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This is remarkable. Any current DHMC residents out there wish to comment?
http://thedartmouth.com/2013/05/23/news/dhmc
http://thedartmouth.com/2013/05/23/news/dhmc
This is remarkable. Any current DHMC residents out there wish to comment?
http://thedartmouth.com/2013/05/23/news/dhmc
Here is a link to what the resident Dr. Knapik was fired for:
http://www.vnews.com/news/3163344-95/knapik-dhmc-resident-letter
"Chronic insomnia"
Assbergers
Some interesting cases. I do know that I would be pissed if a coresident pulled the chronic insomnia card and got a much more regular schedule.
Here is a link to what the resident Dr. Knapik was fired for:
http://www.vnews.com/news/3163344-95/knapik-dhmc-resident-letter
Here is a link to what the resident Dr. Knapik was fired for:
http://www.vnews.com/news/3163344-95/knapik-dhmc-resident-letter
Not a resident, but a med student. Having just finished my psych rotation at Dartmouth I find the assertion that the psych department is malignant to be hard to believe. The psych residents and attendings I worked with were all the opposite of malignant. Almost all med students really like their psych rotations at Dartmouth, and much of that is because of how great the residents and faculty are to work with. I don't know anything about the situations of the two psych residents who are suing, but I find it really difficult to believe that the problem was with the department and not the residents who were fired.
As for the former surgery chief who is suing: I never met her. From what I heard, she very much deserved to get fired.
I know nothing about the rads resident and I haven't rotated in the department. That being said, if you can't take night call it's pretty difficult to do residency. I'm not sure a "reasonable accomodation" for insomnia would be to permanently excuse a resident from all overnight call, especially when that is an integral part of the job. Doing so also affects all the other residents who now have to take more call.
While I'm sure that some residents do get fired because of maliciousness on the part of their programs, some residents get fired for not being able to do the required job or because they are unprofessional.
let me go ahead and cross Dartmouth off the list of places I'd do residency at. 2 residents fired for not using a stethoscope on a healthy patient? surely there is more to that story.
I think termination required a grievous offense and is quite damaging to a resident. S/he should be allowed to resign and allowed to find another place to work. This is scarring a resident for life. They will forever have to check the box on state licensing asking if they were ever terminated or lost privileges from an institution. Furthermore, it makes them liable for lawsuits in the future when cross questioned by lawyers. This is positive sign of a malignant program and I would never want to work for a program that terminates its resident(especially when they can be offered resignation).
And jeez, the insomnia person. I think being able to endure some sleep deprivation goes with the whole physician category. Can you imagine being this person's fellow resident?
Attitudes towards sleep and attention disorders are pretty negative. No matter how serious your disability, you'll always come across as either lazy or a whiner. Disabilities seem to only be permitted on soft factors. Someone with a obvious physical disability is permitted to work slower. But if it's a mental or neurological impairment that results in the person getting what others see as "perks" (more sleep, more time on test, less on duty responsibilities), they will become jealous and ostracize you because outwardly you appear normal and they will either assume you're lying or that you are weak. Even the NBME, who claim adherence to the ADA, are overwhelmingly unwilling to grant accommodation to people with non-physical disabilities (they have been sued over this), and if for some reason by the grace of god they allow it, they make sure everyone knows you weaseled around the system with a big asterisk next to your score. It's incredibly ironic how unwilling the medical profession is to accommodate for medical disabilities within its own ranks.
Right but there is a fine line between disability and not being fit to perform a job.
If you can only work 7 hour days during the daytime you are not going to get the training needed nor be able the responsibilities of the job.
I don't know what side of the line this falls on...but that is the logic of a lot of people.
7 hour days may be enough. Sometimes people work longer hours than those necessary to learn the job or get the job done. A fuss is made about how shorter hours will lead to the end of the world, but then a miracle happens and 60 hour weeks are found to be sufficient.
If longer hours are needed, then extra days should be added, either by reducing weekends/holidays or adding extra time at the end.
Just because it's not how things are usually done, doesn't mean it can't be done. A bit of creativity makes us a better, more inclusive and more productive society. And untill medicine reaches the state of grace where we all die in our sleep in old age with no previous health problems, we are doing ourselves, our friends and our children a favour by acknowledging that sometimes people have health issues that have to be managed rather than cured and that they are doing their best to deal with them and be productive members of society.
It's done in Europe. Residents have normal work weeks (usually). They have more supervision their first few years out of residency, but it shows that a slower paced system works fine.
Two wrongs don't make a right. The punishment must fit the crime. Losing one year of residency equals $500,000 a year(the money she would have made as an attending). Asking her to resign would have let her save face and had a year to reflect on her costly mistake. Why is it that doctors have empathy for their patients but not for each other?
All this being said...she coulda just had borderline personality disorder and the institution may have feared branding her with their name.
Two wrongs don't make a right. The punishment must fit the crime. Losing one year of residency equals $500,000 a year(the money she would have made as an attending). Asking her to resign would have let her save face and had a year to reflect on her costly mistake. Why is it that doctors have empathy for their patients but not for each other?
