Anyone else feel like this is not their year?

[EZMcFlo]

Will you post the rankings of the top ten most selective for those of us who can't afford the book? Pretty please..

1) Wash U in St. Louis
2) Duke
3) Columbia
4) Harvard
5) U Penn
6) U Mich - Ann Arbor
7) Baylor
8) Cornell
9) Stanford
10) UCSF

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[medworm]

DropkickMurphy:

My question is... how do you face her after that? Do you even feel a small morsel of guilty or do you try to rewrite the letter in your head with even more spiteful words every time you see her?

You should've been frank and told her that you don't feel that you can write a positive letter. Sabotaging her application is just terrible ethics and a complete lack of diplomacy.

 

[Saluki]

1) Wash U in St. Louis
2) Duke
3) Columbia
4) Harvard
5) U Penn
6) U Mich - Ann Arbor
7) Baylor
8) Cornell
9) Stanford
10) UCSF

Thanks a bunch, though I'm not sure the list makes me feel better....

 

[Orthodoc40]

Yeah. Definitely not my year. My state school didn't even interview me, I got rejected or didn't hear from every other school except I got an interview with VCU. And I've been on perma-hold since October from them, holding out hope for a favorable decision in March.

My one saving grace: a DO acceptance.

But, I'm betting you're gonna love UNECOM!!!

 

[Orthodoc40]

Funny thing is, I'm feeling like this IS my year!
I'm just waiting for some school to agree with me, though...

 

[kirexhana]

Funny thing is, I'm feeling like this IS my year!
I'm just waiting for some school to agree with me, though...

haha, same here! it's like... anyday now, anyday now. i feel like an eager puppy waiting for his master to throw him a treat. and everytime that master just goes into the house to get treats for the neighbor's dog.

 

[Orthodoc40]

haha, same here! it's like... anyday now, anyday now. i feel like an eager puppy waiting for his master to throw him a treat. and everytime that master just goes into the house to get treats for the neighbor's dog.

And for me, that MCAT re-take is getting closer, and closer......

 

[63768]

Funny thing is, I'm feeling like this IS my year!
I'm just waiting for some school to agree with me, though...

good one. i'm waiting for my only choice to realize that.

 

[DrHuang]

Wrong. You know what a LOR means in the context of medical school applications, and you're defending a rather reprehensible act committed by one pre-med against another.

Furthermore, *he* knew just how damaging this could be to her ability to become a doctor. Could you imagine someone doing this to you? You can defend this until you're blue in the face, but no one deserves to be betrayed in this way. His letter might have cost the young lady $5,000 and a year in wasted time and money applying in this cycle. Not to mention the grief that comes from the pressure you put on yourself (as well as that from family, friends, advisors, and well-wishers).

And because he did it anonymously - because he didn't have the guts to tell her he hated her and wanted to keep her from acheiving her dreams - she might never know this was what kept her out of m.s. that year. This is what you're defending.



He took it upon himself to ruin her chances to get into medical school. And he did.

Let that sink in a little.

That's what you're defending.

Everyone on this site knows how difficult getting in already is.

Everyone knows how tight the goalposts are.

As if the average pre-med didn't have enough obstacles to overcome in the process without a LOR - a fellow pre-med, at that - with a chip on his shoulder.



That's...mean.

He singlehandedly ******ed her life for a year.

This year, he will be going to medical school, and she will not. Because he had the opportunity to destroy her application, and he did.

Bravo. And he's proud of himself, too. No regrets. He resented her, and he kept her out of med school because he didn't like her.

That's what you're sticking up for, Conqueror.





Because, as we all know, your performance as an EMT has everything to do with the kind of doctor you're likely to become. And, yes, fellow-pre-meds who aren't doctors are perfectly capable of deciding which of their fellow pre-meds would, and wouldn't make good doctors.



So, of course, if you can't fire the "twit" (his words), and you can't confront her (no balls), the thing to do, obviously, is to write her the nastiest LOR possible without her knowledge. Twist the knife, deep as you can.



...some of that 'bedside manner', from a future physician. Good stuff.

