I am a resident who has noticed strange behavior from a particular medical student over the past few months and just wanted to share my experience and solicit advice on how to deal with this case. This medical student has been observed by me on two subsequent rotations we happen to coincidentally be on. I have noticed more what I would classify as bizarre and at times egotistical (not unsafe or overtly malignant) behaviors from him/her and I don't think this person should be doing this and think someone should be notified.
1.) There was a case where we were treating an HIV patient for CAP as a primary service. This was based off a measured fever in the ED/questionable infiltrate/new onset cough which the patient presented to the hospital for (his CD4 was not <200, he only required 2L on presentation, no COPD hx). Two days later, the student reported the patient was having diarrhea which he attributed to the antibiotics and he said this quite condescendingly. I felt dumb that I missed diarrhea so I went after rounds without telling anyone to get more history on the diarrhea and the patient and nurse denied the diarrhea. I later asked the student about it and he gets defensive and tells me he noted it on the flowsheets. I look on the flowsheets and noted there was one episode of semi-formed stool documented but neither the nurse or the patient had thought much of it and the rest of the stools were solid. This nurse and I had some rapport from a previous case and he shared with me that the student had spent 30 minutes with the patient talking to him about how antibiotics were overprescribed and this was not a pneumonia based off his experience. I was really miffed and told my senior, but he told me to just ignore it and that the student's dad was an attending here.
2.) This is really what I felt was bizarre. We had a patient who came in for a unilateral cellulitis with intact skin with hx of DM, HF. The patient owned a dog but to his knowledge the dog had not bit or interacted (bit/licked, etc.) with the leg. We felt the etiology for related to venous stasis. This student tries to make the case that the dog bit the patient and caused this reaction. The next day when I go to see the patient he told me one of the doctors had told him that his dog would need to be euthanized to determine if it had caused the issue and if this was true. I had a suspicion what had led to this discussion, but I asked the student unassumingly if he had asked the patient about rabies and he told me he had a long discussion with the patient about it. I asked directly if he had told the patient his dog needed to be put down and he said he had never told the patient this. Of note, there were no consultant teams seeing the patients, my senior did not speak with the patient, and the attending does not typically do so outside of rounds and no one had mentioned rabies. I spoke to him about this and brought up the previous time with the HIV patient and the Pneumonia but I don't think the student really respected what I had to say.
Overall, I really don't know what to do here. On one end, I really don't like reporting things because I think every time you report something, admin looks into both sides of the story and I don't want to come off as a problem resident and have worked hard to cultivate the best impression I can. On the other hand I am really put off by the student's condescending behavior and think he needs to be spoken to or disciplined in some way for the way he talks with patients. I am really not sure who to discuss this with.
Thoughts?
