Being bullied at dental school

[toothfairy900]

I'm a third year DDS student. Has anyone suffered from cliques in their class? I once belonged to this clique of about 10 guys and girls; everything started well and everybody was hanging out outside the class, helping each other with school, and just simply being friends. Slowly there emerged a "Queen Bee" who seems to be planning everything and loved to be surrounded by followers. Personally I'm a really chill girl - I'm not very strong-opinionated nor judgmental. That gives me the ability to hangout with many people, male or female, that's if they are good people with good intentions. As a result, I have accumulated some friends throughout the class. For some reason, this "Queen Bee" finds that intolerable and started spreading rumors about me. She used the word "Slutty" about me, and told people that I was calling her "bitchy" and another girl in the group "stupid." First of all, none of those words would ever come out of my mouth - I found these words extremely immature and unfitting for a professional school environment. Secondly, I came to dental school to learn how to be a dentist, and having such strong emotional feeling towards any classmate, whether love or hate, has never been my primary focus. I have no reason to call anyone that simply because I'm not here to do so. She rallied 3 other girls and it seems to me that "hating on me" is some kind of common interest that would entertain them on a daily basis and somehow bind them closer as a group. And then they started inviting the whole group to restaurants and events and purposely left me out, then they started a new Facebook chat so that I would be excommunicated. A couple friends in the group saw something wrong and defended me. They would hang out with me outside of the group which is very comforting. Some of them said that it is completely unfair for me to exclude me because they think they "run the group."

But quite honestly, I really don't care the fact that this girl doesn't like me - it's completely normal for people to have preference towards others. I myself lean towards certain qualities in people. What baffles me the most is the amount of efforts she spent to rally others to hate on me to ensure her "Queen bee" status. And what makes is the most agonizing for me is when she created rumor that I was disloyal to my boyfriend, which is completely ill-willed and downright BS. My boyfriend, family and friends are the most important things in my life and I would go out of my ways anyday to help them whenever they need me. A friend also in the group said she is doing this because she is jealous - since I'm smart, funny, socialble and have friends outside the clique. He thinks it's very unfair for her to decide whom to include and whom to exclude from the group. He thinks it's the competitiveness within many dental students that constitutes the motivation behind all her bad intentions towards me. I personally think that it's because of the fact that I'm independent and I won't conform to her ways. But no matter what the motivation is, it's exhausting trying to dodge the bullets. It's even more disheartening to see people whom you once considered your best friends trying so hard to manipulate others and doing such atrocious things to ruin your reputation behind your back. Since all the groups in the class has been well established, being a "nomad" means that you don't have a great support system. I have a year and half left in class and I don't want to spend that time alone or with distractions like this surrounding me. Dear forum readers, what should I do?

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[Miley Cyrus.]

Best thing to do is confront her about it. Don't be too mean about it, you don't want her retaliating. Just tell her you know what she is up to. I wouldn't worry too much. I mean you are a D3 so I assume most of your coursework that would need cooperation from others is over and you are mainly in clinic. I would get involved with other extracurriculars (ASDA, conferences, CE, etc) at the school and meet other ppl, maybe D4s as well. This way you can learn more about your profession, meet new ppl, take your mind off of it, etc.

I've also dealt with this as well. What I have learned is that you need to 'manage your classmates'. Don't give out revealing info, reveal likes/dislikes. Just be pleasant to everybody and do your own thing. You got it right: you are here to learn, having friends isn't really that important. I went to a super competitive undergrad and I thought I had it bad, until I came to D-school. D-school has a lot of bad ppl in it and you need to be careful. I started out D-school trying to be really friendly, but realized that I'd rather be careful and have no reputation than to have the chance of my reputation getting skewered later on (which is more likely when you open yourself to others). Don't feel that other groups are closed off to you in your class either. Feel out others, even the shy ones, and see whether you can make friends with them. Don't let your grades slip. No feeling is worse than having bad grades and not having good relations in the school.

