Did it ever happened to you for the senior to belittle you on an eval.

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Arista.MD

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So I had finished my inpatient medicine a few months ago. At our school our grades are not completed until all evaluations are in. We work with 2 attendings and 2 seniors. Anyways, the evals from the 2 attendings and the 1 senior were really good. But half way through we switched seniors and this new one gave me a terrible evaluation. He said to me things like you are not interested in learning medicine, you are only interested in passing the exam, everyone complained about you on this floor, nobody liked you. And I said, "well if I offended anyone I am going to go and apologize to them, because I don't like to see people upset and hurt". He told me "If I were you I would not approach this subject with these people."
Anyway, I went back and talked to people around the floor and none of this is true. What the hell is wrong with this person? It made me so upset that I cried for a day. I have never gotten a bad eval in my life. And I really thought that I did a good job during the rotation. And if indeed I did a bad job, how did I get a stellar evaluation from the attendings?

The other thing is this guy worked us to death, we had to do all the scut work for him, and I never complained about it, I did everything he asked me to do.

I subsequently found out that he knows that I am going into orthopedic surgery. Do you guys think that's why he hates me so much? :mad:

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Sorry this happened to you. Unfortunately, there are quite a few residents (very rarely attendings) that are more than happy to rape you on an evaluation because they can. Realize that a resident is paid below minimum wage, works an ungodly number of hours, and other "suboptimal" work environment issues. Evaluations are sometimes how residents get there ****s and giggles (the really sick and cruel residents). Not to mention, if you're smart enough to pick a field that is much more lucrative or better lifestyle than his, he will be a little jealous. This is NOT a reason, however, to take it out on your evaluation. People like this don't exist only in the academic setting, but in the real world so this is a glimpse of sometimes how the real world works. You have to protect yourself. Anyways, your concern should NOT be this resident (he can **** off for all you care), but should be your clerkship grade and dean's letter.

First, take an appt. with the clerkship director. Explain the situation in a RATIONAL, unemotional, just the facts ma'am kind of way. This is not the time to get defensive and bring in emotions, bc he'll just turn off and stop listening. State that you had problems with this resident thru the rotation but that you still did your work as you were told and worked hard on the rotation, yada yada yada. Explain that 3 out of the 4 noticed this and evaluated you well, yet this last one evaluated you badly. Tell what he told you AND that you went back to the people who allegedly talked about you, shows you were trying to solve the problem and you found out at the end that it was UNTRUE. Give him names of those who can vouch for you if he asks for it. At the end, tell him your concern is that this impulsive evaluation will be averaged into the final grade as well as his comments could go in your Dean's letter, which you'd be ok with IF you had in fact slacked off and didn't do anything, BUT YOU DID NOT, thus showing it is totally off base of your real performance and work ethic. Show him procedure logs, patient lists, progress notes showing your work.

Stupid residents exist everywhere, the idea is to make sure that in the end it doesn't affect your grade. Remember, the clerkship director can THROW out a resident's evaluation if he chooses. After 3rd year is over, you'll completely not give a **** for this resident and he'll be distant memory, when you've moved on to better things. :D
 
Hi there,
Evaluations are quite subjective and as such, prone to contain subjective matter. If three out of your four evaluations were along the same lines, then you can probably attribute your fourth evaluation to something subjective that you have little control over.

In every evaluation, from medical student to resident to attending, there is some constructive criticism. Weed out the stuff that is useful and let the rest go. Getting through medicine is all about developing a "thick skin" and moving forward. Go through all of your evals and get the best from them.

No resident that I have ever been associated with from medical school through residency has purposefully negatively criticized a medical student for fun. Some medical students have an inflated idea of their actual performance. One way not to have a surprise negative eval is at the half-way point, ask your residents how you are doing and what you can do to improve. (I always schedule a meeting with my medical students to do this anyway).

Good luck, let your one negative eval go and keep moving forward.

njbmd :)
 
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Arista.MD said:
So I had finished my inpatient medicine a few months ago. At our school our grades are not completed until all evaluations are in. We work with 2 attendings and 2 seniors. Anyways, the evals from the 2 attendings and the 1 senior were really good. But half way through we switched seniors and this new one gave me a terrible evaluation. He said to me things like you are not interested in learning medicine, you are only interested in passing the exam, everyone complained about you on this floor, nobody liked you. And I said, "well if I offended anyone I am going to go and apologize to them, because I don't like to see people upset and hurt". He told me "If I were you I would not approach this subject with these people."
Anyway, I went back and talked to people around the floor and none of this is true. What the hell is wrong with this person? It made me so upset that I cried for a day. I have never gotten a bad eval in my life. And I really thought that I did a good job during the rotation. And if indeed I did a bad job, how did I get a stellar evaluation from the attendings?

