Is anyone else Disgusted?

Resident and Fellow Experience in Training
This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
G

greenbean

Junior Member
15+ Year Member
Joined
Jul 22, 2005
Messages
84
Reaction score
0
I am 4th medical student.

I should be really happy and stressing about interviews and all that stuff but Im not. In fact, I haven't even applied yet. I dont even know if I want to apply, either this year or in the future. I can't settle on a specialty choice. I cannot really say that any particular field "drew" special interest b'c that just never happend for me(but i did like all of my rotations alot)

the way i see medicine being practiced is so different from what i imagined. mostly every field i run is practicing "defensive medicine". pts can dictate what tests they want to do,whether they are indicated or not, pts can demand meds whether they need them or not. and if they are not appeased, they can complain about you.if you rack up enough complaints, then u;ll eventually be fired. everyone is so worried about being sued, its sickening.

and everyone is bugging me asking me what field im applying into ..so to get them off my back i say im applying to medicine, which may be what ends up happening. but ive started having serious nightmares about being a pcp b'c i knew if i did that ,id end up being miserable.

to top things off, i am not pleased with my medical education; i really dont feel like ive "mastered" anything, in fact, now i just find it hard to focus and concentrate at all, i cant even read for an hr b4 being distracted bysomething else, with just an md im good for nothing, unless i complete residency..

on the rotation im on right now(peds) i see alot of the senior residents applying for jobs, so far they are all out of luck. to me, thats absolutely terrifying, think about it.

4 yrs of ugrad+4 yrs of med + 3++ yrs of residency= no job
what a waste of time
why oh why didn't i just do engineering or law?
Members don't see this ad.
 
greenbean said:
I am 4th medical student.

I should be really happy and stressing about interviews and all that stuff but Im not. In fact, I haven't even applied yet. I dont even know if I want to apply, either this year or in the future. I can't settle on a specialty choice. I cannot really say that any particular field "drew" special interest b'c that just never happend for me(but i did like all of my rotations alot)

the way i see medicine being practiced is so different from what i imagined. mostly every field i run is practicing "defensive medicine". pts can dictate what tests they want to do,whether they are indicated or not, pts can demand meds whether they need them or not. and if they are not appeased, they can complain about you.if you rack up enough complaints, then u;ll eventually be fired. everyone is so worried about being sued, its sickening.

and everyone is bugging me asking me what field im applying into ..so to get them off my back i say im applying to medicine, which may be what ends up happening. but ive started having serious nightmares about being a pcp b'c i knew if i did that ,id end up being miserable.

to top things off, i am not pleased with my medical education; i really dont feel like ive "mastered" anything, in fact, now i just find it hard to focus and concentrate at all, i cant even read for an hr b4 being distracted bysomething else, with just an md im good for nothing, unless i complete residency..

on the rotation im on right now(peds) i see alot of the senior residents applying for jobs, so far they are all out of luck. to me, thats absolutely terrifying, think about it.

4 yrs of ugrad+4 yrs of med + 3++ yrs of residency= no job
what a waste of time
why oh why didn't i just do engineering or law?
Click to expand...


The unemployment rate for physicians is something like....um...zero. Or near enough to zero that somebody who can't find a job is either really, really picky or has a screw or two coming loose.

Relax. It's only November. By may your residents will have lined up jobs.
 
Why do you think you'd be miserable in primary care? If you truly enjoy everything, nothing beats it. It's the easiest field in which to be self-employed, and you can pick and choose whom you treat a lot more readily than in most other fields where you're dependent upon referrals. No shortage of job opportunities, either. Think about it. ;)
 
im currently doing medicine clinic, its 1 d/wk for 6 mos , granted this is a resident clinic, but the pts are all on welfare/ssi, pretty much demand free medication(most of time its for dumb stuff like motrin b'c they "cant afford it"), or they want you to sign paperwork that deems them handicapped so that they can collect ssi/whatever scheme theyve come up with to bilk the govt. alot of these pts only speak spanish and give off an attitude that conveys their annoyance that i cant speak spanish. many hispanic pts have asked me point blank "why dont u learn spanish?"....this is VERY annoying, frankly i find it disrespectful(as im fluent in 3 languages: english, my mother tongue and 1others thats not a romance language)

i dont like being a referral person either
 
Looking back, I don't think I realized how much of medicine was actually business oriented. Now in my third year of residency in FP, I find most of what I'm learning relates to the business aspects. I subconsciously think about what level E&M code each visit will be as I examine and treat every patient.