What she does outside the school, online, etc there is nothing you can really do about. If you catch her using inappropriate language about you IN school, then report her. There is no place for that and the school admin would probably agree. But like I said it has to be stuff she says when physically in school, or you can't do squat. You are almost out of school, just hang in there.

 

[Faux]

Theres some smart people in dental school but there are individuals I wouldn't trust with a piece of lint around me. Report anything if you feel in danger or threatened. Make best with those who actually acknowledge what queen B was doing and gravitated with you instead. Thats very rare to find and people often conform.

 

[Frank22]

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[Sublimazing]

 

[LaughingGas]

Is there no faculty working as a student advocate?

 

[toothfairy900]

No there isn't any faculty working as student advocate. And I think adding faculty to this will make things worse.

 

[lemoncurry]

There is no dean of students? Do you have a class president who communicates with administration regularly? Campus counselor?

This type of behavior is unprofessional and unacceptable. I was class president for 2 years and if something like this was going on, you bet your bottom dollar that I would be communicating this to administration. At the very least, I would think administration would be concerned about having such a person affiliated with their school and would take measures to resolve the situation.

I highly recommend that you talk to someone in admin or at least someone who will then relay to admin. You're paying too much money to have to deal with that kind of BS.

 

[pilotdentist]

I wouldn't bring "he said,she said" drama to faculty. This will not help your make any friends. Handle it at lowest level, aka address your concerns with this person directly and or with your other friends in the group. If they can't see past rumors then are they your friends? You said you get along with anyone, and have friends throughout your class, but also say you don't want to be "alone" when your outside this 1 group. I say branch out and avoid the ridiculous drama.

 

[ToothbrushBuddy]

Unfortunate that this happens even after high school. Somehow you would think that "adults" shouldn't be doing this. She is a very insecure person. Just put your time and energy into the relationships in your life that really matter, like the one with your boyfriend and family.

 

[Rambunctious]

I'm a third year DDS student. Has anyone suffered from cliques in their class? I once belonged to this clique of about 10 guys and girls; everything started well and everybody was hanging out outside the class, helping each other with school, and just simply being friends. Slowly there emerged a "Queen Bee" who seems to be planning everything and loved to be surrounded by followers. Personally I'm a really chill girl - I'm not very strong-opinionated nor judgmental. That gives me the ability to hangout with many people, male or female, that's if they are good people with good intentions. As a result, I have accumulated some friends throughout the class. For some reason, this "Queen Bee" finds that intolerable and started spreading rumors about me. She used the word "Slutty" about me, and told people that I was calling her "bitchy" and another girl in the group "stupid." First of all, none of those words would ever come out of my mouth - I found these words extremely immature and unfitting for a professional school environment. Secondly, I came to dental school to learn how to be a dentist, and having such strong emotional feeling towards any classmate, whether love or hate, has never been my primary focus. I have no reason to call anyone that simply because I'm not here to do so. She rallied 3 other girls and it seems to me that "hating on me" is some kind of common interest that would entertain them on a daily basis and somehow bind them closer as a group. And then they started inviting the whole group to restaurants and events and purposely left me out, then they started a new Facebook chat so that I would be excommunicated. A couple friends in the group saw something wrong and defended me. They would hang out with me outside of the group which is very comforting. Some of them said that it is completely unfair for me to exclude me because they think they "run the group."

