Anybody catch the fight that's breaking out on Cartoondoc's blog?

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Stixman28

Stixman28

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it started from her recent post:

http://doccartoon.blogspot.com/2011/01/tales-from-intern-year-clueless.html#comments

Tales From Intern Year: Clueless
There is a med student who is rotating in neurology right now. Med students on our unit are generally super annoying because the unit is already super crowded. I've been brought to the brink of tears more than once because there was nowhere for me to sit and write notes/dictate.

So med students are not actually doing a job and they're basically just uselessly taking up space. Therefore, they annoy me.

A few days ago, I really wanted to strangle the med student though. He's been rotating with us for like a month, long enough to know how crowded it is. Yet he somehow thought it was a good idea to use the one of our only three seats as a place for him to study in the afternoon. This was studying he could have easily done ANYWHERE ELSE, including the cafeteria or his home or wherever. He was totally oblivious to the glares of all the nurses who had to stand as they did their charting.

I didn't say anything. Mostly because I was hoping someone tougher than me might tell him off and make him cry. That didn't happen though.



It's getting pretty heated over there, i thought we could bring the discussion over here.
 
I've certainly been in situations where there was a lack of computer space and such. In these kinds of situations I would just say something to the student like, "Hey, I need to sit here to do some notes so if you'd like to head down to the library I'll page you if anything interesting happens". If you didn't ask him to leave, you can't blame him for not reading your mind and realizing he should have left.
There's no need to get all upset over it. The students (mostly) have good intentions and are trying to learn. I think it's really dumb that in some med schools now they don't expect the students to write notes, because I think it is important to learn that skill, but in those situations where the schools don't let students do anything, it's not the students' fault that they're "useless".
 
To think how much happier Cartoondoc and those nurses would have been if it had occurred to any of them to politely ask the med student to move instead of just getting more and more simmeringly angry. Save the anger for when the med student is an entitled jerk about it.

I know some people are non-confrontational but that barely even counts as needing to assert yourself, yeesh.
 
QuizzicalApe said:
To think how much happier Cartoondoc and those nurses would have been if it had occurred to any of them to politely ask the med student to move instead of just getting more and more simmeringly angry.
Click to expand...

Exactly. Plus, if I'm sitting around doing nothing chances are that's because I have been told I have to. A resident who releases me and will page if something interesting happens is a blessing, because I don't like sitting and being useless any more than other people like watching me.

Also, hospitals should probably invest in a few more chairs. Problem solved.
 
Yeah, I saw it. I just got off an OB rotation where most of the residents actively resented students being in the room/seeing patients/existing, and that comment definitely made me way more upset than it normally would!
 
I love attendings/residents/interns who say they don't like medical students. Unfortunately not all of us were as lucky to be shot out of our mothers' birth canal with an MD in hand.

Seriously, why do so many residents instantly forget where they came from?
 
She was venting.

Granted she should have just asked the med student to move.

However, its amazing the lack of common sense some med students have (and yes, I still am one). I attribute that issue to mostly students who have never had a job. A paid position where they had set responsibilities, were expected to work FOR someone and learn to be good at anticipating needs.

Key part being the working "FOR" someone. A lot of my classmates think they are equivalent to residents and cop attitude. They're not. As a med student you can't write orders, scripts, or even sign your own notes without a resident addendum/separate resident note.

If they would just appreciate that there is a hierarchy and they should respect those ahead of them and do their best to be useful to those above them they would be taught more, get in the way less and be far less annoying.

And to those complaining that residents forget 'what its like to be a med student' I would suggest that the person the blogger was complaining about isn't an annoying med student but an annoying person. They will also be an annoying intern. The only reason they will generally no longer be annoying at work in PGY-2 or so is because they will at that point be somewhat self-sufficient and others won't have to deal with them as much.
 
EYEMD2BE said:
Whoever "was venting" about the medical student is just another resident with no common sense. I am glad the medical student sat in the chair to study. If the resident was semi-competent she would have sent the medical student off to the library or somewhere else to study, but she can't think like a normal person.
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If you read her blog, it wasn't HER student. It was a student rotating through on another service. So it wasn't her place to send the student off to the library, since he wasn't rotating with her.
 
The guy wasn't a med student assigned to me and I already had a seat. I just felt sorry for all the people who had to stand hunched over charts because he wasn't considerate enough to move to a more appropriate location. If we were in a restaurant, he would have been the guy sitting at a table reading a book with no food while people with trays were standing there, waiting for a table. But it wasn't my place to say something to him when the actual people who needed seats didn't say a word. You guys seem to imagine a teaching hospital where the attending is "the boss," but it really isn't that way in all hospital settings. I'm just an employee.

