During my last year of residency the new PD started developing favorites among the medstudents. It was real high-school drama and very unprofessional. She had one ranked very highly-#1 or close to it and that student promised the PD she ranked our program as #1. She got into Jefferson-clearly proving she didn't rank us as #1. The PD was furious and took it very personally.
I was aghast with this clear boundary violation and that my PD clearly couldn't see her own enmeshment with getting her favorites in as if they were BFFs. I also knew I really couldn't do anything about it. I could tell people could see what was going on and thought it was inappropriate by their facial expressions and body language, but like the Emperor's New Clothes, no one was going to publicly admit what was going on. I kept saying to myself, "James you're going to be out of this program in weeks, just remember that."
Reason why I didn't point the finger was because aside that I was clearly outranked, I was working on another issue that needed to be fixed that I thought was more severe. I was trying to expose an attending in my program that was only showing up to the unit about 15 minutes a day when he should've been there at least 4 hours. Turned out he was working at two places at once and not telling either place, coming to the inpatient unit only to sign notes and then leaving. I told the PD and she freaked out-not against him but me for even bringing it up. I felt I already was taking a major hit for the good of humanity and being crucified for it and if no goddamned attending in the program was going to open his mouth, geez WTF could I do being that my goose was already being cooked?
(BTW given that the department pretty much blew me off and marked me as a trouble maker I reported this to the GME who did their own investigation and verified eveything I said was true. At the end of the year they even figured out the other place he worked at getting documents he signed showing he was working two full time jobs at the same time during the same hours. All the while the PD kept pointing the finger at me as a liar until the proof was shown to her, after the entire ordeal she never apologized. She just acted as if it never happened and was really nice to me as if she never was throwing poisoned barbs against me behind my back).
She didn't lie when it came to the MATCH as far as I knew but it clearly was something she hadn't been able to emotionally master at that point in time. She was new and I understand that but I didn't expect her to have acted like this was some Fox high school drama.
Most PDs do it because they love teaching and molding the future. Even my PD that I knew had issues fit that category, but just like her, no one is without flaws. I think hers was that she wanted to be popular to a fault kind of like Micheal Scott from The Office, and thinking that if she were popular she wasn't doing anything wrong because how could you be wrong if you're loved? Problem was she picked who were to be the favorites and only wanted their love while blowing off the others as if they were to be shunned when all residents need to be seen objectively.
Others may have other faults such as wanting to be treated in a very entitled (to a fault) manner because they're the PD (I've seen that with a PD in another program).
In general I wouldn't think PDs would lie about things like the MATCH, but I also think a minority that does exist are doing shady things.