And the few patients that I've seen that died unexpectedly or had a sudden serious hospitalization, the first thing I asked myself was "did I make a mistake or miss something?" and the second thing was "will I get sued?"

And I don't even want to get into the politics of job searching. Sometimes I think there is more politics in medicine than there is in politics.

I see where you are coming from. But every job sucks in its own way. Thats why people who win the lottery retire. I have a hard time picturing myself doing anything else, and at least I'm not cleaning toilets, or worse, practicing law.
 
greenbean said:
im currently doing medicine clinic, its 1 d/wk for 6 mos , granted this is a resident clinic, but the pts are all on welfare/ssi, pretty much demand free medication(most of time its for dumb stuff like motrin b'c they "cant afford it"), or they want you to sign paperwork that deems them handicapped so that they can collect ssi/whatever scheme theyve come up with to bilk the govt. alot of these pts only speak spanish and give off an attitude that conveys their annoyance that i cant speak spanish. many hispanic pts have asked me point blank "why dont u learn spanish?"....this is VERY annoying, frankly i find it disrespectful(as im fluent in 3 languages: english, my mother tongue and 1others thats not a romance language)

i dont like being a referral person either
Click to expand...

Do a Pathology residency. You wouldn't even have to stay in medicine. You could get into research and work for the pharmaceutical industry.
 
what no one can tell is :how do they go about getting a job? do they look in the paper, is there a website? i dont c recruiters or job fairs for physicians
if u look on the websites posting physicians' salaries, it looks like all fields are in the 6 figures..i find it hard to believe, ie does a pcp(or any doctor) working full time at a va make that much? i reallly doubt it...

while ive never done a path elective, i dont particularly enjoy microscopes, and the litigious aspect of making an incorrect path call is also disconcerting
 
KentW said:
Why do you think you'd be miserable in primary care? If you truly enjoy everything, nothing beats it. It's the easiest field in which to be self-employed, and you can pick and choose whom you treat a lot more readily than in most other fields where you're dependent upon referrals. No shortage of job opportunities, either. Think about it. ;)
Click to expand...

Because adjusting hypertensive meds and working 100 hours per week for just over $100k per year doesn't cut it. That's my guess.
 
greenbean said:
what no one can tell is :how do they go about getting a job? do they look in the paper, is there a website? i dont c recruiters or job fairs for physicians
if u look on the websites posting physicians' salaries, it looks like all fields are in the 6 figures..i find it hard to believe, ie does a pcp(or any doctor) working full time at a va make that much? i reallly doubt it...

while ive never done a path elective, i dont particularly enjoy microscopes, and the litigious aspect of making an incorrect path call is also disconcerting
Click to expand...

Yes, all doctors make 6 figures, except those that choose not to. All of them.

If you are scared of the litigious aspect of path, then maybe you should rethink your career. All docs get sued. Some just more than others. Path generally does ok.
 
greenbean said:
what no one can tell is :how do they go about getting a job? do they look in the paper, is there a website? i dont c recruiters or job fairs for physicians
if u look on the websites posting physicians' salaries, it looks like all fields are in the 6 figures..i find it hard to believe, ie does a pcp(or any doctor) working full time at a va make that much? i reallly doubt it...

while ive never done a path elective, i dont particularly enjoy microscopes, and the litigious aspect of making an incorrect path call is also disconcerting
Click to expand...
Every doc I've worked with gets 2-3 job offers a week in the mail. They just toss them out with the rest of the junk mail.

Path doesn't take call. What does that tell you about the 'urgency' of a path emergency? And pathologists don't have to work in a hospital - like any doc, you don't have to work in academia or a big teaching hospital.
 
As a MS4, you are NOT suppose to feel like you know anything. That is what residency is for! When you get a 'real' job, you're expected to be knowledgeable in YOUR specific field, and nothing more.
I am now an attending...(yikes!) and I was treating a retired cardiologist whose daughter is a pediatrician: they have no idea what I am talking about in my field, psychiatry. The internist who made the referral also knew very little about how to help them: and THAT IS OKAY! You'll learn what you need to learn. Even if you don't completely master it, which you probably won't, that is what 'consultations' are for!
As for getting sued: you do the best you can, and doctors are mostly sued for falling WAY below the standard of care, or just being mean. If you have a good working relationship with your patients, even if you make a heinous mistake, most of them will not sue.
I think being a doctor is the best career, ever. I get to tell my child that mommy works because people are hurting, and mommy also works to make money. What could be better then that?
Also, in terms of finding a job: don't worry, everybody gets a job. Really. You may not like your job, but you can always quite and find something else. I don't know of a single doctor who is without a job if s/he wants one. But I know plenty of engineers who don't have jobs.
 
