ER resident filed lawsuit that she was discriminated against for morbid obesity

[PikminOC]

Probably a Zoom interview. Camera angles pal. Camera angles.

How competitive is ER residency?

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[PikminOC]

Generally agree that some of the other complaints were quite concerning if true. and that you have to be able to do key parts of job or get accommodations to be able to do them if needed.

I have some issues with how this played out though. 1st is that according to the documents i read, the weight complaint was first by one person, led the assoc prog dir to email other faculty asking if there were other issues with weight and performance they’d noticed as she’d been made aware of several concerns about it (despite there actually only being one at that point according to documents), got one reply that the resident had done a procedure well but sweat a lot which could be a pt safety issue (some healthy wt ppl also just sweat a lot?). that was enough to lead the assoc program director to meet with legal about dismissing resident and after that convo ultimately state she’d have to “find other reasons to dismiss the resident” at which point she seemed to go actively looking for stuff and put resident under microscope.

documents indicated that the apd didn’t even check on the subsequent email complaint to see if true. she should have at least talked to some other people/witnesses and tried to corroborate as was reported policy. after all my years in healthcare its been made pretty clear that just one side of the story rarely gives you anything close to the whole picture. the actual PD indicated that he would’ve done an investigation before going to the committee if he’d gotten that complaint, instead he just assumed one had been done.

she passed her sicu rotation but then the apd brought up concerns that she was late with charting. resident indicated that her fellow interns were also late with charting at the beginning of the rotation but they all had addressed the issue during the rotation. i don’t think it’s uncommon for interns to struggle with finishing charts on time on busy rotations and I’m curious how she was relative to her peers. the lack of gown stuff should be easy to fix and seemed to take longer to address than needed.

So if the complaints were accurate, and most didn’t really have anything to do with weight, that’s a major issue. OTOH if she wound up under a micrscope and extra scrutiny and complaints were fudged or exagerrated and she wasn’t evaluated consistenly with her peers, then that’s also an issue.

I think it’s interesting that she did rotations at this place as a med student and was ranked 4th overall. they were clearly fine with her performance then.

it seems like everyone was kinda stupid about how this was handled.

As a med student would she have different responsibility than as a resident?

 

[HemeOncHopeful19]

Probably a Zoom interview. Camera angles pal. Camera angles.

This all happened a few years before COVID I believe

 

[Rendar5]

As a med student would she have different responsibility than as a resident?

Yeah. Just show up, fake enthusiasm, just do histories and physical exams, maybe place stitches. Mostly cerebral though

 

[PikminOC]

Yeah. Just show up, fake enthusiasm, just do histories and physical exams, maybe place stitches. Mostly cerebral though

Yep

 

[rokshana]

How competitive is ER residency?

Not very

 

[Mount Asclepius]

Not very

I don’t disagree that EM isn’t as competitive as it once was - as painful is that for me to say and think. However, I think it’s more appropriate for EPs to answer that question than for a non-EP to come into another specialty’s forum and answer that question. It would be more respectful to defer to EPs to answer this. Not saying you’re wrong. You probably wouldn’t be thrilled either though if I came into an Endo forum and said it wasn’t competitive. May or may not be, but competitiveness is often equated to intellect and academic excellence. For those of us that excelled academically and went into EM, we still want to defend the ability to practice as exceptional EPs. I know I should let it go, but the field is still relatively new in the house of medicine and often gets second guessed. It’s certainly gotten more respect from other specialists over my career. I fear though it’s going downhill with over saturation and we are going to be back on the defensive.

 

[PikminOC]

I don’t disagree that EM isn’t as competitive as it once was - as painful is that for me to say and think. However, I think it’s more appropriate for EPs to answer that question than for a non-EP to come into another specialty’s forum and answer that question. It would be more respectful to defer to EPs to answer this. Not saying you’re wrong. You probably wouldn’t be thrilled either though if I came into an Endo forum and said it wasn’t competitive. May or may not be, but competitiveness is often equated to intellect and academic excellence. For those of us that excelled academically and went into EM, we still want to defend the ability to practice as exceptional EPs. I know I should let it go, but the field is still relatively new in the house of medicine and often gets second guessed. It’s certainly gotten more respect from other specialists over my career. I fear though it’s going downhill with over saturation and we are going to be back on the defensive.

I was just wondering as people were trying to figure out how the resident in question matched for residency.

 

[rokshana]

I don’t disagree that EM isn’t as competitive as it once was - as painful is that for me to say and think. However, I think it’s more appropriate for EPs to answer that question than for a non-EP to come into another specialty’s forum and answer that question. It would be more respectful to defer to EPs to answer this. Not saying you’re wrong. You probably wouldn’t be thrilled either though if I came into an Endo forum and said it wasn’t competitive. May or may not be, but competitiveness is often equated to intellect and academic excellence. For those of us that excelled academically and went into EM, we still want to defend the ability to practice as exceptional EPs. I know I should let it go, but the field is still relatively new in the house of medicine and often gets second guessed. It’s certainly gotten more respect from other specialists over my career. I fear though it’s going downhill with over saturation and we are going to be back on the defensive.

fair enough...though competitiveness isn't necessarily a subjective issue...there were 555 unfilled positions in this years match and >200 unfilled positions last year...2 years in a row, with an increase in the numbers...that is a trend that can be easily seen.

Why the change? That is most definitely best for someone in EM, especially those involved in the residency process, to answer.

And, please! If i got a dollar for everytime someone wants to give their option of the competitiveness of endocrine? ...I wouldn't need to win the Powerball.

And isn't EM, as a specialty something like 50 years old? Y'all aren't the youngsters of specialties anymore!

 

[BoardingDoc]

Why the change? That is most definitely best for someone in EM, especially those involved in the residency process, to answer.

Because the recent unfettered residency expansion and subsequent overproduction of EM docs is causing an expected 10k doc oversupply within the next 10 years. Med students have taken note and have gone into other fields and as a result EM is now a backup option for sub-par candidates.

 

[Rendar5]

If this was precovid then it was very competitive at the time. Add in an extra 500 residency positions and then have all emergency physicians start telling every med student that the field is doomed (with some good reason) and of course there’s suddenly a whole bunch of open spots

 

[ScepticSkeksis]

If this was precovid then it was very competitive at the time. Add in an extra 500 residency positions and then have all emergency physicians start telling every med student that the field is doomed (with some good reason) and of course there’s suddenly a whole bunch of open spots

I think we'd be doing medical students a disservice if we didn't tell them about the challenges we face. I don't want to lie to someone and then they waste their one shot at residency to end up in a field they hate and have to suffer abuse.

 

[PikminOC]

My brother is a gi doc. During COVID they closed gi and told him if he wants to work it would be in the er. He did during that time.