The other thing is this guy worked us to death, we had to do all the scut work for him, and I never complained about it, I did everything he asked me to do.

I subsequently found out that he knows that I am going into orthopedic surgery. Do you guys think that's why he hates me so much? :mad:

He may hate you because you're a tool. My suggestion is to find something else to worry about and not bother us with your pointless whining.
 
Bobblehead: Thank you very much for your insight. I really do appreciate when people are trying so hard to be nice to their peers, especially when their peers have troubles. But, anyway, I am sure you are a very nice person, good luck to you, and please don't let me ask you any advice ever again. I am sure you are the type of guy that has never ever been told that he is "worthless" by anyone. The rest of us happen to have these problems. And if you look at my post my inpatient medicine was many months ago, not recently.
 
Arista.MD said:
Bobblehead: Thank you very much for your insight. I really do appreciate when people are trying so hard to be nice to their peers, especially when their peers have troubles. But, anyway, I am sure you are a very nice person, good luck to you, and please don't let me ask you any advice ever again. I am sure you are the type of guy that has never ever been told that he is "worthless" by anyone. The rest of us happen to have these problems. And if you look at my post my inpatient medicine was many months ago, not recently.

Don't expect much sympathy when you talk about how great the other 3 evals were, but this one was bad. Obviously the guy's a douche, you're just fishing here.
 
You know what I don't understand, what is wrong with people working hard and being upset when someone else does not recognize that. I am really pissed at my senior, and NO, I do not have a problem working with people. I worked hard, and took call with the team every 4th night, and I admitted 3 patients with the help of the intern every long call. I have not had a free day in 6 weeks, and this individual did not have enough professionalism in him to put aside his envy or whatever else may lurk inside him and give me a fair evaluation. I don't want something that I don't deserve. What is wrong with actually wanting some fairness?
 
Sorry that this has happened to you. Unfortunately, it happens to almost everyone during their third year.

One surgery attending is known for giving crummy evaluations and he basically ripped my whole team apart. I got some really negative comments from him for fund of knowledge because one of our classmates called in sick frequently at the last minute and we would have to cover her patients. It never failed that I would get pimped on something that I didn't know about her patient's history! It hurt at the time and I was really ticked off--especially since this girl Honored the rotation much to the shock of my residents. I was really upset about it.

However, the rest of my evaluations have been really good with many positive comments about my "strong knowledge base". When I met with my Dean to get my 4th year schedule approved, I asked her how those nasty surgery comments would be reflected in my Dean's letter. She told me that she knows evals are subjective and that sometimes, people get evaluated unfairly. She said that comments from one bad evaluation would not be included in my Dean's letter, unless she noticed that I was getting similar comments from other people.

Hang in there. Hopefully the next rotation will go better.
 
Though I respect njbmd's opinions enormously, I have to disagree on this issue. As someone's colleague, you don't really see what it's like to have them evaluate you as your superior. And as all of us know, if we've ever been in the middle of any sort of dispute between friends, the story you hear from the friend about how it felt to be on the receiving end is quite different from the story you hear from the friend who did the thing. Listening to the former, it sounds crazy and pathologic, but listening to the latter it sounds reasonable and fair.

So if the latter person is the one with authority, the presumption is always that they're the more reasonable person. Which is not always true. But if theirs is the only story you really listen to, and you yourself never have the experience of being the recipient of a nasty evaluation from them, then you won't see a problem. All you know is that their explanation of their actions sounds reasonable. And of course it does, because the guy wouldn't have gotten that far if he weren't able to hide his insecurity from his colleagues and only take it out on people who don't have the power to strike back. Yet the problem does exist.

To the OP: it sucks, but Runway Model gave you some good advice. You can also take comfort in the fact that a year from now, you'll be able to spot that kind of jerk within ten seconds of meeting him, and that goes a long way toward preventing this sort of thing from happening.
 
take heart. soon you will be in orthopedics, make a ton of money, takes lots of time off, and retire early. your resident is just pissed that he has to stay up all night to rule out MI and write a 10 page note on it. :)
 
Arista.MD said:
You know what I don't understand, what is wrong with people working hard and being upset when someone else does not recognize that. I am really pissed at my senior, and NO, I do not have a problem working with people. I worked hard, and took call with the team every 4th night, and I admitted 3 patients with the help of the intern every long call. I have not had a free day in 6 weeks, and this individual did not have enough professionalism in him to put aside his envy or whatever else may lurk inside him and give me a fair evaluation. I don't want something that I don't deserve. What is wrong with actually wanting some fairness?