thanks for all the great replies

job offers come in the mail and tossed in the trash? what field of medicine is this? i dunno have a hard time believing this when i was talking to residents most of them couldnt answer how they would go about job hunting, so either they dont know or its a big secret

and once your sued(and lose) wont u get labeled as a bad doctor that no pt will want to see? i would think the stress of just getting sued would be bad enough, they say the docs who get sued are the ones "dont communicate well with their pts", while i can somewhat agreee with that, i personally would be more likely to sue if i knew my physician did something stupid,lacked knowledge that resulted in harm to me,,,even if they were the most personable guy/gal i knew

and as for not knowing anything...thats just plain depressing. i would think that after almost 4 years i would know alot, but i dont think ive gained much, i feel like i barely passed these shelf exams which are supposed to reflect common problems on each rotation, but ive never done really well on any of them. to me, that means i didnt really attain a level of knowledge i should have at the end of the rotation.

ok, back to boredom
 
greenbean said:
many hispanic pts have asked me point blank "why dont u learn spanish?"....this is VERY annoying, frankly i find it disrespectful(as im fluent in 3 languages: english, my mother tongue and 1others thats not a romance language)

i dont like being a referral person either
Click to expand...

Why don't you just answer them "Why don't you learn English?"
 
youre serious?
as good as that would feel, im at a "touchy-feely" kind of school, where that kind of behavior is admonished, id probably beaten with a stick if talked back to a pt
 
greenbean said:
if u look on the websites posting physicians' salaries, it looks like all fields are in the 6 figures..i find it hard to believe, ie does a pcp(or any doctor) working full time at a va make that much? i reallly doubt it...
Click to expand...

Mean income for Family Medicine ~165K. Mean for Gen IM and peds is slightly less.

Why is that so hard to believe? Do a little checking about reimbursements, estimate 25-30 pts/day (usually less), and you'll come up with a similar figure.

I'm not trying to sell you on primary care because you don't appear to really enjoy patients, but you don't seem to enjoy much about medicine in general, either. You really seem focused on litigation, finding a job, and making less than 6 figures, all of which are things primary care docs rarely if ever have to face.

Life is short, and you are probably young enough to make a go at something else. Yes, you will have debt, but the world doesn't need any more resentful, bitter doctors.
 
greenbean said:
... or they want you to sign paperwork that deems them handicapped so that they can collect ssi/whatever scheme theyve come up with to bilk the govt. alot of these pts only speak spanish and give off an attitude that conveys their annoyance that i cant speak spanish. many hispanic pts have asked me point blank "why dont u learn spanish?"....this is VERY annoying, frankly i find it disrespectful(as im fluent in 3 languages: english, my mother tongue and 1others thats not a romance language)
Click to expand...

Green, I totally relate to what you are saying. I am still wading through third year and begining to ask myself every single day: why am I doing this again? I absolutely hate third year, and find it a complete nightmare.

As for trying to figure out an area of medicine that I might find less horrific than say - all of them, I have no idea. I want to move to Canada I think, as I just don't know if I want to practice medicine here, at least not the way it is done now. We have such a screwed up system.

I feel stuck because I am so far in debt, and yet I don't feel able to make a decision about what area to go into. I like physicians in all the fields, and can see the pluses and minuses of them all. I just don't know what is the right thing for me ...
 
KentW said:
Why do you think you'd be miserable in primary care? If you truly enjoy everything, nothing beats it. It's the easiest field in which to be self-employed, and you can pick and choose whom you treat a lot more readily than in most other fields where you're dependent upon referrals. No shortage of job opportunities, either. Think about it. ;)
Click to expand...
Hell, even I've warmed (slightly....I'm just this side of absolute zero at this point) to the idea of primary care thanks to Kent and the other folks I've talked to. :laugh:
 
drbon said:
Why don't you just answer them "Why don't you learn English?"
Click to expand...
I usually answer people like that (illegals who "no habla Ingles") in German....."See now you know how feels don't you?" Although I would love to become fluent in Mexican just so I can look at them and go (in their native tongue) "Actually I do speak Spanish, but last time I checked this isn't f--king Nogales, so let's do this in English".
 
and once your sued(and lose) wont u get labeled as a bad doctor that no pt will want to see?
Click to expand...
No, because not many people actually pay that much attention to their docs (particularly in low income areas); there is one doc here who has been sued more times than I've got fingers, lost more than a couple of them and still manages to maintain a practice.....

