Sooo do i need to care at all about my evals in internship, or can i just get the job done? Med school was so taxing with the constant fear of being graded negatively. Does for example the PD of your neuro program see how you do in internship? Or would it come up for job/fellowshp applications? I'm doing both at the same place. Thanks.
can i stop faking it now?
- Thread starter Acherona
- Start date
- Joined
- Jul 30, 2007
- Messages
- 766
- Reaction score
- 2
All I know is once labeled a slacker, tsk..tsk...tsk...remember, the hospital is a small place (no matter how big it is) and word gets around. You wont just be working solely in the Neurology department, you know. You will always at some point need endocrine/pulm/cards/surgery/ortho...get the picture?
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2008
- Messages
- 697
- Reaction score
- 3
Good point... Would love to hear the responses...
- Joined
- Oct 22, 2006
- Messages
- 2,268
- Reaction score
- 755
Unfortunately I've built up a good reputation at my internship year program (as a medical student) so as much as I'd like to regress to slacker mode, my stupid pride kicks in and will stop that.
I disagree. In fact worrying about "kissing arse" is likely to lower your eval by distracting you from the tasks at hand. Over time, hard work and talent with a pinch of politics will take you where you want to go.
I find this thread to be distasteful. You should be doing good work out of personal dedication, not because it will somehow get you something you want.
ok Mr. self-righteous. The question is not about doing your job well, it's about pretending that like, sucking fluid out of someone's abdomen is the most exciting thing I've ever done in my life, when it isn't. Or like, agreeing to put in that chest tube even though I'm scared sh*tless and would prefer to watch someone first because I don't want it showing up on my eval that I refused to do a procedure.
My apologies, I guess I misinterpreted a few of your original comments.
It seems we just have very different view points on what medical school was like. I rarely felt like I had to pretend to like what I was doing, I just tried to learn as much as I could and do a good job. Sure there were times when I was tired, or bored, or crabby, but overall I got to see a ton of cool stuff.
As far as assessments of performance, it seemed like knowing your patient, hard work, good intentions and doing well on clerkship exams counted a lot more than trying to please residents/staff. Like another poster mentioned, that stuff usually takes care of itself.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2008
- Messages
- 306
- Reaction score
- 20
Amos: You are nuts. Evals are at a minimum 50% politics. I have gotten better evals than I deserved on multiple occassions because I developed a good relationship with my preceptor. I have also gotten worse evals than I deserved on multiple occassions when I didn't develop a particularly good relationship with my preceptor. I find it hard to believe that you have gotten through medical school without experiencing this. It's common knowledge.
I guess everyone develops their own strategies for having success. Maybe it depends on your school, but if you're nice to the people on your team as a default, it usually doesn't take a concerted effort to appease people beyond that. There's a ton of grade inflation on evals where I currently train, so you have to be a huge punk (refuse to help out, make racist jokes, be mean to patients, etc) to fall below 8 or 9 on a 10 point scale. You can also choose who fills out many of your evals, so if there's some jerk that randomly dislikes you for no reason you can just have someone else grade you. All of these factors make the clerkship exams much more important than evals for determining who gets honors.
I do agree with you that I am nuts however 🙂.
- Joined
- Jul 26, 2003
- Messages
- 981
- Reaction score
- 51
I would almost agree with you! You are correct, for the most part, if you show up, act interested, do your job, it is hard to score less than 8 on medical student evaluations. Of course, as others have pointed out, there is the occasional *****hole preceptor that give no med student a decent eval under any circumstances. Unfortunately, it happens.
My experiences as an intern for neurology pre-select was much different. For interns/residents, getting less than a 5 is below average on most evals and if you get a 5, you probably earned it with reservation. Most get 6-7's and this is good. If you get above 7's then you performed exceptional.
Now, let's get back to the original question of this thread.
Most rotations act like, "Oh, you're gonna do neurology, like you care anyways!". Try to defunct this attitude immediately. Let your senior residents and attendings know that even if it is not your goal in life to be say a cardiologist, that you still want to learn what you can to pass step III and to just be a good general doctor. Most will respect this attitude.
Also, in some cases, the expectations are set low so if you just try to do your job, this looks good. For example, whenever I did a required peds month. I recall going in to round one weekend as I was on call and it was just understood that I was going to remain on the general peds ward and was not to round in the NICU or nursery just because I would be "useless" compared to a peds intern.
No sucking up is required. Do your job, do your best, and just show that you want to be a good doc and you will get by without scars.
- Joined
- Mar 20, 2008
- Messages
- 780
- Reaction score
- 12
I think it depends on the work environment, if you have a lot of malignant attendings then you waste energy trying to figure out their personality disorder so you can survive. My outline would be:
1. Is the rotation free of malignancy?
If yes, then focus on doing excellent patient care and the evaluations will take care of themselves.
If not, then try hard to focus on patient care and learning the ins and outs of the malignancy and how to avoid getting involved in the "fight". Yes, you will feel stressed about evals at such places. This is just the usual learning how to survive in a hostile environment.
- Joined
- Mar 8, 2005
- Messages
- 3,435
- Reaction score
- 11
👍👍👍
Btw Acherona... don't you even remember your interns? Did they strike you as Dr. Happy-go-lucky all the time? Do your job and do it well. The rest will fall in line as long as you're not a jerk.