This is the kind of backstabbing that gives pre-meds a bad name. The bottom line is, telling someone you're going to do something positive for them and turning around and using it as a chance to get back at the person is wormy. Sewer rat and feces wormy. Using an LOR to do your best to keep someone from fulfilling his or her life's goals simply because you held a grudge against the person...it's about the worst thing one pre-med can do to another.

I think I'm done with this.



However, I take comfort in Praetorian's words. There is justice in the world. And someday, it's going to come down on you (not you, Conqueror) for what you did to her.

/rant, /indignation, /attack mode, /ot.

if you're going to be a ******* in life like this girl, youre going to get screwed...she had it coming and i dont blame dropkickmurphy for dishing out karma.

 

[happydays]

I wouldn't be happy about it, but if people who had worked with me felt I wasn't qualified, then perhaps I was not meant to be a doctor.

But you're missing the main point here- it wasn't her skills as an EMT alone, it was her entire attitude that tanked the opinion of anyone who dealt with her for any extended period of time. She could be quite polite and proper in the short time (say, during an interview), but she simply could not maintain any level of professionalism for more than a few hours at a time. That added to a general level of incompetence as assessed by EVERYONE who knows her, from nurses to docs to medics, that makes for a fatal combination of flaws.

I completely agree with you. Some people just lack common sense. Good for you for sticking to your principles and telling the truth. Some of the people on this board just aren't willing to accept the fact that not everyone is cut out to be a doc.

 

[ND2005]

I completely agree with you. Some people just lack common sense. Good for you for sticking to your principles and telling the truth. Some of the people on this board just aren't willing to accept the fact that not everyone is cut out to be a doc.

I don't think everyone is "cut out to be a doc". But I don't think that sabotaging someone's dream when they come to you for help in pursuing that dream is the proper weed-out method.

 

[Psycho Doctor]

At the risk of getting into an argument, I still have to say that I wholehearetdly agree with Rafa.

Dropkick, You should have just told her that you wouldn't be able to write her a decent letter. What you did is sabotage someone's application. And at the risk of souding like Oprah or Dr. Phil, personal or professional flaws in a person is easily perceived to others but may not be that easy to oneself. It is possible that the girl is a **** up but maybe she doesn't see that and probably went to you thinking that you agree with the assessment of herself. You should have been honest and not written a letter instead of screwing her over.

or he should have written the letter and showed her what he would be submitting. without hurting her application and crushing her dreams; perhaps she would have come to such a realization on her own after seeing Dropkick's assessment. anyone that bad should have been getting poor reviews and should correct her work habits; a LOR should not be the first time a person is told they are doing a lousy job and is not fit for medicine. Besides driving a wheelchair van is not really any true assessment of what kind of doctor they'll become. Some people gain professionalism and responsibility as they mature. Another pre-med student is not the greatest judge when vying for the same seat in med school. As several posters pointed out some of their greatest critics were proved wrong in the longrun.

edit: ok after reading the whole thread I see her dad is part owner of the company so she essentially can't be fired. However I still feel a LOR is not the time to teach a lesson; just refuse to write a letter if you do not feel in all honesty you can recommend her. If Dropkick for some reason really felt he had to write a letter, I'm sure he could have found one nice thing to say about her, even if it was 'she follows the traffic rules while driving the van' Adcoms can read through the lines without you directly going for the jugular. I know I won't lie on a letter but I would just have refused to write one if I didn't feel I couldn't write a halfway decent letter.

 

[yellowpersuazio]

I completely agree with you. Some people just lack common sense. Good for you for sticking to your principles and telling the truth. Some of the people on this board just aren't willing to accept the fact that not everyone is cut out to be a doc.

Telling the truth? He basically lied to her face when he agreed to write her a letter of recommendation "in support of her application." And what principles does he convey by doing this? That he's vindictive and passive-aggressive? That's all I got from it.

 

[Bernito]

Telling the truth? He basically lied to her face when he agreed to write her a letter of recommendation "in support of her application." And what principles does he convey by doing this? That he's vindictive and passive-aggressive? That's all I got from it.

This is about power. By writing a negative LOR DropkickMurphy was just trying to feel superior to someone, regardless of whether the applicant deserves a neg LOR or not.

When you see a homeless person on the street asking for $, you can argue about whether they deserve it or if there are better uses for the $. But then just don't give them the $, no reason to spit on them too.