Speaking of practice, perhaps you should see your doctor about getting your dose of Xanax increased.....
 
greenbean said:
and as for not knowing anything...thats just plain depressing. i would think that after almost 4 years i would know alot, .
Click to expand...

Well, then you were wrong.... :laugh:

but i dont think ive gained much, i feel like i barely passed these shelf exams which are supposed to reflect common problems on each rotation but ive never done really well on any of them to me, that means i didnt really attain a level of knowledge i should have at the end of the rotation.
Click to expand...

Could it be that you're just a lousy student? :eek:
 
DropkickMurphy said:
Could it be that you're just a lousy student? :eek:
Click to expand...

Hey Drop, that's harsh. I agree with the OP. I don't feel like I am learning very much on my rotations so far and it is another of the things that is making me so frustrated. My first rotation was surgery and I did ONE h&p, which no one even really looked at. I did not even do the physical, just a history, so technically it was just an h - with no p. All I did were these stupid 10 line SOAP notes every morning, and stood around in the OR like I was in prison. Mostly, people just ignored me. Sometimes they would yell at me. It was a six week rotation. Does that sound like good education to you?
 
Paws said:
Hey Drop, that's harsh. I agree with the OP. I don't feel like I am learning very much on my rotations so far and it is another of the things that is making me so frustrated. My first rotation was surgery and I did ONE h&p, which no one even really looked at. I did not even do the physical, just a history, so technically it was just an h - with no p. All I did were these stupid 10 line SOAP notes every morning, and stood around in the OR like I was in prison. Mostly, people just ignored me. Sometimes they would yell at me. It was a six week rotation. Does that sound like good education to you?
Click to expand...
Sorry....I'm tired and didn't mean to be rude to the OP.....but it does stand that if you aren't doing well on your exams (regardless of what they are) and you are actually trying (which does mean not relying on your preceptors to force or spoon feed the information to you; if you haven't learned what you feel is necessary to pass, find a way to learn it), perhaps then you might not be the sharpest tool in the shed. That was my point, and I apologize for not elaborating further.
 
Boo hoo hoo, some people are just not cut out for medicine. Quit will you're still young. It's a difficult path and a difficult life. It's terrible if you don't enjoy what you are doing. OP seems to act as if he wants everyone to pay attention or give him recognition as if he is the second coming. guess what it's not going to happen. Peoples' lives are on the line, so please excuse your residents or attendings for not giving you a hug at the end of the day and checking to make sure you feel all warm and fuzzy.
 
greenbean said:
im currently doing medicine clinic, its 1 d/wk for 6 mos , granted this is a resident clinic, but the pts are all on welfare/ssi, pretty much demand free medication(most of time its for dumb stuff like motrin b'c they "cant afford it"), or they want you to sign paperwork that deems them handicapped so that they can collect ssi/whatever scheme theyve come up with to bilk the govt. alot of these pts only speak spanish and give off an attitude that conveys their annoyance that i cant speak spanish. many hispanic pts have asked me point blank "why dont u learn spanish?"....this is VERY annoying, frankly i find it disrespectful(as im fluent in 3 languages: english, my mother tongue and 1others thats not a romance language)

i dont like being a referral person either
Click to expand...


Hey green,

Not trying to be a jerk to you but I'm curious about this statement. I have worked extensively with the Hispanic/Latino population in the US. I have NEVER heard of a patient saying to anyone "why don't you learn Spanish." In my experience, H/L patients tend to be so grateful that it almost makes me uncomfortable. I try to cut them some slack, most Americans can only speak one language and many of them are proud of that fact...
 
when i was a resident I heard that more than once from spanish speaking patients. I was pretty offended, as we had spanish translators for them and they weren't even paying for care.
 
When I was an M4 I felt somewhat how you did.

But that's ok. We all go through it. Some worse than others. Some are willing to admit it, some aren't.

But one topic I have to clarify for you, about the whole "practicing medicine defensively thing." Yeah, you'll get sued. The average EM attending gets sued every 7 years. Its kind of, what happens. "Goes with the territory."

Did you know that the VAST majority of filed lawsuits gets thrown away? And that we WIN lawsuits FAR more often than lose them?

The ones you hear about are the "one that got away." You don't hear about the docs that don't get sued, or the ones that get dropped. You only hear about the ones that go to court, which is much less than 10% of filed lawsuits.

Don't let that dissuade you. You're going to have a major ulcer before you're 30. (I'm 29, no nexium or pepcid in the near future for me). Its all about your attitude, let it "roll of ya." Maybe its just me, or my specialty (We in EM are known to have thick skins), but I feel if you worry about those sort of things, life is much more sucky!