Medicine isn't fair. Insurance premiums aren't fair. 10 admissions while on call isn't fair. Q4 isn't fair. Sunday call isn't fair. Holding a retractor for 4 hours and not being able to see the field isn't fair.

I usually don't respond to posts like this but after reading this and also reading the recent post on your comments about nurses I have to say that perhaps you have unrealistic ideals about what you should be experiencing as a medical student.

I dont know you nor do I know what year you are in school. But you are really going to have to learn to accept some things for what they are.

#1. No matter how good you are, there is always someone better
#2. No matter how experienced you are, there is always someone more experienced
#3. No matter how well you think you did, there is always someone who can find fault
#4. No matter how well you think you did, there is always someone who WILL find fault

I would suggest that you let this poor experience pass you by and focus on the next rotation at hand. Its unfortunate that this may have tainted your view of this rotation but you need to move on. This certainly is a "career killer" and your situation is not unique.

I dont mind you using SDN to complain. I enjoy reading them. But also understand that the way you come across here with these types of posts leaves you open to criticism from your peers.
 
JPHazelton said:
Medicine isn't fair. Insurance premiums aren't fair. 10 admissions while on call isn't fair. Q4 isn't fair. Sunday call isn't fair. Holding a retractor for 4 hours and not being able to see the field isn't fair.

I usually don't respond to posts like this but after reading this and also reading the recent post on your comments about nurses I have to say that perhaps you have unrealistic ideals about what you should be experiencing as a medical student.

I dont know you nor do I know what year you are in school. But you are really going to have to learn to accept some things for what they are.

#1. No matter how good you are, there is always someone better
#2. No matter how experienced you are, there is always someone more experienced
#3. No matter how well you think you did, there is always someone who can find fault
#4. No matter how well you think you did, there is always someone who WILL find fault

I would suggest that you let this poor experience pass you by and focus on the next rotation at hand. Its unfortunate that this may have tainted your view of this rotation but you need to move on. This certainly is a "career killer" and your situation is not unique.

I dont mind you using SDN to complain. I enjoy reading them. But also understand that the way you come across here with these types of posts leaves you open to criticism from your peers.

Just because something is unfair, and we all have to deal with its unfairness, doesn't mean it's OK.

And it certainly doesn't mean that we shouldn't strive to be fair in our own dealings, and to make life more fair for others when we can.
 
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Samoa said:
Just because something is unfair, and we all have to deal with its unfairness, doesn't mean it's OK.

And it certainly doesn't mean that we shouldn't strive to be fair in our own dealings, and to make life more fair for others when we can.

So then he should have made a post about how he thinks things could be improved, or how he'll be fair when he's in that position. As it is all he did was whine, ending with "I'm going into ortho, do you think that's why he doesn't like me?" That just begs for a STFU, not to mention if he's going into ortho already why does he give a **** what this one eval is? Arista is the type that cried and complained to teacher when he got an A-.
 
Welcome to third year. I had an attending tell me I would get a high H for my eval and she ended up lowering it after a tool bag resident told the attending that I seemed disinterested. It sucks, but you can't really do anything about it. Something similar happened to almost every one of my classmates during the past year ... hopefully it won't happen to you more than once.
 
Arista, it definitiely sucks to get less than expected on your evals, and this is a perfect place whine about it. However, this happens to everyone, and it's not a reason to rage against the medicine department. Eventually there will be other situations where you screw up and get an honors anyway (like the student someone mentioned who called in sick all the time yet honored surgery.) By challenging the resident, talking to everyone on the floor, going to your clerkship director, etc, you'll just look like a desparate jackass unless there's something very specific you can name as to why you didn't deserve that evaluation (such as, my name isn't Andy it's Tom).

Try to learn something from this experience and then just move on. Maybe you need to express more enthusiasm, or make sure you let your residents know you respect them.

Out of curiosity, has anyone here successfully chanllenged a grade and had it changed to honors?
 
fang said:
Out of curiosity, has anyone here successfully chanllenged a grade and had it changed to honors?

I haven't tried it, but I know that a month after my surgical attending ripped my team apart on the evaluations, he did the same with another group of students. One of the guys was interested in Optho and challenged his evaluation. I am not sure if he wound up getting Honors or not, but he said that it greatly wound up improving his grade.

However, at the time of the challenge, the attending had gotten in trouble for throwing a chart and screaming obscenities at the medical students and residents in the hallway of the hospital where he was overheard by all. That may have made some of the people in charge take it more seriously than they would have otherwise.
 