 

[Conqueror]

WHY IS EVERYONE SAYING DKM "SABOTAGED HER DREAMS"? SHE SABOTAGED HER OWN DREAMS BY RUINING HER RELATIONSHIPS WITH EVERYONE AROUND HER AND GENERALLY BEING AN ASSHAT.

Everyone keeps saying DKM will get bad karma for this. You ever stop to think that maybe his letter was karma getting HER for being a b****? Everyone's acting like she's some poor defenseless girl that was crushed by DKM-the-evil-giant-robot, but the reality is that she was the cause of all this. If she had acted like a normal person in the first place, no one would have written her a bad letter.

CQ

 

[Orth2006]

Some of the people on this board just aren't willing to accept the fact that not everyone is cut out to be a doc.

Let the Adcom and eventually the medical process itself decide that not you.

The guy clearly had a motive because he disliked her. The issue is not about whether or not the girl would be a good doctor. The point is that he DECIEVED her. The deceit is what most people on here are condemning.

 

[mjc48]

Let the Adcom and eventually the medical process itself decide that not you.

The guy clearly had a motive because he disliked her. The issue is not about whether or not the girl would be a good doctor. The point is that he DECIEVED her. The deceit is what most people on here are condemning.

Honestly guys, out of all of you condemning the guy, how many would be dumb enough to ask someone that doesn't like them, that has clearly seen them demonstrate incompetence at work, to write a letter? there's no way DKM doesn't telegraph his dislike of her in day to day conversation-- you can see it in every post he's made.

This arrogant girl disregards the fact that four ER docs refused her and looks for another person to extract a letter from. whatever. maybe it's not his place, maybe it is, but really, she's no innocent either. It sounds like she was just trying to force a letter from an experience that she didn't deserve one from...

 

[yellowpersuazio]

double post

 

[yellowpersuazio]

WHY IS EVERYONE SAYING DKM "SABOTAGED HER DREAMS"? SHE SABOTAGED HER OWN DREAMS BY RUINING HER RELATIONSHIPS WITH EVERYONE AROUND HER AND GENERALLY BEING AN ASSHAT.

Everyone keeps saying DKM will get bad karma for this. You ever stop to think that maybe his letter was karma getting HER for being a b****? Everyone's acting like she's some poor defenseless girl that was crushed by DKM-the-evil-giant-robot, but the reality is that she was the cause of all this. If she had acted like a normal person in the first place, no one would have written her a bad letter.

CQ

When someone you don't like asks you for a letter of recommendation, you can either:
a) Deny
b) Deny and give reasons why
c) Write a letter of recommendation
d) Agree to write a letter of recommendation, but instead point out numerous negative qualities in your letter (thus not making it a letter of recommendation at all).

Yes yes, this girl wasn't too smart to know that he would lie to her face and write a negative letter against her, but that doesn't necessarily mean that he had a right to do so. We're obviously getting a one-sided story here, so who knows, maybe DropKickMurphy was the unreasonable one. I don't know why you consider this girl an "ASSHAT," but it worries me that you would come up with such a conclusion with such very little knowledge. Would you treat patients that way? According to your train of thought, since I, your peer, perceive you this way, it must be true.

 

[Wertt]

Unfortunately, even AssHats have the right to honesty, particularly in a professional setting. Writing the letter was simply juvenile and passive-aggressive.
Wouldn't it have been more fun to just laugh in her face up front?

 

[bubbleyum]

first, do no harm.

 

[happydays]

Majority > minority. If everyone at dropkick's work thought this girl lacked common sense, then maybe she really does.

Dropkick was telling the truth according to him. He's done nothing wrong. If he instead said she was great KNOWING that she can't tie her own shoelaces, then he would be lying. Perhaps the rest of you would have just turned down her request, and you're sticking to your principles and good for you too. Don't flame someone else for doing what he believed was right.

 

[beetlerum]

Everyone is entitled to believe that others acted wrongly even if they were following their principles. Personally, I think it was unethical. The guy basically took it upon himself to decide if the applicant could go to medical school. That is not his role. He can decide for himself whether to recommend the girl, but nothing more. Also, from the way it was reported here, it seems that she effectively asked if he felt comfortable recommending her and he lied so as to be able to write the negative rec.