Q
 
RxnMan said:
Path doesn't take call. What does that tell you about the 'urgency' of a path emergency?
Click to expand...

Tell that to every patient I've done a weekend frozen section on. Which is more than a few. I'm on call right now, in fact.
 
greenbean said:
I am 4th medical student.

I should be really happy and stressing about interviews and all that stuff but Im not. In fact, I haven't even applied yet. I dont even know if I want to apply, either this year or in the future. I can't settle on a specialty choice. I cannot really say that any particular field "drew" special interest b'c that just never happend for me(but i did like all of my rotations alot)

the way i see medicine being practiced is so different from what i imagined. mostly every field i run is practicing "defensive medicine". pts can dictate what tests they want to do,whether they are indicated or not, pts can demand meds whether they need them or not. and if they are not appeased, they can complain about you.if you rack up enough complaints, then u;ll eventually be fired. everyone is so worried about being sued, its sickening.

and everyone is bugging me asking me what field im applying into ..so to get them off my back i say im applying to medicine, which may be what ends up happening. but ive started having serious nightmares about being a pcp b'c i knew if i did that ,id end up being miserable.

to top things off, i am not pleased with my medical education; i really dont feel like ive "mastered" anything, in fact, now i just find it hard to focus and concentrate at all, i cant even read for an hr b4 being distracted bysomething else, with just an md im good for nothing, unless i complete residency..

on the rotation im on right now(peds) i see alot of the senior residents applying for jobs, so far they are all out of luck. to me, thats absolutely terrifying, think about it.

4 yrs of ugrad+4 yrs of med + 3++ yrs of residency= no job
what a waste of time
why oh why didn't i just do engineering or law?
Click to expand...

What bothers me most about medicine are doctors acting as ER or Niptuck hotshots and not 'normal beings'. I mean these stupid soap operas have disrupted the integrity of the field to the extent that dealing with POLITICS is 70% of your daily curriculum.

I just wish if people around me were not as mean-spirited..
 
Havarti666 said:
Tell that to every patient I've done a weekend frozen section on. Which is more than a few. I'm on call right now, in fact.
Click to expand...
That's news to me.
greenbean said:
...why oh why didn't i just do engineering or law?...
Click to expand...
I just noticed this line. You've got to be kidding me, OP. Being an engineer guarantees you nothing. I worked in a "cush" engineering job, and it was still lots of hard work. You can talk to some of the other former engineers here on SDN and you'll hear the same from them. Changing fields doesn't magically make problems go away.
 
DropkickMurphy said:
Hell, even I've warmed (slightly....I'm just this side of absolute zero at this point) to the idea of primary care thanks to Kent and the other folks I've talked to. :laugh:
Click to expand...

Just keep that Rottweiler well-fed, and everything will be fine. ;)
 
greenbean said:
I am 4th medical student.

I should be really happy and stressing about interviews and all that stuff but Im not. In fact, I haven't even applied yet. I dont even know if I want to apply, either this year or in the future. I can't settle on a specialty choice. I cannot really say that any particular field "drew" special interest b'c that just never happend for me(but i did like all of my rotations alot)

the way i see medicine being practiced is so different from what i imagined. mostly every field i run is practicing "defensive medicine". pts can dictate what tests they want to do,whether they are indicated or not, pts can demand meds whether they need them or not. and if they are not appeased, they can complain about you.if you rack up enough complaints, then u;ll eventually be fired. everyone is so worried about being sued, its sickening.

and everyone is bugging me asking me what field im applying into ..so to get them off my back i say im applying to medicine, which may be what ends up happening. but ive started having serious nightmares about being a pcp b'c i knew if i did that ,id end up being miserable.

?
Click to expand...

Have you looked into anesthesiology? In the ICU, you get to do what needs to be done, and you get to make interventions to help patients through life vs death situations; in the OR too.
 
greenbean-
are you in a US medical school? I just can't believe that you can be a MS4 and really not have a better sense of average salaries and the job market by this point of your training..
 
greenbean said:
ti dunno have a hard time believing this when i was talking to residents most of them couldnt answer how they would go about job hunting, so either they dont know or its a big secret

and once your sued(and lose) wont u get labeled as a bad doctor that no pt will want to see?
Click to expand...
I think your problem partially stems from not having a specialty you are interested in. If you picked a specialty and joined their professional association as a student member, you would see how easy it is to get a job. I am a member of several such associations and get deluged by job offer mailings - there are pages and pages of ads in the back of the professional assoc. magazines. You can see a few in the back of JAMA, and there are specific websites online you can find that cater to specific specialties job-searching. I don't know where you are at school, but where I am, the residents have jobs as soon as they enter their final year lined up. I am going into EM, and all the 3rd year residents were going to job interviews and had an idea of where they were going by September.