But quite honestly, I really don't care the fact that this girl doesn't like me - it's completely normal for people to have preference towards others. I myself lean towards certain qualities in people. What baffles me the most is the amount of efforts she spent to rally others to hate on me to ensure her "Queen bee" status. And what makes is the most agonizing for me is when she created rumor that I was disloyal to my boyfriend, which is completely ill-willed and downright BS. My boyfriend, family and friends are the most important things in my life and I would go out of my ways anyday to help them whenever they need me. A friend also in the group said she is doing this because she is jealous - since I'm smart, funny, socialble and have friends outside the clique. He thinks it's very unfair for her to decide whom to include and whom to exclude from the group. He thinks it's the competitiveness within many dental students that constitutes the motivation behind all her bad intentions towards me. I personally think that it's because of the fact that I'm independent and I won't conform to her ways. But no matter what the motivation is, it's exhausting trying to dodge the bullets. It's even more disheartening to see people whom you once considered your best friends trying so hard to manipulate others and doing such atrocious things to ruin your reputation behind your back. Since all the groups in the class has been well established, being a "nomad" means that you don't have a great support system. I have a year and half left in class and I don't want to spend that time alone or with distractions like this surrounding me. Dear forum readers, what should I do?

Just ignore them and focus on school. Pretty soon you'll be done with school, working and not worrying about these people.

 

[deleted659902]

I'm a third year DDS student. Has anyone suffered from cliques in their class? I once belonged to this clique of about 10 guys and girls; everything started well and everybody was hanging out outside the class, helping each other with school, and just simply being friends. Slowly there emerged a "Queen Bee" who seems to be planning everything and loved to be surrounded by followers. Personally I'm a really chill girl - I'm not very strong-opinionated nor judgmental. That gives me the ability to hangout with many people, male or female, that's if they are good people with good intentions. As a result, I have accumulated some friends throughout the class. For some reason, this "Queen Bee" finds that intolerable and started spreading rumors about me. She used the word "Slutty" about me, and told people that I was calling her "bitchy" and another girl in the group "stupid." First of all, none of those words would ever come out of my mouth - I found these words extremely immature and unfitting for a professional school environment. Secondly, I came to dental school to learn how to be a dentist, and having such strong emotional feeling towards any classmate, whether love or hate, has never been my primary focus. I have no reason to call anyone that simply because I'm not here to do so. She rallied 3 other girls and it seems to me that "hating on me" is some kind of common interest that would entertain them on a daily basis and somehow bind them closer as a group. And then they started inviting the whole group to restaurants and events and purposely left me out, then they started a new Facebook chat so that I would be excommunicated. A couple friends in the group saw something wrong and defended me. They would hang out with me outside of the group which is very comforting. Some of them said that it is completely unfair for me to exclude me because they think they "run the group."

But quite honestly, I really don't care the fact that this girl doesn't like me - it's completely normal for people to have preference towards others. I myself lean towards certain qualities in people. What baffles me the most is the amount of efforts she spent to rally others to hate on me to ensure her "Queen bee" status. And what makes is the most agonizing for me is when she created rumor that I was disloyal to my boyfriend, which is completely ill-willed and downright BS. My boyfriend, family and friends are the most important things in my life and I would go out of my ways anyday to help them whenever they need me. A friend also in the group said she is doing this because she is jealous - since I'm smart, funny, socialble and have friends outside the clique. He thinks it's very unfair for her to decide whom to include and whom to exclude from the group. He thinks it's the competitiveness within many dental students that constitutes the motivation behind all her bad intentions towards me. I personally think that it's because of the fact that I'm independent and I won't conform to her ways. But no matter what the motivation is, it's exhausting trying to dodge the bullets. It's even more disheartening to see people whom you once considered your best friends trying so hard to manipulate others and doing such atrocious things to ruin your reputation behind your back. Since all the groups in the class has been well established, being a "nomad" means that you don't have a great support system. I have a year and half left in class and I don't want to spend that time alone or with distractions like this surrounding me. Dear forum readers, what should I do?

This was exactly why I didn't join any of the "cliques." Sure, I don't have much of a support network within school as a result of remaining aloof, but that's what families and friends outside the school are for. I pretty much treat dental school as "work" from 9-5 and don't go out of my way to make friends. In other words, I try hard to remain under the radar. The downside is that I'm probably perceived as the loner type among my classmates, but the upside (not being subjected to this kind of atrocious rumors/bullying) outweighed the downside for me.

