Disastrous clerkship...residency chances?

[OrthoTraumaMD]

Love how youre referring to her as "they, them" when she is clearly a woman...

Your responses are as predictable as anyone elses on this forum. In fact, after reading her post i was scrolling down knowing a response from you would be there

lol “they.” I got demoted from woman to neutered.


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[OrthoTraumaMD]

I got a pass in medical school in my OB/Gyn clerkship. Got plenty of good interviews due to my H in medicine. Nobody gave a crap what my terrible OB preceptors thought of me. I don’t think it matters all that much in the long run.

Again it depends on your goals. If you want to work at Man’s Greatest Hospital as the new nationwide expert in XYZ variant of some disease and run a basic science lab supervising pipetters while seeing patients once every three months, academic tiering is important. If you want to go into practice and take care of patients, it’s less so.

Thank God one bad eval generally doesn’t sink you... if it stands alone in a sea of great evaluations, then as my mentor used to say, “it’s not everyone else, it’s you.” So the people reading your app will likely guess the preceptor had some kind of personal issue with you.


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[IMreshopeful]

Thank God one bad eval generally doesn’t sink you... if it stands alone in a sea of great evaluations, then as my mentor used to say, “it’s not everyone else, it’s you.” So the people reading your app will likely guess the preceptor had some kind of personal issue with you.


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Yeah. I think people by and large are human enough to realize that people aren’t perfect and thus will occasionally make mistakes. Medicine does require some degree of precision but perfection is definitely impossible.

 

[NeuResurgens]

A big part of being a good physician is behavioral and temperamental. There are students who have no business within a mile of patients who get passed through the system to avoid conflict, when in reality I think most understand that these people are bound to make terrible physicians.

So there's ambiguity here - the right answer isn't "do away with all subjective evaluations"

In the OP's case, I agree that the preceptor was a bad one, but it sounds like she signaled she was a bad one early. Whether it was some sort of bias issue or he did something off-putting that she felt uncomfortable bringing up, he mishandled by not requesting a different preceptor once it was clear there was a personality conflict.

Finally the consequences here are near zero unless he was hoping to match into the specialty - one pass out of a batch of honors and high pass is a nothing burger.

I agree that there is some value in interpersonal evaluations due to the types of people who have no bedside manner and can't work with patients, and this is why I say that fewer than 4-5 people shouldn't have a large sway on grades for an individual clerkship. That way simple personality conflicts wouldn't cause large grade swings, but clear misanthropes would more likely be flagged. I suppose in OP's situation this is accomplished by good evaluations in other clerkships, but still upsetting that the individual clerkship grade was tanked because of two people.

 

[Dr. Scribe]

Hello everyone. This post will be part rant and part asking for advice. Bear with me...

I am at the end of my third year clerkships and had done pretty well throughout the year, getting a majority of honors and some high passes throughout the year. However I recently completed a core clerkship not in my field of interest and it was a disaster. I was paired with one preceptor the majority of the time and she did not seem to like me at all. I sensed this early on and tried doing whatever was in my power to get on her good side. I showed up early, stayed late, offered to do grunt work and random paperwork, etc. Nothing seemed to work. Finally, at the midfeedback session, I asked what I could do to improve. She told me it was very obvious that I was faking an interest in a field that I was not interested in and said she felt offended. I did not really know what to say to this. I ended up going to the clerkship director and asked if I could work with another preceptor under the guise of wanting to see a different panel of patients. I did not bring up any of my interpersonal problems with the previous preceptor. The second preceptor and I got along great and the last few days of the rotation went by swimmingly.

Fast forward to a couple weeks later when I got my evaluations and grade back--I ended up with some extremely negative comments from the previous preceptor. She wrote things like it was obvious that I was "feigning an interest in the field to get the grade" and other comments that made it seem like I was doing stuff just to get honors rather than actually trying to learn or contribute to the team. She then proceeded to give me straight 1's and 2's down the line. My other preceptor wrote glowing comments and gave me mostly 5s. I ended up with a pass in the rotation.