That said, I didn't think it was a matter of debate that med students can sometimes be annoying. I was super annoying when I was a med student. But if that bothers you, you may also want to put in your two cents on this debate on whether water is wet 😛

http://www.createdebate.com/debate/show/Is_water_wet
 
This sounds like a job for Rosa Parks. He had just as much right to the seat as anyone else, and since nobody asked him to move, I don't see what the fuss is about. This sounds like a bunch of college girl dorm war BS where everyone secretly hates each other for things that they've never expressed annoyance about. It would've been much worse for someone to "tell him off and make him cry" over a chair, don't you think? I know we med students are annoying, but damn, let the dude study. WTF?
 
MilkmanAl said:
This sounds like a job for Rosa Parks. He had just as much right to the seat as anyone else, and since nobody asked him to move, I don't see what the fuss is about. This sounds like a bunch of college girl dorm war BS where everyone secretly hates each other for things that they've never expressed annoyance about. It would've been much worse for someone to "tell him off and make him cry" over a chair, don't you think? I know we med students are annoying, but damn, let the dude study. WTF?
Click to expand...

Ahhhhh hawwww, hush that fuss.
 
cartoondoc said:
The guy wasn't a med student assigned to me and I already had a seat. I just felt sorry for all the people who had to stand hunched over charts because he wasn't considerate enough to move to a more appropriate location. If we were in a restaurant, he would have been the guy sitting at a table reading a book with no food while people with trays were standing there, waiting for a table. But it wasn't my place to say something to him when the actual people who needed seats didn't say a word. You guys seem to imagine a teaching hospital where the attending is "the boss," but it really isn't that way in all hospital settings. I'm just an employee.

That said, I didn't think it was a matter of debate that med students can sometimes be annoying. I was super annoying when I was a med student. But if that bothers you, you may also want to put in your two cents on this debate on whether water is wet 😛

http://www.createdebate.com/debate/show/Is_water_wet
Click to expand...

If it bothered you so much I really don't understand why you just didn't ask him to move to another room. Whether he is your med student or not seems totally irrelevant to the issue.
 
MilkmanAl said:
This sounds like a job for Rosa Parks. He had just as much right to the seat as anyone else, and since nobody asked him to move, I don't see what the fuss is about. This sounds like a bunch of college girl dorm war BS where everyone secretly hates each other for things that they've never expressed annoyance about. It would've been much worse for someone to "tell him off and make him cry" over a chair, don't you think? I know we med students are annoying, but damn, let the dude study. WTF?
Click to expand...

OMG, if any med students are ever sitting in a crowded area of the hospital doing nothing and are asked to move, and instead they yell out very seriously, "Rosa Parks wouldn't stand up and neither will I!" then you will totally be my hero. You will have the most balls of any med student in the world. Please someone do that and post about it.
 
i_like_where_this_thread_is_going_again.jpg
 
This isn't the first time there has been a huge fight on Fizzy's blog -- like the debate of when a physician is too old (in a moral sense) to give birth; or my personal favourite: finishing residency =/= the sweet life.

I follow Mothers in Medicine just for the drama. 🙂 Although her opinions do strike a personal cord at times because I plan on being of advanced maternal age and driving a porche all at the same time. But it's just an opinion!!
 
cartoondoc said:
The guy wasn't a med student assigned to me and I already had a seat. I just felt sorry for all the people who had to stand hunched over charts because he wasn't considerate enough to move to a more appropriate location. If we were in a restaurant, he would have been the guy sitting at a table reading a book with no food while people with trays were standing there, waiting for a table. But it wasn't my place to say something to him when the actual people who needed seats didn't say a word. You guys seem to imagine a teaching hospital where the attending is "the boss," but it really isn't that way in all hospital settings. I'm just an employee.

That said, I didn't think it was a matter of debate that med students can sometimes be annoying. I was super annoying when I was a med student. But if that bothers you, you may also want to put in your two cents on this debate on whether water is wet 😛

http://www.createdebate.com/debate/show/Is_water_wet
Click to expand...

You must be really, really nice. I have seen residents, nurses, even janitors kick a med student out of their seat.

When I was on anesthesia, I was helping the resident with a tough tube, holding cric pressure getting ready to pull the stylet and the surgery resident told me to move my ass so she could start prepping...

What I am saying is that if that med student was anywhere that I have rotated he would have had the chair pulled out from under him.
 
Mace1370 said:
If it bothered you so much I really don't understand why you just didn't ask him to move to another room. Whether he is your med student or not seems totally irrelevant to the issue.
Click to expand...

He was kind of big, mean, and old looking.

How could someone be expected to be assertive in the face of that?
 
xanthomondo said:
I love attendings/residents/interns who say they don't like medical students. Unfortunately not all of us were as lucky to be shot out of our mothers' birth canal with an MD in hand.