The system is designed to prevent single recommenders from getting to decide applicants' futures. That is why the conventional, and ethical, practice is to refuse to write it if it will be truly bad. This makes sense, otherwise it wouldn't be fair. Some people would know honest potential recommenders and avoid bad ones, while other people would get screwed.

Beyond the general debate about writing bad letters, I have to say that the guy obviously had a very personal grudge against that girl. There's another reason that bad recommendations rarely get written. Who wants to take the time to write the letter if you don't want to help the applicant? From the guy's comments, it's clear he wanted to screw her. That calls into question his evaluation of her.

Majority > minority. If everyone at dropkick's work thought this girl lacked common sense, then maybe she really does.

Dropkick was telling the truth according to him. He's done nothing wrong. If he instead said she was great KNOWING that she can't tie her own shoelaces, then he would be lying. Perhaps the rest of you would have just turned down her request, and you're sticking to your principles and good for you too. Don't flame someone else for doing what he believed was right.

 

[Conqueror]

I don't know why you consider this girl an "ASSHAT," but it worries me that you would come up with such a conclusion with such very little knowledge. Would you treat patients that way?

Oh good lord, get off your high horse. That's probably the most pretentious thing I've read in this whole thread. I could easily reverse the question on you: why do you think she's NOT an asshat, since you have very little knowledge? And the jab about treating my patients that way? Childish.

CQ

 

[USArmyDoc]

I think we are starting to beat a dead horse. The majority of us, myself included, think what Dropkick did was wrong. I will continue feel this way no matter how many times someone tries to persuade me. I think the same goes for those who support his actions. However, what disturbs me the most is that Dropkick and the rest of the crew feel that it is up to them to decide who should be and shouldn't be a physician. Thats for the adcoms.

 

[Conqueror]

Dropkick and the rest of the crew feel that it is up to them to decide who should be and shouldn't be a physician.

That's another hyperbolic statement being parroted by a lot of people. He didn't try to make the decision himself - he wrote his honest opinion and let the adcom take it at face value. THEY rejected her, not DKM. When you boil it down he obviously played a role in that decision, but if his letter was grossly incongruous with the rest of her application they might still have let her in. That suggests that she screwed up elsewhere too.

CQ

 

[happydays]

Everyone keeps saying "only adcoms can decide," yeah, but they decide BASED on the letters. Although the letters are called "letters of rec," it's actually a letter of assessment. Adcoms can't follow every applicant with hidden cameras to see what they're really like in life, so they ask applicants to have other people write about them. A person's true character (at work, at school, etc.) should be revealed by these letters, and that's what dropkick reported. And yes, the final decision will be made by adcoms.

 

[Conqueror]

If I was on an adcom, I would have no problem receiving a letter like DKM's. If her application was otherwise stellar, I would disregard him. If her application was troubling, his letter would confirm my likely action. Like I said, I think her application was already subpar, it's not like DKM shat on an otherwise stellar applicant, or they would have disregarded his letter (adcoms are not stupid; if they can spot subtle problems with an applicant they can certainly separate a personal grudge letter from an honest evaluation).

CQ

 

[yellowpersuazio]

Oh good lord, get off your high horse. That's probably the most pretentious thing I've read in this whole thread. I could easily reverse the question on you: why do you think she's NOT an asshat, since you have very little knowledge? And the jab about treating my patients that way? Childish.

CQ

My high horse? Believe me, I'm not on any high horse, nor do I feel like I should be. I was just calling into question your intense defense on DKM's actions. You called her an "ASSHAT," a "b****," an un"normal person," and the cause of the negative letter, and yet you only have the information that was provided (which was all very subjective and limited). Pretty ironic of you to call me "childish" might I add. I'm not saying she isn't any of those things, nor am I saying she is any of those things. We're only getting a one-sided story, and from what I understand, she wasn't great at her job according to him, yet she asked for a letter of recommendation in support of her application. DKM agreed to do it, yet wrote a nasty letter to hinder her in every way possible. THAT is what I'm arguing.