Arista.MD said:
It made me so upset that I cried for a day. I have never gotten a bad eval in my life.


one word that comes to mind is: baby.


I haven't seen a girl cry about grades since 9th grade. and that was even rare.

come on. stop acting like a 9th grader. stop acting like 1 little thing will kill your career. get some cajones. :sleep:
 
fang said:
Out of curiosity, has anyone here successfully chanllenged a grade and had it changed to honors?


does anyone document everything you do during rotations? this would make it easier to challenge wouldn't it? go down a laundry list of things and make the evaluator speechless.
 
(nicedream) said:
So then he should have made a post about how he thinks things could be improved, or how he'll be fair when he's in that position. As it is all he did was whine, ending with "I'm going into ortho, do you think that's why he doesn't like me?" That just begs for a STFU, not to mention if he's going into ortho already why does he give a **** what this one eval is? Arista is the type that cried and complained to teacher when he got an A-.

I'm not disputing your point that the OP's a whiner. But are you saying that whiners don't deserve fair treatment?
 
Arista.MD said:
I subsequently found out that he knows that I am going into orthopedic surgery. Do you guys think that's why he hates me so much? :mad:

He knows because:

1. like most people you spend a couple weeks working with, you had a conversation like:
Him: So, what are you thinking of going into?
You: Orthopedic surgery

Or:

2. like many, many jackasses during third year you told him you weren't sure but were REALLY considering medicine because you're a tool. Then someone else told him you wanted to do ortho.

My guess is its number 2. This seems to me to be the case because conversation #1 is had by almost every medical student and other member of the team at some point during a rotation and yet you had to "find out" that he knew you were going into ortho.

So in conclusion, you're a jackass. You fooled 3/4 people as tends to happen. One person realized you're the type of person who goes home and cries about a grade and gave you an appropriate eval. In my oppinion you're fortunate you fooled enough people too pass, not unfortunate that one person screwed you.

Anyway, good luck doing ortho with a pass in medicine. Maybe do an AI at a community program in Idaho..or maybe peds is more your speed.
 
Just go to the course director instead of keeping it bottled up. Tell the course director what happened and get your side out. If nothing else the course director is going to get an idea as to what type of resident they have and if he/she doesn't do anything about it at least you will have gotten it off your chest and the next student to complain will equal a pattern. The people trying to give you crap now are most likely residents who fear exactly the kind of two way street you will be creating by talking with the course director whose job it is to discipline and correct residents like you describe. I had the same problem and got something completely taken out of the eval after the course director did some investigating. It really is your responsibility to stand up for yourself like an adult and cause the appropriate repercussions for the resident who acted in such an unprofessional manner in they way they spoke and acted toward you. Take it all the way to the dean if you have to. Don't let some ******* take your self respect and make you into a doormat. Calm, cool, collected, professionally discuss with the course director.
 
If you ask a resident if you can help out, you get dinged for being annoying. If you don't ask, you get dinged for not volunteering to help.

If you leave when the resident/attending sends you home, you get dinged for not checking in with the other 3 services you know nothing about. If you don't leave, you get dinged for not listening.

If you ask questions, you get dinged for not studying on your own. If you don't ask questions, you get dinged for not showing enough passion for your education.

If you study up on the loser gunner student's patients as well as your own, you get dinged for being a gunner. If, however, the loser gunner calls in sick with the sniffles for the 3rd time in a month, and you don't know everything about his patients even though noone bothered to tell you that loser gunner was out sick, you get dinged for not being a team player.

And, if the same loser gunner interrupts your answers to the attendings questions, you get dinged for not being aggressive enough.

If you say you're interested in a specialty, you get dinged for brown-nosing or lying. If you say you're not interested, you get dinged for being narrow minded.

If you complain, you get dinged for being whiny. If you don't complain, you get dinged again for not being aggressive enough.

If you attempt humorous sarcasm on an anonymous message board, you get dinged for either not being funny or not taking your education seriously enough. If you don't post humor, you get dinged for being too serious.

Bottom line: at some point in your life, you will get dinged, for breathing. Especially in a system based on subjective grading. If you let it get you hot and bothered every time it happens, you will be miserable.

If you don't like the eval, look to see if there was any constructive criticism. If not, disregard the eval as coming from a total tool, which is probably the case. And ream the service when they ask for your evaluation.

I would complain to higher authorities only if either (a) you really feel you didn't learn anything; (b) there was an OBJECTIVE statement that was incorrect (e.g., student failed to show up when in fact you did); or (c) you truly feel you were verbally criticized to the point of extreme humiliation or outright harrassment (rare, but it can happen).