Seriously, why do so many residents instantly forget where they came from?
Click to expand...

I blame it on Flexner and his damned insistence that medical training be standardized and include some sort of clinical instruction.

It's his fault. I am going to blog about it.
 
alwaysaangel said:
However, its amazing the lack of common sense some med students have (and yes, I still am one). I attribute that issue to mostly students who have never had a job. A paid position where they had set responsibilities, were expected to work FOR someone and learn to be good at anticipating needs.

Key part being the working "FOR" someone. A lot of my classmates think they are equivalent to residents and cop attitude. They're not. As a med student you can't write orders, scripts, or even sign your own notes without a resident addendum/separate resident note.

If they would just appreciate that there is a hierarchy and they should respect those ahead of them and do their best to be useful to those above them they would be taught more, get in the way less and be far less annoying.
Click to expand...

I think the problem goes the other way too: most residents have never been BOSSES. When I worked a job my boss knew I was there to earn money, was there for a certain number of hours, and that for a little while she had to tell me what to do or else I wouldn't be able to do the job. Residents often don't tell medical students what to do and they also don't realize that a medical student is there to earn something (a good grade) and therefore won't take the initiative to go home, or otherwise disappear from sight, without being given permission to do so. And residents often don't lay out ground rules, like, "if I forget to send you home you should know you can go at 5pm." In a job, roles and duties are much clearer than they are in a resident-med student situation.

Also, med students really CAN'T think of their rotations as jobs. When I have a job, my duties are clearly defined ahead of time, my hours are clearly defined ahead of time, and I am doing something useful. Medical students are "there to learn" and therefore by definition are not very useful . . . when we throw a stitch in surgery, we are doing it slower than someone else could have done it, when we catch a baby someone has to watch us, and when we write notes they usually don't "count" for legal reasons. So . . . it doesn't really work to think of it as a job.
 
Cinnameg said:
Also, med students really CAN'T think of their rotations as jobs. When I have a job, my duties are clearly defined ahead of time, my hours are clearly defined ahead of time, and I am doing something useful. Medical students are "there to learn" and therefore by definition are not very useful . . . when we throw a stitch in surgery, we are doing it slower than someone else could have done it, when we catch a baby someone has to watch us, and when we write notes they usually don't "count" for legal reasons. So . . . it doesn't really work to think of it as a job.
Click to expand...

No, but med students are capable of thinking of the rotation site as a work place. So typical work place etiquette should apply - don't sit down and use a chair all afternoon when you can look around and see for yourself that chairs are in short supply. Don't text your friends in the room while the resident is talking to a patient. Wear professional clothing. Don't check your email or sports scores while the resident is running around like crazy - even if there isn't anything you can do to help, it just looks bad to be lounging around, checking ESPN. And, call me old-fashioned, but if I were sitting down eating lunch, and there are no other free chairs, when the attending comes in to eat, I stand up and relinquish my chair.

So, while it may not be a JOB, it's still a JOB SITE. Treat it as such.
 
smq123 said:
So, while it may not be a JOB, it's still a JOB SITE. Treat it as such.
Click to expand...

Call me crazy, but I get the sneaking suspicion many med students have never had a job.
 
MossPoh said:
Call me crazy, but I get the sneaking suspicion many med students have never had a job.
Click to expand...

So all those hours spent volunteering in the hospital in an effort to pad their app....I mean, in a heart-felt effort to help the sick, didn't teach them about punctuality? About the importance of looking clean and put-together? About being respectful to the people you're working with?

You don't have to have a formal job to learn how to be a quasi-respectful being. I don't buy that excuse.
 
I think getting up from a seat you don't really need when other people around you clearly DO need the space has nothing to do with what you might learn at a job or whatever. That falls under the category of Stuff Your Momma Shoulda Taught You.

Last week, there was a different student rotating at the hospital. And despite not being given any cues to do so and being newer to the ward than the guy I mentioned in my story, she immediately stood up as soon as someone else entered the room and looked like they needed a seat. So if she was able to figure it out so easily, there's no reason the guy couldn't have.
 
Whoa!! everyone get their panties out of a twist... this was a week and a half ago. Stop whining... I may be a lowly MSII but medicine seems like the kind of career that requires a little tougher skin then getting your feelings hurt because some one took your chair and wouldn't give it back.


I think the student should do it again and give you one of these 😛 and then go :laugh:
 
GoSpursGo said:
This. People who work as hard as residents are allowed to vent from time to time.

People are making way too big of a deal about this.
Click to expand...

On a message board?

Never!

While cartoondoc might have poking fun at the student, I don't think she realizes it's a two way street and we are allowed to poke back.
 
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