most techs seem to be happy to help.

Funny thing: I was talking to my old roommate today (she's premed), and she is having a hard time with interviewing and the MCAT. She met with someone on an adcom today, and he told her that med schools "dehumanize you so that you will be a better person for it when you start practicing."
 
pinkpuppy9 said:
dehumanize you so that you will be a better person for it when you start practicing.
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I think there is something to be said for building a thick skin being part of the curriculum, because you definitely need that when you're practicing. Not sure that means that you are a "better person" for it...it's a defense mechanism. And there are definitely ways to help someone prepare for that other than dehumanizing them.
 
A lot of how people respond to if they felt clinicians, techs, etc were "mean" is going to depend on individual personality as well. One of the professors at Edinburgh had a bit of a reputation for being a "bully" when at least in my mind he had a VERY dry sense of humor. He really pushed students to think during lectures and answer questions and since for all the other classes students weren't used to answering questions they felt he was being "rude". I never really thought he was being rude he was just tough. Then there was another professor there who truly was an asshat. Outside of that one professor, I haven't had any issues with anyone else, almost everyone has been very nice, approachable, knowledgeable and willing to teach. I will let you know if this changes as I go through final year rotations.
 
WildZoo said:
I think there is something to be said for building a thick skin being part of the curriculum, because you definitely need that when you're practicing. Not sure that means that you are a "better person" for it...it's a defense mechanism. And there are definitely ways to help someone prepare for that other than dehumanizing them.
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Definitely agree. It's important to learn how to be confident as a doctor. But to be told that being dehumanized is truly part of med school....geez.
 
I have learned a ton from the techs here. Most of them are super nice from the start, and others you have to figure out how to befriend them and make them happy. I haven't had a bad experience with a professor yet. I got into a squabble with a new clinician, but I think that was mostly because he didn't understand how our system worked/he was in a hurry, so he got frustrated with me.
 
DVMDream said:
A lot of how people respond to if they felt clinicians, techs, etc were "mean" is going to depend on individual personality as well. One of the professors at Edinburgh had a bit of a reputation for being a "bully" when at least in my mind he had a VERY dry sense of humor. He really pushed students to think during lectures and answer questions and since for all the other classes students weren't used to answering questions they felt he was being "rude". I never really thought he was being rude he was just tough. Then there was another professor there who truly was an asshat. Outside of that one professor, I haven't had any issues with anyone else, almost everyone has been very nice, approachable, knowledgeable and willing to teach. I will let you know if this changes as I go through final year rotations.
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This for sure. We have a professor here who does occasional assignments where she calls on one person in the class to answer questions that were assigned, and then she will ask follow-up questions so you have to know the material to answer correctly. When people don't know the answers and therefore fail the assignment (which isn't a big deal for your grade really), they all start saying how the professor is "mean" and they "can't believe she did that to so-and-so." Like, really? Grow up. If you don't know the answer, you don't know it. It's not the professor's fault, and she isn't mean. She just has high expectations of us to study on our own outside of class.
 
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By and large most of the techs here are in the "really awesome to work with" category. Good, skilled techs who are good at explaining what they're doing, why they're doing it, and coaching you through it if you don't know how.

There are a couple that are ......... pompous, I think. They think they're better and more important than the students, the interns, the residents, and the clinicians. As a rule they are NOT team players and jealously protect their little fiefdoms. One of them is widely known throughout the hospital as "Dr. Tech" because of her know-it-all - and bossy - attitude. And there are a couple that love to hover over you when you're trying to do something ... and then both talk to you at the same time giving you conflict advice. You know, the kind of thing where you're putting in your first epidural and you've got two techs hovering and one is saying "angle this way" and the other is saying "angle (the other) way" and you just want to say "one of you go the heck away .... I don't care which one".

But meh. The majority are so awesome that the few bad ones just don't matter too much.
 
I don't think we have any Dr Techs at AVC. We have a tech who is known to be stern but most of her ire is directed at the surgeons, not the students. And there's a tech in another department who is good at what she does but needs to not be doing it in a teaching hospital because it's the teaching part she doesn't seem to like. But we don't have any I would describe as pompous.

And I do think that sometimes bullying is in the eye of the beholder. I had two rotation mates who felt they were being picked on in rounds, because the clinicians were more nitpicky with them then with me and the fourth student. What it boiled down to though was me and the other student just rattled off all our info while the ones being picked on went slower and paused. So the clinicians had more time to grill them. (Redhead was on this rotation with me), but I don't think the clinicians were actually trying to pick on them.
 
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pinkpuppy9 said:
Funny thing: I was talking to my old roommate today (she's premed), and she is having a hard time with interviewing and the MCAT. She met with someone on an adcom today, and he told her that med schools "dehumanize you so that you will be a better person for it when you start practicing."
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Ah yes. I have several friends in med school/recently graduated and there is something called PIMPing that clinicians and residents do to students on rounds. It stands for "put in my place" and basically the doctor in charge asks increasingly harder questions until there's no way you could know the answer.
 