It's done in Europe. Residents have normal work weeks (usually). They have more supervision their first few years out of residency, but it shows that a slower paced system works fine.
Once again, letting people save face is what separates a good program from a malignant one(and a good PD from a potentially malignant one) IMO. It is like dumping someone, there is a classy way to do it and a unclassy way.
Not true, they are NOT equal. That is why they make it a check box for termination or lost privileges on every transfer application. Bigger red flags get triggered when applicants check the box "have you ever been terminated." Resignation is a big question mark and something the candidate can explain in a neutral light(e.g clash of personalities).
If she was offered resignation and didn't take it, she deserves it. She may be borderline or cluster b personality disorder, but I doubt she is stupid.
1) Who says she couldn't have matched at another program? Maybe as a 3rd year? 2nd year?
2) who says she couldn't have matched in a lesser ranked surgery program?
3) who says she could have matched into a different specialty?
4) it is a lawsuit not a meeting- the plaintiff is not going to give their cards away. She may have a personality disorder but she isn't stupid. If they had let her resign she would have had a job and Dartmouth wouldn't have a lawsuit on their hands.
I already work a majority of weekends and plenty of holidays. If you gave me a 7-hour day (which is just over half of my usual day), you'd just have to turn my residency into a 10-year program. You won't be able to get funding for that, which would make it an unreasonable accommodation. So it wouldn't happen, and that's really all there is to that...7 hour days may be enough. Sometimes people work longer hours than those necessary to learn the job or get the job done. A fuss is made about how shorter hours will lead to the end of the world, but then a miracle happens and 60 hour weeks are found to be sufficient.
If longer hours are needed, then extra days should be added, either by reducing weekends/holidays or adding extra time at the end.
Just because it's not how things are usually done, doesn't mean it can't be done. A bit of creativity makes us a better, more inclusive and more productive society. And untill medicine reaches the state of grace where we all die in our sleep in old age with no previous health problems, we are doing ourselves, our friends and our children a favour by acknowledging that sometimes people have health issues that have to be managed rather than cured and that they are doing their best to deal with them and be productive members of society.
I think a million dollars and 2 years of not practicing medicine is harsh enough of a punishment. Do you think we should just shoot people like this? There are limits, but this cruelty to fellow physicians is part of the medicine culture at malignant places. In some ways these places are built to breed it.
Once again, a PD that prevents a former resident from getting a job is not a good PD IMHO. Once again this is unclassy and malicious. As I stated earlier, the only reason to fire a resident is if there is purposefully harming of patients. Otherwise the option to resign should be offered first.
Am I the only one who has broken up with a crazy girlfriend or boyfriend in a nice way? I am out.
Looks like she's going into Plastics?!
http://surgery.med.miami.edu/documents/Plastic-2012-Newsletter.pdf
While I agree that what she did wasn't classy in the slightest (and probably indicates a serious personality problem/personality disorder), I also agree with the idea that blowing up her entire career seems...a bit much. Imagine if both of these residents had been attendings, and one was in the process of switching jobs after having been sanctioned somehow at some hospital. The attending sending the letter might have been 'disciplined' somehow - hell, he/she could/should/would have been canned - but it probably wouldn't have been a career-ending act. We 'rehabilitate' doctors who IMHO have done far worse things (operating on patients drunk, DUIs, serious errors/demonstrations of incompetence, etc). Hell, it's not hard to imagine that in the right circumstances this resident's actions could have been hailed as 'upholding the profession' or whatever (the state boards seem to really like the idea of physicians anonymously squealing on other physicians, don't they).
As far as personality disorders go...yes we have a massive problem with this in medicine, and I agree something needs to be done about it. However, if we just tossed out every doc with a personality disorder/'personality problems' etc, I think we'd be left with a lot fewer docs than everyone seems to think there'd be. I guarantee Dartmouth has a gaggle of unpleasant cluster B types in high places - probably even in the surgery department.
Trainees are typically held to higher standards then those in a profession. In most cases, things that would result in letters of censure to someone finished with training will result in dismissal for a trainee. Part of a trainee's job is to assimilate into the culture of their chosen vocation, at least enough to be able to finish training. The ability to do so (usually) is part of being successful in that profession.
Are you saying "Trainees", not yet professionals and part of a formal education program, should have higher standards than the "professionals" themselves?
So after completing training and thereby becoming a professional, you should suddenly have lower standards required of you?
You dont see anything wrong with that point of view
I was imprecise. I was referring to trainees being held to a higher standard of ethical conduct. Trainees, of course are, not held to the same standards for work quality. Once someone has made it through training and is a member of an organization, the thinking changes from weeding out problem members to salvaging the time and training that went into the member. It may not be fair from the trainee's POV, especially if they are unaware of the rules they are violating. On the other hand, trainees by definition lack the skills to practice the profession independently and in the early stages ability to conform to organizational norms is one of the few available proxies the organization has for suitability.