As for your second question, the answer is just plain no. Everyone gets sued and a lot of people lose. If no one saw doctors who got sued, you wouldn't be able to see many doctors. My mentor, who I think is one of the greatest doctors I have ever met, has been sued and lost. It is really a crime that it happens and we do need tort reform, but everyone understands that it happens and no one is going to go "you got sued, you're bad!" unless it was really egregious malpractice.

I feel like you are so stuck in being glum that you are unable to see the bright side here and aren't really looking for it. But I think it is very cute that so many people are here sticking up for medicine as a career and being excited about their respective specialties.
 
outofhere said:
If you have a good working relationship with your patients, even if you make a heinous mistake, most of them will not sue.
Click to expand...

You know...people keep telling me that. But I seriously seriously seriously doubt it. I think that may be more speciality as well as geographically limited.
 
greenbean said:
thanks for all the great replies

job offers come in the mail and tossed in the trash? what field of medicine is this? i dunno have a hard time believing this when i was talking to residents most of them couldnt answer how they would go about job hunting, so either they dont know or its a big secret
Click to expand...
Apparently they, like you, don't know. Must be a geographical thing. Hell, I get job offers in the mail, and I'm a student.

and once your sued(and lose) wont u get labeled as a bad doctor that no pt will want to see? i would think the stress of just getting sued would be bad enough, they say the docs who get sued are the ones "dont communicate well with their pts", while i can somewhat agreee with that, i personally would be more likely to sue if i knew my physician did something stupid,lacked knowledge that resulted in harm to me,,,even if they were the most personable guy/gal i knew
Click to expand...
No, if you get sued and lose, you don't get labeled as bad. Nobody puts billboards up, and only rarely to people picket your office. Think about it, 100% of Neurosurgeons in most states have been sued. Are they all bad? No, it is just high risk stuff, and people think that everything should be perfect, or they get to sue. Often, your insurance company will settle even for cases you are going to win, because it costs less money to settle than to fight it. I think lawyers that do that should be shot.

and as for not knowing anything...thats just plain depressing. i would think that after almost 4 years i would know alot, but i dont think ive gained much, i feel like i barely passed these shelf exams which are supposed to reflect common problems on each rotation, but ive never done really well on any of them. to me, that means i didnt really attain a level of knowledge i should have at the end of the rotation.
Click to expand...

How do you feel like you barely passed them? They give you grades. This is November. Either you passed them or you didn't. Shelf exams are actually quite similar to Step II. If you don't know things on a daily basis, you simply need to read more. I would tell this to everyone. I thought I knew quite a bit until I took a Derm rotation, and I had to read more on that than I did for surgery.
 
i feel like i barely passed them b'c my grades were usually in the low 70's, my highest was like a 77 on IM..to me,thats pretty bad,
as far as being a bad student goes, maybe i am. i used to be an excellent student in hs and ugrad. and when im asked a direct question by an housestaff or attg, i usually can answer correctly. but on these exams, i do so bad that i get the impression i really learned nothing, b'c usually exams accurately reflect my knowledge. also, i never improved. its not like one grade was a 60 then i got a 70 and then an 80. i have always been stuck in the same rut, no matter how much i read or how many practice ?s i do

as far as jobs/salaries go, my experience is mostly anecdotal, from seeing family friends struggle with finding jobs with a 5 fig.salary...perhaps the job market is different from their era, i guess i will have to trust what you guys are telling me

thanks again for all the replies

peace,
greenbean
 
If you are able to answer house staff questions, then you know the material. Often, the Shelf exam format is, for lack of a better word, "tricky", where it is no longer which of these is not like the other, it is which of these correct answers is most correct. Or which of these things that are always done, is done next.

If you have family friends with 5 figure salaries, most likely they are doing FM in a very, very low populated area. Even here the FM people on faculty make over $140K per year. And academics make less than private (usually).
OB/Gyn sometimes has a hard time finding decent salaries after you take out malpractice, Mississippi and Louisiana are having trouble in that regard. Trust me, no doctors are starving anywhere, unless they want to. Regardless of how Dr. 90210 shows that his wife will actually have to work 3 months next year so that he can "feed his family".
 