In my opinion, dental school is like high school all over again with all the drama and immaturity except people are now smarter/clever with even bigger egos. My advice: if she does something in school that will affect your grades, report her to the administration. I wouldn't even bother with the class president at this point. You only have about a year and a half left, so it's not like your reputation matters a whole lot. What matters the most is that you get out with DMD next to your name.

 

[miri30]

Stay out of it and move on. Ignore the nonsense. I disagree with confronting her. There's lots of annoying, overbearing personalities in dental school and this is familiar.

Fully agree.

 

[DaleDoback]

I'm a third year DDS student. Has anyone suffered from cliques in their class? I once belonged to this clique of about 10 guys and girls; everything started well and everybody was hanging out outside the class, helping each other with school, and just simply being friends. Slowly there emerged a "Queen Bee" who seems to be planning everything and loved to be surrounded by followers. Personally I'm a really chill girl - I'm not very strong-opinionated nor judgmental. That gives me the ability to hangout with many people, male or female, that's if they are good people with good intentions. As a result, I have accumulated some friends throughout the class. For some reason, this "Queen Bee" finds that intolerable and started spreading rumors about me. She used the word "Slutty" about me, and told people that I was calling her "bitchy" and another girl in the group "stupid." First of all, none of those words would ever come out of my mouth - I found these words extremely immature and unfitting for a professional school environment. Secondly, I came to dental school to learn how to be a dentist, and having such strong emotional feeling towards any classmate, whether love or hate, has never been my primary focus. I have no reason to call anyone that simply because I'm not here to do so. She rallied 3 other girls and it seems to me that "hating on me" is some kind of common interest that would entertain them on a daily basis and somehow bind them closer as a group. And then they started inviting the whole group to restaurants and events and purposely left me out, then they started a new Facebook chat so that I would be excommunicated. A couple friends in the group saw something wrong and defended me. They would hang out with me outside of the group which is very comforting. Some of them said that it is completely unfair for me to exclude me because they think they "run the group."

But quite honestly, I really don't care the fact that this girl doesn't like me - it's completely normal for people to have preference towards others. I myself lean towards certain qualities in people. What baffles me the most is the amount of efforts she spent to rally others to hate on me to ensure her "Queen bee" status. And what makes is the most agonizing for me is when she created rumor that I was disloyal to my boyfriend, which is completely ill-willed and downright BS. My boyfriend, family and friends are the most important things in my life and I would go out of my ways anyday to help them whenever they need me. A friend also in the group said she is doing this because she is jealous - since I'm smart, funny, socialble and have friends outside the clique. He thinks it's very unfair for her to decide whom to include and whom to exclude from the group. He thinks it's the competitiveness within many dental students that constitutes the motivation behind all her bad intentions towards me. I personally think that it's because of the fact that I'm independent and I won't conform to her ways. But no matter what the motivation is, it's exhausting trying to dodge the bullets. It's even more disheartening to see people whom you once considered your best friends trying so hard to manipulate others and doing such atrocious things to ruin your reputation behind your back. Since all the groups in the class has been well established, being a "nomad" means that you don't have a great support system. I have a year and half left in class and I don't want to spend that time alone or with distractions like this surrounding me. Dear forum readers, what should I do?

Walk in tomorrow and grab her hair. Everyone loves a girl fight. Then you are the new queen bee. Typical Mean Girls scenario.

 

[aqz]

Offer her some Kalteen bars.

 

[newdoc1987]

I agree with everyone telling you to address the girl directly, cordially and professionally, then keep it moving. I kept to myself in dental school, kept my head down and got through it as the quiet guy without any enemies and that was fine because I had a great wife, family and friends supporting me outside school walls. That said, good friends can do everything from holding clinic chairs for you, to assisting you in the clinic and even parlaying good faculty relationships they may have into good relationships for you, so if you have a circle like that then focus on them. You don't need a legion behind you but looking back a handful of tight buds can make a big difference.

 

[BlueToothHunter]

Surprisingly, this will happen when you start working as a dentist as well.. Some things never change.