Discouraged

[LearningDoc]

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Hello all, I just needed a place to vent and hopefully receive an encouraging word. I've been going through third year rotations and while I have done reasonably well on the rotations and the shelf exams, I find myself running into two problems:

1. I think I have a lack of a solid fund of knowledge and even when I study things for shelves, I feel I forget seemingly easy material a few weeks or months later. For example, if I was to be randomly asked about some obgyn topic, I would have a lot of trouble remembering it b/c I took it in autumn. I feel discouraged and depressed because of this, and don't know how to get out of my funk. I got a poor score on my boards last summer and it seems like that has just kept with me.

2. This lack of knowledge gives me decreased confidence during rounds and such when I have the possibility of getting pimped or even when an attending is explaining a topic I am unfamiliar with. I have a deep residing fear that I will get called upon to answer questions and feeling foolish, and I end up feeling like I'm having a panic attack or something during rounds or small grp discussions. I was never like this before rotations and I don't know why this has happened to me.

I just see these amazing doctors and even some students who seem to know so much and the minutiae of every disease and drug, and I don't know if I can ever even reach that level. This isn't like me to feel this way, and I don't know how I dug myself into this hole. I just want to get back on my feet and feeling confident as a medical student dammit! I know I'm one of the few privileged people who have the opportunity to become a physician and I want to make the most of it but right now I'm feeling bummed

 

[OveractiveBrain]

Let me tell you a secret about the people above you:

They only ask you questions they know the answer to. They teach subjects they have mastery of. Your colleagues pipe up only when they know the answer.

It is an illusion. I use this tactic when precepting 1st and 2nd years. I can give a 30 minute lecture on Cirrhosis or Jaundice, one that the students are eager to copy and take home with them. So what do you think i teach each week? Either cirrhosis or jaundice. The only time I have to choose is on the rare occasion that a student from a previous week as already heard the lecture. Ask me about asthma and I aint got no clue. I can talk a bit about it, but not to the level or degree I can the liver stuff.

Knowledge Retention
I like the idea of Step 2. The idea is that it forces people to learn something they otherwise would not have. What does an ENT need with OB/Gyn? well, we are all going to be doctors and even the ENT is going to be proded by their family or friend for information about their wife's pregnancy. You should know something about it.

What it does is also ensure that at some point you had to learn it. So that, if on another occasion, you were to hear about it, you would have a foundation, memory to reengage. It won't be totally foreign. You will go through your residency still not knowing all the details. Thats the point of residency! To learn the details of the career of your choosing. To engage the material you must know. At this point, lay the foundation. You should not be afraid of the pimp question (pimping is a foolish way to teach, anyway, because of the anxiety it provokes), but look on it as an opportunity to learn something. You should not hope for what other people have, but focus on growing your own knowledge. One day you will know something, and spout out all the details, and some one around you will feel the way you do now. You wont know it, just as they dont know about you.

Chill out. Work hard. It will work out.

 

[LearningDoc]

Thanks for the reply overactivebrain. I've started to feel better after posting and thinking about everything. You're right, everyone started from scratch. As long as I consider my knowledge an ever evolving creature that must be fed and nourished, then I should be okay in the long run.

I think part of the reason for my down mood was that I had a few attendings last rotation who really would be degrading if I didn't know an answer (eg. "You didn't know that? How are you supposed to become a good physician this way? You really lack knowledge," after getting 1 out of like 5-6 pimp questions wrong), and I don't take criticisms like that very well. It came to the point I didn't even want to ask questions in order to not look stupid or get yelled at. I don't understand how docs can become like that- it's as if they forgot what it was like to be a student just starting their journey into medicine.

Luckily I started a new rotation recently and I found the attendings here are very knowledgeable and willing to help a student learn. I'm starting to ask questions again, and yes, Overactivebrain, I'm trying to view every opportunity as a learning experience. Even if I get things wrong, these docs usually are willing to explain why my reasoning was faulty. As long as I keep studying and doing questions, I should get a better grasp on developing my foundations.

As for knowledge retention, I'm not sure how i'm going to work on that. I think I'll try a new strategy for myself where I will do questions throughout a rotation while I'm reading a text/review book instead of going through a book first and then doing Qs at the end of a rotation. And maybe I'll set aside a few hours a week to just brush up on material from old rotations so I'm not totally caught off guard if similar pathologies appear in my present or upcoming rotations.

 

[OveractiveBrain]

Questions

then

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