IbnSina said:
Trust me, no doctors are starving anywhere, unless they want to. Regardless of how Dr. 90210 shows that his wife will actually have to work 3 months next year so that he can "feed his family".
Click to expand...

That's totally unfair. Hummers, yachts, maids, gardeners, cabana boys, nannies, homes in the Hamptons...they all need "feeding" too!

I think some people (no offense, LADoc, but it really doesn't take $400K/year to live well), find themselves overextended in order to "live well"...then they really do have problems maintaining that lifestyle when things get tougher, malpractice goes up, etc.
 
sophiejane said:
I think some people (no offense, LADoc, but it really doesn't take $400K/year to live well), find themselves overextended in order to "live well"...then they really do have problems maintaining that lifestyle when things get tougher, malpractice goes up, etc.
Click to expand...

Some people? Try most people. In general, the more people earn, the more they spend...and it's totally the norm to live above one's means nowadays, so nobody even thinks twice about going into debt up to their eyeballs. It seems like every Tom, Dick, and Harriet in my neck of the woods drives a luxury car or SUV, owns a boat, lives in a $300,000+ house, and sends their kids to private school, yet the average household income is somewhere around $50,000/year. I seriously doubt they're socking much away for retirement. Doctors are not immune to this syndrome.
 
Onco said:
What bothers me most about medicine are doctors acting as ER or Niptuck hotshots and not 'normal beings'. I mean these stupid soap operas have disrupted the integrity of the field to the extent that dealing with POLITICS is 70% of your daily curriculum.

I just wish if people around me were not as mean-spirited..
Click to expand...

Do you really think that those 2 TV shows have significantly impacted the practice of medicine? I find it extremely unlikely...
 
DropkickMurphy said:
Sorry....I'm tired and didn't mean to be rude to the OP.....but it does stand that if you aren't doing well on your exams (regardless of what they are) and you are actually trying (which does mean not relying on your preceptors to force or spoon feed the information to you; if you haven't learned what you feel is necessary to pass, find a way to learn it), perhaps then you might not be the sharpest tool in the shed. That was my point, and I apologize for not elaborating further.
Click to expand...


Hey Drop, no worries. One of my surgery profs told me - when I told her about the H&P thing - she said that it was my responsibility to just go out and grab for what I want. Ok, I know, surgeons, what can I say. So aggressive! But she was right to a point, and I do take her advice seriously. For the money I am paying I am trying to be more aggressive about getting some instruction out of these people. It seems ridiculous that I should have to force them to teach me stuff, but what can I say. I did ok on the shelf.
 
DropkickMurphy said:
I usually answer people like that (illegals who "no habla Ingles") in German....."See now you know how feels don't you?" Although I would love to become fluent in Mexican just so I can look at them and go (in their native tongue) "Actually I do speak Spanish, but last time I checked this isn't f--king Nogales, so let's do this in English".
Click to expand...

Do you really?
 
DropkickMurphy said:
I usually answer people like that (illegals who "no habla Ingles") in German....."See now you know how feels don't you?" Although I would love to become fluent in Mexican just so I can look at them and go (in their native tongue) "Actually I do speak Spanish, but last time I checked this isn't f--king Nogales, so let's do this in English".
Click to expand...

At least you didn't do what most Americans do when confronted by non-English speakers...talk slower and louder. ;)
 
greenbean said:
thanks for all the great replies

job offers come in the mail and tossed in the trash? what field of medicine is this? i dunno have a hard time believing this when i was talking to residents most of them couldnt answer how they would go about job hunting, so either they dont know or its a big secret
Click to expand...

'Tis true...at least in my experience with surgery.

If the residents and family members you have spoken to are having difficulty finding jobs or don't even know how to find a job, then they are either a) pretty picky about their needs or b) woefully ignorant. Job hunting is not a "big secret", even for someone who has never had to look for a job before. All it takes is a little common sense, some initiative and forethought.

Every residency includes seminars about job hunting and it is the rare person who does not receive unsolicited phone calls, emails and letters from people looking for physicians to employ. I started getting them as a 3rd year resident (with 3 more years of residency and fellowship left to go) and I know my colleagues in IM did as well.

Even without such solicitations, every trade journal has ads in the back looking for physicians, there are literally hundreds of links on-line to physician recruiters with jobs available, newspapers list them in the employment section, sepcialty web sites have job opporunities listed and program directors get letters from other hospitals looking to recruit physicians.