But, other than those 3 circumstances, ignore the dings.
 
lexrageorge said:
If you ask a resident if you can help out, you get dinged for being annoying. If you don't ask, you get dinged for not volunteering to help.

If you leave when the resident/attending sends you home, you get dinged for not checking in with the other 3 services you know nothing about. If you don't leave, you get dinged for not listening.

If you ask questions, you get dinged for not studying on your own. If you don't ask questions, you get dinged for not showing enough passion for your education.

If you study up on the loser gunner student's patients as well as your own, you get dinged for being a gunner. If, however, the loser gunner calls in sick with the sniffles for the 3rd time in a month, and you don't know everything about his patients even though noone bothered to tell you that loser gunner was out sick, you get dinged for not being a team player.

And, if the same loser gunner interrupts your answers to the attendings questions, you get dinged for not being aggressive enough.

If you say you're interested in a specialty, you get dinged for brown-nosing or lying. If you say you're not interested, you get dinged for being narrow minded.

If you complain, you get dinged for being whiny. If you don't complain, you get dinged again for not being aggressive enough.

If you attempt humorous sarcasm on an anonymous message board, you get dinged for either not being funny or not taking your education seriously enough. If you don't post humor, you get dinged for being too serious.

Bottom line: at some point in your life, you will get dinged, for breathing. Especially in a system based on subjective grading. If you let it get you hot and bothered every time it happens, you will be miserable.

If you don't like the eval, look to see if there was any constructive criticism. If not, disregard the eval as coming from a total tool, which is probably the case. And ream the service when they ask for your evaluation.

I would complain to higher authorities only if either (a) you really feel you didn't learn anything; (b) there was an OBJECTIVE statement that was incorrect (e.g., student failed to show up when in fact you did); or (c) you truly feel you were verbally criticized to the point of extreme humiliation or outright harrassment (rare, but it can happen).

But, other than those 3 circumstances, ignore the dings.

This is so true!
 
Talk with the course director. At our school, if one of the evaluations is completely different than the others from the same team, we have to met with the course director (who later meets with the evaluator) to determine where the problem lies. If the course director then determines the evaluation was unfair, he either 1) lowers the impact that particular evalutation has or 2)discounts the evaluation completely.

Personality conflicts are inevitable, and this problem has probably happened before.
 
TheAyatollah said:
Just go to the course director instead of keeping it bottled up. Tell the course director what happened and get your side out. If nothing else the course director is going to get an idea as to what type of resident they have and if he/she doesn't do anything about it at least you will have gotten it off your chest and the next student to complain will equal a pattern. The people trying to give you crap now are most likely residents who fear exactly the kind of two way street you will be creating by talking with the course director whose job it is to discipline and correct residents like you describe. I had the same problem and got something completely taken out of the eval after the course director did some investigating. It really is your responsibility to stand up for yourself like an adult and cause the appropriate repercussions for the resident who acted in such an unprofessional manner in they way they spoke and acted toward you. Take it all the way to the dean if you have to. Don't let some ******* take your self respect and make you into a doormat. Calm, cool, collected, professionally discuss with the course director.

No this is so true.
 
I like Lexageorge's post, too. I also agree with Arista.MD's thoughts. This stuff s*cks and at the same time, what can you do? If you complain some people will then try and make it worse for you. The culture of medicine thrives on the submission of underlings who are too scared to ever say anything. Is that healthy, or right? no, of course not. It's way messed up. But there it is.

I also read the thread about the hassling nurses. Yep, I have seen nurses ream out the residents and then laugh about it. I have seen nurses insult residents, tell them they are idiots, and also say that they shouldn't have gone into medicine because they are stupid and don't know anything. I have seen some baaaaad nurses. :mad:

Medicine is really horrible sometimes, and I dread my first rotation on Monday. I know there are nice people out there but the pressure cooker of medicine, especially academic medicine, can be brutal. My hospital is an academic center, and I have already had some negative experiences that I completely did not see coming. Who ever expects this stuff?

I am glad to read other people's struggles on SDN because it helps me to realize that it is a process, it is weird everywhere, people do survive and time eventually passes and you move on. I also do not have to be crushed by the cruelty of others. I can make a point of not becoming like the people who may decide to be an asshat to me. I can choose to be a decent person, and "let go" of trying to understand someone's weird behavior. There's nothing to understand. It's just weird. Hang in there Arista, one bad eval in a bundle of four is pretty good. I say just let the stupid comments stand for themselves, they only reflect on the writer and not as much on you.
 
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