I reached out to the course director again, who I found out was very good friends with the preceptor who gave me negative comments. She said that the preceptor’s comments were so awful that she considered failing me. However, she stated that my shelf score and the positive comments from the other preceptor convinced her to barely pass me.

I have a lot of responses to the negative evaluations. First of all, wtf else am I supposed to do besides act interested and put in work? I am guessing I tried too hard because I sensed that this preceptor was biased against me from the beginning, and she was super sensitive and I rubbed her the wrong way even more by putting in more effort. I am not a brown noser by any means. I did not put as much effort into impressing a preceptor for any other rotation. I just worked hard and did what I was supposed to do and got great feedback and evaluations. But for this rotation, I was just at a loss as to how to bridge the interpersonal gap between me and the preceptor and my efforts backfired I guess.

Anyway, my worry is that prior to all this happening, I was pretty confident in my application. I will be applying to internal medicine residency programs this cycle and am wondering how this will end up affecting me for top programs. I did not have my heart set on MGH or anything but my program list was definitely top heavy prior to this happening. Now I am wondering if I will have to significantly change my outlook in terms of the application season?

Would love to hear any of your guys' thoughts.

tl;dr Got bad evals and grade on a core rotation not in field of interest. Wondering how it will affect me in upcoming application cycle to internal medicine.

I haven't started med school yet, so I won't pretend to know what you are going through.

BUT, it seems to me that there's nothing you can do about your situation besides move on and vent (which is justified, of course).

This song helped me recover when I was in a rough patch.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Love how youre referring to her as "they, them" when she is clearly a woman...

Your responses are as predictable as anyone elses on this forum. In fact, after reading her post i was scrolling down knowing a response from you would be there

 

[Dr. Scribe]

lol “they.” I got demoted from woman to neutered.


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Demoted, eh?

Didn't realize women > the eunuchs who guarded them....



JK lol

 

[raiderette]

@IMreshopeful But this sounds like an IM grade, not OB grade.

Look at the variance on here. Some people say pass in IM is typical whereas some people say everyone high passes so I think @NeurologyHopeful2018 already asked the key question which is what the IM honors distribution is. If it’s like 30% honors, 35% HP, 35% pass, that’s pretty bad in my book and while I’m not trying to be SDN-neurotic (because given a decent step, etc he’ll match at a respectable place), but a bottom 30% in IM coupled with negative IM context (because no one has time to contexualize those) is a solid red flag and OP should act ASAP. Idk just my opinion here guys.

Also, given that this is an anonymous Internet forum, there’s good chance OP is not including something (nothing personal, OP) and there was a good reason for the preceptor’s response making all my previous statements null and void.

I don't think it is IM, because OP said it was a short clerkship. I was guessing Family Medicine, Psych or Neurology.

 

[Redpancreas]

I don't think it is IM, because OP said it was a short clerkship. I was guessing Family Medicine, Psych or Neurology.

Thanks, deleted my post to avoid confusion

 

[DrMcCoyDO]

People feigning interest for a grade can be spotted from a mile away. Fair or not, it definitely rubs people the wrong way. I’d do some serious self reflection and talk to people you know who will be frank, and not just tell you what you want to hear. Might not be pleasant but it’s probably for the best after reviewing this thread and your post history.

What’s somebody supposed to do when they’re not interested in an area of medicine? Act bored? There were plenty of clerkships I had no interest in as a future career, but I still acted interested in what was going on while being honest about my future career aspirations.

 

[Taddy Mason]

What’s somebody supposed to do when they’re not interested in an area of medicine? Act bored? There were plenty of clerkships I had no interest in as a future career, but I still acted interested in what was going on while being honest about my future career aspirations.

