Angry ex-girlfriend as my supervising resident

[timbukthree]

Hi all – long-time lurker here.

An ex-girlfriend of mine finished med school a few years ahead of me (I'm a second-year right now); she's currently a second-year surgery resident at my program. She’s extremely vindictive, and from what I can tell she's still angry about the breakup. Given the opportunity I’m sure she’ll try to fail me on the rotation and attack me every chance she finds. I expect to get abused on surgery by all the residents, so I don’t mind if she gets to “bully”/embarrass me. However, I don’t want her to unfairly affect my grade.

Are my concerns realistic? Can a resident get away with ruining someone’s grade for personal reasons? If she gets assigned as my supervisor, is there any way I switch to a different team?

Thanks all for your input.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[psychMDhopefully]

Hi all – long-time lurker here.

An ex-girlfriend of mine finished med school a few years ahead of me (I'm a second-year right now); she's currently a second-year surgery resident at my program. She’s extremely vindictive, and from what I can tell she's still angry about the breakup. Given the opportunity I’m sure she’ll try to fail me on the rotation and attack me every chance she finds. I expect to get abused on surgery by all the residents, so I don’t mind if she gets to “bully”/embarrass me. However, I don’t want her to unfairly affect my grade.

Are my concerns realistic? Can a resident get away with ruining someone’s grade for personal reasons? If she gets assigned as my supervisor, is there any way I switch to a different team?

Thanks all for your input.

I think if you mention this to a higher up you could get another supervising resident. You two had a relationship, your concerns of your past relationship affecting your learning are legit.

 

[kenjixshadow]

Agree with above and you should also talk to you school clerkship coordinator(s). You should not be bullied by other surgical residents b/c of your ex. That is unprofessional and unethical. To other ppl who are reading this thread, not OP, this is why you don't **** where you eat or you may have to deal with this kind of hassle.

 

[timbukthree]

Thanks to the three of you for the valuable suggestions! As a humble 2nd year I didn't realize I could ask the clerkship director so forwardly to switch to someone else.
Can't control her badmouthing me to other residents, but hopefully swapping supervisors will minimize my problems.

 

[MrChance2]

I would hope your school would understand and switch you out. It just seems like a really awful territory to get into. That said I doubt she would specifically attack you. No matter what I think it is good administration knows just in case she pulls something unethical.

I'm not sure how it would go between these residents but I would truly hope the conversation would go something like this:

Her: He my a-hole ex is coming to do a rotation with us, can you make sure he gets an awful eval?
Other docs: Are you in high school? I'm not going to ruin someones career because you guys are no longer having sex, whats wrong with you?!

 

[bc65]

Agree with the above. Discuss this now with administration. In some schools ( probably a minority though) , some student rotations go to ancillary community hospitals where there's a completely different set of residents. If that's a possibility you could ask to do your surgery rotation there.

I wouldn't worry too much about what she tells other surgery residents. I would think that your ex would be too embarrassed to reveal that she was dumped, and too embarrassed to reveal that she's still upset to the extent that she wants others to sabotage your rotation. Also, it's not likely that others would take action against you. If anything they might feel sorry for you.

 

[cbrons]

Hi all – long-time lurker here.

An ex-girlfriend of mine finished med school a few years ahead of me (I'm a second-year right now); she's currently a second-year surgery resident at my program. She’s extremely vindictive, and from what I can tell she's still angry about the breakup. Given the opportunity I’m sure she’ll try to fail me on the rotation and attack me every chance she finds. I expect to get abused on surgery by all the residents, so I don’t mind if she gets to “bully”/embarrass me. However, I don’t want her to unfairly affect my grade.

Are my concerns realistic? Can a resident get away with ruining someone’s grade for personal reasons? If she gets assigned as my supervisor, is there any way I switch to a different team?

Thanks all for your input.

Man this should've been posted in the regular Allopathic forum, would've generated way better possibly epic replies.

 

[HooliganSnail]

Do what you gotta do to get that grade. You could ask to not be with her.....or you can man up, give her what she wants, and have some call room time as a make-up.......

You GOTTA EARN THAT GRADE MAN.

 

[northernpsy]

You absolutely should insist on a different supervisor.
However, if possible, I would try to get switched to a different rotation site altogether where you can work with people who don't know her.

Yes, if she was telling them how things really went down, you don't look so bad. However, you really have no idea if she has been honest about your past or has been telling her colleagues terrible lies about you. If they trust and like her, even if you get another resident as your supervisor, the reality is that they may very well just take her word for it. Even though we all like to think that we fairly evaluate students based on their true performance, I think the truth is that clinical evaluations are very subjective and a large component of how well you do on a rotation comes down to how well people like you as a person. You really don't want to start out with the deck stacked against you because they've heard terrible things about you from a trusted colleague if there is any way around that.

 

[DrYoda]

Larger problem is that even if you don't work with her, all the other residents probably know all about this. If they like her...

Agree with this completely. It's relatively easy to have her not evaluate you, her co-workers/friends on the other hand not so much.

 

[Merely]

Why can't you call her up and ask to go out again...bang her for your rotation, make her happy, get the honors then peace out?