Speaking of which... if you want to come across as a grouchy pissed off intern that refuses to take on additional work... well, thats up to you. But I think it would be in your best interest to try to come across as a relatively likable person that finds his job somewhat interesting and is willing to help his team/staff out when he is able to. If that means showing an extra smile here or there to an attending (or nurse), so be it. It won't kill you.
- Joined
- May 15, 2008
- Messages
- 5,089
- Reaction score
- 55
acherona
I agree with Darth
and I agree with YOU about med school and med student evaluations
Internship in general is better than med school because there isn't a bell shaped curve where there have to be a certain number of students with honors/high pass/pass. If you don't get stuck on a malignant team and aren't lazy and stupid most of your evals will probably be O.K. Also, even if you get one kind of bad eval. or something, it's unlikely to affect you later as a neurologist. No, nobody asks about this stuff when getting a job or for licensing...they only ask if you had official disciplinary action or had to extend training, etc. You'll basically get a job later on the recommendation of neuro attendings and your neuro PD, plus being board certified in neuro (at least if it works anything like IM). Just don't get on the bad side of attendings or the medicine PD. As a prelim intern, you're likely to be under a little less scrutiny than if you were doing categorical IM, so hopefully if you aren't at a malignant hospital things will be all right as an intern. Just don't slack because you are a prelim and it will likely be fine.
I agree with Darth
and I agree with YOU about med school and med student evaluations
Internship in general is better than med school because there isn't a bell shaped curve where there have to be a certain number of students with honors/high pass/pass. If you don't get stuck on a malignant team and aren't lazy and stupid most of your evals will probably be O.K. Also, even if you get one kind of bad eval. or something, it's unlikely to affect you later as a neurologist. No, nobody asks about this stuff when getting a job or for licensing...they only ask if you had official disciplinary action or had to extend training, etc. You'll basically get a job later on the recommendation of neuro attendings and your neuro PD, plus being board certified in neuro (at least if it works anything like IM). Just don't get on the bad side of attendings or the medicine PD. As a prelim intern, you're likely to be under a little less scrutiny than if you were doing categorical IM, so hopefully if you aren't at a malignant hospital things will be all right as an intern. Just don't slack because you are a prelim and it will likely be fine.
- Joined
- Nov 18, 1999
- Messages
- 2,617
- Reaction score
- 3,587
OK, probably has to do with the culture of one's institution and the individuals with whom one happens to work.
That said, I find *my* evals correlate with a) my level of interest in the rotation and b) how much I like the attending.
Through med school and residency, I have gotten a couple of less-than-enthusiastic evals on rotations I didn't find interesting and/or from attendings I didn't respect (I guess they could smell it). When I enjoy the rotation and respect the attending, I always get an excellent eval.
So maybe if I'd been able to 'kiss ass' with the loser attendings I would have gotten a better eval, so in that sense I can see where you're going. But they've been a very small proportion of the attendings I've worked with so it hasn't had enough of an impact for me to attempt the indignity of kissing up to someone with inferior skills/character. I consider the subpar eval the price of maintaining my ego integrity.
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2008
- Messages
- 306
- Reaction score
- 20
- Joined
- May 15, 2008
- Messages
- 5,089
- Reaction score
- 55
I think that good looking outgoing people (not just women) get good evaluations. If you look around at who are the cardiology fellows, dermatologists, etc. at a lot of places, it's a lot of nice looking folks. Lots of tall waspy good looking white guys in cards @my teaching hospital. Not all fit the profile, but most do.
- Joined
- Nov 7, 2003
- Messages
- 212
- Reaction score
- 1
Whatever you do, don't become a slacker. Remember that neurology is a consultative specialty. You need the respect of internists. Do a good job intern year and you'll be the man when you become a neuro resident.
IM and surgery will be able to trust your word as a consultant & you'll walk on water.
This will extend into practice, esp if you go private. You'll need PCPs to like and trust you. The most important thing in life is to have class and manners (how's that for elitism?!?). Be unflappable & you will command respect at your institution.
And as for the assertion that the better looking people get ahead, this is unfortunately true to a certain extent. Although most of the fellows do fit the typical WASP mold, they also share one thing in common: good personalities. This is what really gets you ahead in medicine and life in general.
In response to TR's comment, you should ALWAYS respect your attendings, no matter what.
(I know I'm going to get flamed on this)
IM and surgery will be able to trust your word as a consultant & you'll walk on water.
This will extend into practice, esp if you go private. You'll need PCPs to like and trust you. The most important thing in life is to have class and manners (how's that for elitism?!?). Be unflappable & you will command respect at your institution.
And as for the assertion that the better looking people get ahead, this is unfortunately true to a certain extent. Although most of the fellows do fit the typical WASP mold, they also share one thing in common: good personalities. This is what really gets you ahead in medicine and life in general.
In response to TR's comment, you should ALWAYS respect your attendings, no matter what.
(I know I'm going to get flamed on this)
Last edited:
- Joined
- Sep 9, 2008
- Messages
- 60
- Reaction score
- 1
Classic example of the three A's of how to be a successful consultant:
Availability
Affability
Ability
And ability isn't close to being the most important one if you want to get business...
Similar threads