I do throw away job solicitations several times a week - usually because the job entails certain aspects of practice I am not interested in (ie, rural area, taking ER call, etc.). While finding the perfect job right out of residency might not be easy, it is doable.
 
dropkick's immigrant comments are just insensitive, generalizing, and maybe even a little prejudiced (umm, "mexican" is not a language). i said to answer "why don't you learn english?" not because i have anything against people who come to this country and don't automatically speak english but because i find it annoying that people can live here for YEARS and not bother to learn a lick of english. we have a big Russian population where i rotate and just as an example of what i'm talking about, we had this patient who moved to the US 15 years ago and yet could not speak ONE WORD of english. 15 years!!!! if you're gonna move to another country, learn the language!!! or at least make an attempt. and when they top it off with the expectation that YOU should learn THEIR language, it is offensive, sorry. if i had to for whatever reason move to russia, i'd learn russian.
 
drbon said:
i find it annoying that people can live here for YEARS and not bother to learn a lick of english...if i had to for whatever reason move to russia, i'd learn russian.
Click to expand...

Two big differences. First, from an educational standpoint, you're light-years ahead of the typical illegal U.S. immigrant, who may not even be literate in their native language. Second, most illegals live predominantly amongst other immigrants, who all speak Spanish. There's no pressing need for most of them to learn English, so they don't.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
AmoryBlaine said:
Hey green,

Not trying to be a jerk to you but I'm curious about this statement. I have worked extensively with the Hispanic/Latino population in the US. I have NEVER heard of a patient saying to anyone "why don't you learn Spanish." In my experience, H/L patients tend to be so grateful that it almost makes me uncomfortable. I try to cut them some slack, most Americans can only speak one language and many of them are proud of that fact...
Click to expand...

I have spanish speaking patients that ask, "do you speak spanish?", I say no and they usually have someone with them that speaks some english. I think there was a couple of people in residency that were told they should learn spanish.

For the most part the spanish popullation I've worked with are very grateful for the care.
 
greenbean said:
the way i see medicine being practiced is so different from what i imagined. mostly every field i run is practicing "defensive medicine". pts can dictate what tests they want to do,whether they are indicated or not, pts can demand meds whether they need them or not. and if they are not appeased, they can complain about you.if you rack up enough complaints, then u;ll eventually be fired. everyone is so worried about being sued, its sickening.

on the rotation im on right now(peds) i see alot of the senior residents applying for jobs, so far they are all out of luck. to me, thats absolutely terrifying, think about it.
Click to expand...

Many others have responded to some of these points and others made in this thread, but given the nature of these discussions, it might be useful to add another perspective as well.

First of all, no one in my business (neonatology) has the patients dictate their meds or their lab tests. On very, very rare occasions, family members may make such demands, but usually understand what we do. Usually they just don't want too many needle sticks for their baby. If you are concerned about this issue, then in addition to some of the other suggestions you got, consider an intensive care specialty.

In general, there is little problem for pediatricians to find jobs. However, in bigger cities, getting into a large pedi practice or starting your own is daunting. Often, at the beginning of the attending interview/job hunting season, 3rd year residents are a bit stressed as they don't have as many options as they thought they would have. They will not go unemployed unless they are extremely demanding in what they will do. If they don't find just the job they want in the big city they want, often they can take a hospitalist job for a year or two until a practice opens in an area they want or they decide to go to a smaller city.

Finally, in my experience, families are very grateful for our efforts to talk to them about their baby in Spanish. They don't expect perfect Spanish (and don't get it from me!:laugh: ), but invariably feel and often express a sense of connection to those who make some effort. I have never heard criticism of a doctor who doesn't speak Spanish.
 
KentW said:
At least you didn't do what most Americans do when confronted by non-English speakers...talk slower and louder. ;)
Click to expand...
Precisely......I also don't wrap myself in a flag and start talking about how we're so much better than every other country. It's just a matter of common decency.....if I'm in Germany, I try to get by with my basic conversation skills; same goes for France and every other country I've been to; I at least try to learn the language so I'm not your typical American tourist prick. People should do the same when they come here.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Next unread thread

Similar threads

S
Only MD/DO and nothing else
Replies
28
Views
3K
Saddleshoes
Saddleshoes
RaginMD
Anyone else work the ICU alone? Asking for a friend
Replies
27
Views
5K
oldiebutgoodie1211
O
K
EFDO website down for anybody else?
Replies
0
Views
1K
kevdubs
K
IonClaws
Does anyone else hate working in the ER?
Replies
12
Views
5K
Piebaldi
P
S
Anyone else having an extremely difficult time with scheduling fellowship interviews or am I just at a bad program?
Replies
5
Views
1K
sliceofbread136
S
Top