I don't care about my hurt feelings. I care about an unprofessional negative environment with an attending who is abusing her power and obviously has an anger management problem. I'm angry and frustrated that she's getting away with it. As for being targeted, i was thinking of something doing something anonymously. But i need ur ideas.
Should i:
tell the site visit people, who will cite the program for lack of professionalism?
send an anonymous letter to the GME?
Call my CIR representative to represent me + others also anonymously?
Send a letter to the local newspaper discussing how residents are abused?
Talk to the woman and tell her we're going to do something-non anonymously obviously-?
Call equal employment office and file a complaint of sexism?
what else?
Do nothing. Which is always another option.
Tito,
Please pay heed to eastcoastyall, whoopsie and swpm.
Sadly, they are very correct. I was in an institution like this once upon a time. The environment was miserable, the program dishonest. At a general staff meeting, I brought up a serious (and in my mind at least, easily remediable) issue which brought the program into substantial non-compliance with ACGME and RRC rules. Nothing changed for the better. After reporting these issues, I was accused of being "unprofessional" among other things. I was threatened with the loss of my position, and was directly told that the program and institution would "see to it I never practiced medicine again." A threat that very nearly came true. Lies were placed on paper, in records, nurses were solicited to see if any would "complain" against me. A memorandum was placed in a file by one of the chief residents indicating he would seek out nurses who would say disparaging things.
I was shocked and appalled at the depths of dishonesty and misconduct by this program and the hospital. These are not isolated incidents.
The simple fact is that this attending may indeed be unprofessional. That doesn't matter. The attending is politically well connected or they would not be in power. Abusive attendings have gotten away with much. I have been approached by a resident who have been solicited for sexual favors by an attending and when refused, got the abuse of her life. This is wrong, very wrong. She took her complaint to an official level and was told to drop the complaint or be dismissed from residency. This attending was very well connected and this was not an isolated incident. Tread lightly. Very lightly.
Anonymous action carries low likelihood of anyone taking the complaint seriously. It is, of course, a relatively safe position, but consider this: There are only a finite number of residents in your program and fewer still who have had interaction with the problem attending. Fewer still who have the cajones to say something. I'd be willing to bet that it wouldn't take long to come up with a short list of who said what to whom.
Will the ACGME/RRC cite the program? They might. But they will not do this on an anonymous complaint. They want a signed letter which may or may not preserve anonymity. The site visitor is certainly the preferred contact, if it can be done safely and if they are willing to take you seriously.
CIR may be an option. We didn't have it, so on this you have to use your best judgement.
Going to the press is the atomic bomb. We considered using it in my situation and that still to this day remains an option if my former institution does any further harm. And I have the media contacts at the regional and national levels to put them on Prime Time TV, Live. But, if you do this, you will be in the center of a controversy and will have embarrased an institution in a position to do you great harm in your future career endeavors. This is the crux of the problem.
For now, CIR, if they have any power at all, as anonymously as possible, with as many of your colleagues as are willing to stick their neck on the gallows might be a possibility, but remember the first point above.
I would strongly suggest you start a journal, in a bound laboratory style notebook. Do not mention this to anyone, keep it at home and make periodic entries to document behavior and specific events. Keep it as factual as you can, and then someday, when you have been in practice for a few years and have the job of your dreams, then see if the issue is still a problem and then and only then decide if it's still worth it to protect your future colleagues from this abusive attending, then act. But act from a position of strength. As a resident, you are not in a position of strength.
EEOC and legal authorities tend to be hands off of physicians and physician training programs. They are afraid of the perceived complexities of the relationships and intervene very reluctantly.
I favor the last option. Sadly this is the nature of medical education in our country and those in power have, quite literally the power to destroy, completely. And with relative impunity. Tread lightly and be careful. PM me if you want more details. Good luck, keep your head low and hope the smelly stuff flying over you skips over.
Sorry to sound like such a pesimist, but I have been badly burned over similar issues and I have counselled a number of other residents who have likewise been seriously harmed by bad behavior by programs and institutions. Perhaps I am wrong, but personally, if I had it to do over again, I wouild be very circumspect. Good luck. Before I was in the middle of it, I always wondered why my medical friends (including influential attendings), were so paranoid when discussing their colleagues. Now, I know why.
), and the dept chair is indifferent, head over to the GME offices. Odds are that someone there exists to handle housestaff grievances.
