Confrence attendance

[Annette]

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I'm a little peeved right now, and I'm not certain I should be. I fully admit that part of this rant is because I was marked late when I didn't think I was.

We have to have 80% attendance at confrences. No big deal. Last year, they didn't really take attendance, and unfortunately some people took advantage. I attended all the confrences that I could, and even participated. Well, this year (now that all the people who took advantage have left the program), they are being real sticklers on attendance. If you are more than 10 minutes late, you are considered absent. You get marked late if you arrive 0-10 minutes. They don't care if you participate. And so what? Well, we will be assigned extra call (like it will fit into the 8o hour week) and possibly be denied our confrence leave. And, if we don't keep 80% group attendance, they will take away our time off around Christmas/New Years! They fully want us to use "peer pressure" to get other people to go. There is no "reward" for attendance/participation. Now, we have to write up evaluations of our journal club meetings- which previously were not much more than drug rep sponsored dinners. Also, we no longer sign in ourselves- the chief signs us in.

I feel like I'm being treated as a child by a very punative teacher. Of course, in the next breath, we are supposed to cover non-covered attendings when it is appropriate in our judgement. I'm allowed to run fricking codes, stick sharp things in hidden places, and prescribe all sorts of nasty drugs, but aren't allowed to sign my own name? Ok, I maybe see this in a popular university program where you pray they pick you, but I'm at a podunk community program!

What are your thoughts/experiences?

 

[avendesora]

Wow, that sounds a lot like 4th grade. Where did you say this is again? I think people might like to know stuff like that before thinking about going to a program.

Also, I think there may be some new RRC requirements regarding conference attendance? My program is also being more stringent than they were in the past, but it's 60%, not 80.

 

[margaritaboy]

Raw deal man....

 

[Foxxy Cleopatra]

I hear you; that rule sound pretty stiff...

Though at least you get a holiday- I have worked every single one- thanksgiving, christmas, new year's, easter, plus the small holidays. We do not get any time off for holidays here. I will not be going home for a single thanksgiving or christmas until (possibly) the holiday season after residency is complete (2008.)

Hopefully, your program's bark is worse than it's bite. If it's not, however, I'd make it a point (despite the hard time others may give you) of dropping everything to make sure you are there on time. Don't let them strip anything else away from you!

 

[fourthyear]

If you worked in many other fields you might have meetings in which attendance was required and it would be looked down upon for you to show up late. I imagine if you missed 20% of these meetings you might get some sort of bad evaluation and maybe even loose your job. So why is this so hard to accept that when you are a resident this is the case?

Residency has always been one of the toughest fields of employment based on the expectations for work hours, responsibility level, and intrusion into your social life. At a time when residents are being treated better that ever in terms of humane hours and less general abuse than in the past, I had to see people being whiney babies about showing up on time for their job.

 

[Annette]

Yeah, I agree about being late, however, we have to report in detail why we are late (i.e. patient care details!). I don't like the way that we are being micro managed.

 

[fourthyear]

alright, maybe the my first post was kinda harsh. I have been late at a few conferences myself b/c I was dealing with some urgent issue that came up with a patient. It's hard when they're basically forcing you to make a decision to ignore something a patient may need in order to be on time. As you said though, there seemed to be some people in your program for whom this was not the case, as the "took advantage of" the fact that attendence was not enforce in the past.