I don't know why you persist in name-calling, but if you think he had every right to lie to her face and backstab her based only on his account, then that's just the kind of person you are. You just seemed pretty quick to judge and insult this person you know nothing about, and again, maybe that's just the kind of person you are.

We should all just let it drop since we see that DKM hasn't responded. I think his avoidance of replying already speaks volumes.

 

[happydays]

This is a futile argument, that's why (I think) DKM stopped replying. If someone writes the truth about another person, that's the right thing to do. The adcoms have to see how this person is viewed in his/her life/work in order to make an informed decision. And like conqueror said, adcoms aren't stupid. If everything else about this girl is stellar, they will question DKM's letter. There was one thread about someone finding out that he/she had a bad letter from the interviewer, but was accepted anyway. So either way, the system will work.

 

[USArmyDoc]

My high horse? Believe me, I'm not on any high horse, nor do I feel like I should be. I was just calling into question your intense defense on DKM's actions. You called her an "ASSHAT," a "b****," an un"normal person," and the cause of the negative letter, and yet you only have the information that was provided (which was all very subjective and limited). Pretty ironic of you to call me "childish" might I add. I'm not saying she isn't any of those things, nor am I saying she is any of those things. We're only getting a one-sided story, and from what I understand, she wasn't great at her job according to him, yet she asked for a letter of recommendation in support of her application. DKM agreed to do it, yet wrote a nasty letter to hinder her in every way possible. THAT is what I'm arguing.

I don't know why you persist in name-calling, but if you think he had every right to lie to her face and backstab her based only on his account, then that's just the kind of person you are. You just seemed pretty quick to judge and insult this person you know nothing about, and again, maybe that's just the kind of person you are.

We should all just let it drop since we see that DKM hasn't responded. I think his avoidance of replying already speaks volumes.[/QUOTE]

Yea, I agree. However, I wouldn't be so quick to attack the characters of CQ or happydays. They feel that what he did was honestly evaluate her. I think he just should of said no. We can all agree to disagree.....lol

 

[leviathan]

Here's another hypothetical for you:

What if this girl applying for medical school wasn't an incompetent and apathetic EMT, but in fact, Adolf Hitler? Yeah, you're supposed to write a letter of RECOMMENDATION for Hitler, and all of the folks here taking the holier than thou route are denouncing DKM for his actions. But if this was Hitler, would you refuse to write his letter just so he could get an LOR from someone else naive enough to say good things about him? That's kinda what happened in the 1930s, isn't it? Germany was naive enough to believe he would do the Fatherland a great service, and in a way he did, he just happened to also slaughter millions of unwanted Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and others. Gee, if only somewhere along the line, someone could have raised a red flag about Hitler and he never would have made it into power.

Med Schools don't want letters of recommendation so they can read about how amazing every single student is in their own right. They are simply another facet of the process whereby adcoms can find warning flags to block access to certain applicants. It's not hard for Adolf Hitler to feign himself off as a good person long enough to get into power, and it's not hard enough for this girl to feign herslef to be a compassionate and caring woman long enough to get into medical school. Unfortunately the best way to weed out applicants is by finding these red flags that sneak their way into the application, and LORs are just one way it's done. DKM slipped that red flag in where one otherwise may never have shown up, and thus she would be in medical school.

Yes, I really did just compare this woman to Adolf Hitler, how's that for a hyperbole? The point I was trying to make was that if this woman was really as bad as DKM paints her to be, he had a duty to the future patients of this woman to prevent her from getting into medical school.

All of that aside, does DKM have the right to decide who does and doesn't get into medical school based on his own narrow view of their personality? That I don't agree on. But if we make the assumptions that she was indeed as apathetic and incompetent as he said she was, I support his actions 100% because we don't need any more Hitlers getting into power, or to use a medical reference, we don't need anymore Dr. Swangos getting into medical school. All it took for Dr. Swango was to search and search until he found someone who was willing to write that LOR for him before he later poisoned and killed over 50 patients in the hospital.
http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/weird/swango/swango_2.html

 

[omgwtfbbq?]

yike, i was going to post, but i haven't been here in a while and the last page and a half is SCARY! *flees*!

 

[leviathan]

yike, i was going to post, but i haven't been here in a while and the last page and a half is SCARY! *flees*!

I love the username.