I heard a lot of preceptors treat IMG students from the carriebean like literal trash during clinical rotations, I heard stories where they were assigned to replace bedsheets and clean stuff. Im just wondering do preceptors even know what med school you went to ? If so how would DO students be treated? I go to a rural DO school that has sites at urban areas that I would like to rotate at but im wondering if I should just stick to the rural areas
Not sure where you heard this from. In all my years, I have never heard of a medical student (DO, MD, IMG, A-IMG) be told to clean things or replace bedsheets. That is why the hospital has housekeeping. In fact, there is a very specific way that the bedsheets need to be put on and a specific way that the room needs to be cleaned. In addition, replacing bed sheets while the patient is on them is a nursing duty. Now, are there going to be times when help is needed such as with a morbidly obese patient or a very combative patient? Of course. As an attending I help those out as well. It is an inter-disciplinary team approach.
When I have students with me on my service, what I am looking for is the passion for learning. If you are in my ICU and I see that you are just going through the motions and do not care or do not want to be there, even after trying to engage you I will not waste my time. I have an average of 12-15 patients, 5 residents, and responsibilities to attend to. But......if you show me that you are interested (even if you want to be an ortho bro), you will be assigned patients and you will present on rounds. You will be given the opportunity to learn.
Treating students poorly is a sign of poor professionalism and if an attending does that, then you as the student should report that to your school who will then be in touch with the administrator. As the Director of Osteopathic Education at my shop, I am brought in on all student issues as well as issues with attendings (mainly that they did not fill out evaluations). But we have confronted attendings who were disrespectful. What you need to understand is that the hospital who allows you to rotate would like a Return on their investment. The money that your institution pays is a small stipend to the attending and administrative fees (which cover EMR training) etc. But the money that the attending may or may not get is not nearly enough to cover the cost of the education that they are expected to provide. As a result, it is the hope that many of the students that rotate through the hospital eventually apply and become residents and eventually faculty. Because the hospital knows you and would gamble on someone they know rather than a random person that just happened to match in the right spot. If the student has a bad experience, then word of mouth gets around not only your school but on social media and the residency program of the hospital may not fill their spots, need to SOAP, or even after that not get any residents and are left with the students that were not the best. This causes the program to risk having a graduating resident fail the boards and THAT is a big deal for the ACGME. Board pass rates must be high to continue with accreditation (if I recall, it has to be at least 65% over 3 years).
When choosing your rotation site, you need to ask yourself what is your goal for that rotation. Because depending on where you go you will get different pathology. Rural hospitals also tend to have limited resources and may need to send their critically ill patients to a secondary, tertiary, or quaternary institution and that will affect your learning. Do your research on the sites, see the number of beds and services they offer. See if it aligns with your goals.