Rwwilliams said:
Ah yes. I have several friends in med school/recently graduated and there is something called PIMPing that clinicians and residents do to students on rounds. It stands for "put in my place" and basically the doctor in charge asks increasingly harder questions until there's no way you could know the answer.
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That's a pretty standard part of many rotations. Maybe most rotations. The negative spin is that it's just smacking you down a bit. The positive spin is that they're pushing you to the edge of your knowledge so you can learn something. Which one it is at any given time just depends on context.
 
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LetItSnow said:
That's a pretty standard part of many rotations. Maybe most rotations. The negative spin is that it's just smacking you down a bit. The positive spin is that they're pushing you to the edge of your knowledge so you can learn something. Which one it is at any given time just depends on context.
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Yeah, I don't have a problem with it and actually almost prefer it to being asked one or two questions and then being left alone. I want my knowledge to be probed and I want preceptors to ask me to know more and more and test the limits of my comfort zone. I can see how some more sensitive classmates would feel bullied, however.
 
My dad said vet school was a breeze but that was awhile ago lol
 
Trilt said:
Are you just verbalizing whatever random thoughts come to your mind on threads..?
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I am stating that vet school does not involve the bullying/intimidation/etc that the OP is inquiring about (based on my knowledge). Isn't that what the OP was asking for?
 
SClENCE said:
I am stating that vet school does not involve the bullying/intimidation/etc that the OP is inquiring about (based on my knowledge). Isn't that what the OP was asking for?
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how long ago was your dad in vet school? Because it may or may not be the same culture as when your dad went to vet school.

They don't dehumanize you in vet school. The course load can do that to some people, I guess.

Techs at UTK were excellent. We had 1 teacher that would go out of his way to scare students. People wouldn't wear bright colors on days he taught because it made him call on them more. He has since moved to Tufts, I think.
 
Rwwilliams said:
Ah yes. I have several friends in med school/recently graduated and there is something called PIMPing that clinicians and residents do to students on rounds. It stands for "put in my place" and basically the doctor in charge asks increasingly harder questions until there's no way you could know the answer.
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I graduated almost 10 years ago, but this was definitely a pretty common occurrence in vet school. I think it was less intended to dehumanize us and more to make us realize how little we actually knew, so that we'd appreciate the need to consult outside resources.
 
I work as a tech in a teaching/specialty referral center in NYC and we have an intern class every year. I'm starting vet school at UPenn this summer. The techs and interns grow to be essentially best friends over the period of the year. All the specialty doctors and especially the hospital director, are incredibly supporting of the interns. Nobody bullies anybody, and I think the only thing the interns complain about is really the long hours and having to work with the occasional skeleton crew when someone calls out sick. We actually have quite a few interns that came from UPenn and they've been awesome with me during my whole application process.
 
WildZoo said:
I think there is something to be said for building a thick skin being part of the curriculum, because you definitely need that when you're practicing. Not sure that means that you are a "better person" for it...it's a defense mechanism. And there are definitely ways to help someone prepare for that other than dehumanizing them.
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I totally agree. One of the things they were talking about on the medical school side is that the study participants scored lower on the empathy/compassion scales after med school compared to before. That was a concern for the schools, and they felt like the hidden curriculum, pimping, etc. might be the cause of the decline.

SClENCE said:
I am stating that vet school does not involve the bullying/intimidation/etc that the OP is inquiring about (based on my knowledge). Isn't that what the OP was asking for?
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It really seems to depend on the school and the individual. While there might be a few difficult personalities at each school, it doesn't seem to be a cultural thing in the same way it is in med school. I'm glad to hear that.

The internship / residency / PhD nightmares are another story though. I've seen some horror stories with grad students and post docs where I currently work. My PI is amazing, but there are some that are really horrible. How can you tell before you get into a situation like that?
 
lailanni said:
One of the Equine surgeons had a reputation for being extremely hard to work with. He'd throw things at people, even during surgery, and it would be very ballsy for a student to attempt to talk to him.
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Hasn't anyone there realized that throwing things at people is a crime called assault? If the thrown object actually hits someone, it is assault and battery. Someone needs to press charges against that guy. Once that news hit the papers, the university would have to do something about him just to salvage their reputation.
 
Gemgrrrl said:
The internship / residency / PhD nightmares are another story though. I've seen some horror stories with grad students and post docs where I currently work. My PI is amazing, but there are some that are really horrible. How can you tell before you get into a situation like that?
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Talk to the grad students, interns, or residents themselves. Can't stress than enough. Don't meet with just the PI and have him paint a beautiful picture of the lab. Try to tour for a full day or attend a lab meeting to see what the atmosphere is like.
 
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MassDVMMPH said:
Hasn't anyone there realized that throwing things at people is a crime called assault? If the thrown object actually hits someone, it is assault and battery. Someone needs to press charges against that guy. Once that news hit the papers, the university would have to do something about him just to salvage their reputation.
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I am not suggesting a person keep any sort of physical/emotional harm done to them under wraps, but large universities keep professor/athlete/faculty scandals hidden on a regular basis. For all you know, this guy HAS been reported. Sorry to be negative, but it is what it is sometimes. Doesn't mean it should ever go unreported though.
 
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