I was referring to people who act overly enthusiastic and try too hard. I’ve noticed that these people tend to think whomever they’re trying to impress will be completely oblivious to their true intent and it will backfire. I can specifically recall two classmates this happened to 3rd year and several attendings who even brought up those students with myself and several other classmates without keeping the students’ anonymous. Idk if this was the case with OP, as he/she could’ve genuinely had a ****ty attending (somewhat similar thing happened to me). I mentioned it only as something for OP to consider. When you get negative feedback it’s worth taking a step back and (honestly) considering what you could’ve done differently.

 

[ThreeCheers]

People feigning interest for a grade can be spotted from a mile away. Fair or not, it definitely rubs people the wrong way. I’d do some serious self reflection and talk to people you know who will be frank, and not just tell you what you want to hear. Might not be pleasant but it’s probably for the best after reviewing this thread and your post history.

It’s understandable for this to rub preceptors the wrong way, but trying to fail a student over it is a bridge too far.

OP, it sounds like you would’ve failed the rotation altogether if you didn’t have the foresight to request a different preceptor. Other students in a similar situation may try to stick it out with her, which could be catastrophic for their grades. I would encourage you to file a complaint now that your evaluation is complete. Based on what you said, it seems like this preceptor is petty and biased against students that are not interested in entering her field. She should not be evaluating medical students.

 

[IMreshopeful]

It’s understandable for this to rub preceptors the wrong way, but trying to fail a student over it is a bridge too far.

OP, it sounds like you would’ve failed the rotation altogether if you didn’t have the foresight to request a different preceptor. Other students in a similar situation may try to stick it out with her, which could be catastrophic for their grades. I would encourage you to file a complaint now that your evaluation is complete. Based on what you said, it seems like this preceptor is petty and biased against students that are not interested in entering her field. She should not be evaluating medical students.

It depends on how senior this person is, but I will tell you that complaining is unlikely to change things. I have had crappy preceptors who didn’t appreciate that I was going into another specialty no matter how hard I worked. I complained - no repercussions. I ultimately should have left it alone. The clerkship director’s excuse was “well this won’t impact you that much since you’re going into IM and not my field anyway”. Which was true - but still not fair.

 

[HomeSkool]

Men and women are different—in their social interactions, the way they approach the world, even the way they handle stress. Tons of social science on that. It’s not a bad or good thing. It’s just a thing. The world is full of people who somehow treat our differences as a cardinal sin. How silly.

Sorry to re-derail the thread, but I totally have an anonymous online workplace-appropriate crush on you, even more so after your comments on this thread. Men are not defective women and women are not defective men. We're different and that's good. Despite some outliers, certain skills and abilities track more commonly in one gender or the other, as do some vulnerabilities and weaknesses. That doesn't make either gender inferior, just different. We improve care by recognizing our limitations, either individual or collective, and leveraging others' strengths to compensate for them. Thank you for your posts!

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Sorry to re-derail the thread, but I totally have an anonymous online workplace-appropriate crush on you, even more so after your comments on this thread. Men are not defective women and women are not defective men. We're different and that's good. Despite some outliers, certain skills and abilities track more commonly in one gender or the other, as do some vulnerabilities and weaknesses. That doesn't make either gender inferior, just different. We improve care by recognizing our limitations, either individual or collective, and leveraging others' strengths to compensate for them. Thank you for your posts!

Prepare to be blasted by SJWs who insist that we all be the same.

 

[deleted500612]

Like what the hell do they want you to do? “Feigning an interest for the grade” lol

Seriously, if you are not interested in a field either you feign an interest or you just act uninterested... wtf would she prefer the latter? Doubt it. Sounds like she would have shredded the OP no matter what he did because she's malignant af.

 

[OrthoTraumaMD]

Prepare to be blasted by SJWs who insist that we all be the same.

The nice thing is that it doesn’t matter how loud they yell… The truth will just quietly continue to exist, and continue to be validated by human behavior every single day.


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