Failing out of residency

[directdoc]

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I'm sure its pretty hard to fail out of residency if you have put forth the effort to go through med school and get there.

But are they many people who do fail out of residency? Is there a number?

 

[DrMom]

very, very few.

 

[funkless]

I dunno... I've met a few that were (essentially) hazed/crapped-on until they dropped out of their residencies. (All three had been in gen surg. Two were from the same program, but in different years).

I'm not including the ones who dropped out voluntarily (after they decided the lifestyle wasn't worth it, or whatever). I'm talking about people who genuinely wanted to continue, but were "ground out."

 

[DrMom]

I've seen 2 Gen Surg residents hazed out, but they each chose to quit because of the harassment. That's a little different from the OP's question about failing out, although we can probably assume that these same folks might have eventually been failed out.

 

[funkless]

I've seen 2 Gen Surg residents hazed out, but they each chose to quit because of the harassment. That's a little different from the OP's question about failing out, although we can probably assume that these same folks might have eventually been failed out.

Yeah, I recognize the distinction you're making, but I figured the point of the OP was to get a sense of how common it is to enter a program and (involuntarily) not complete it. So, for the sake of the thread, it seems appropriate to lump those who were hazed out for perceived subjective weaknesses with those who genuinely failed out for falling short of more objective standards.

 

[smq123]

I've seen 2 Gen Surg residents hazed out, but they each chose to quit because of the harassment.

Hazing in general surgery. Oh.

How common is this? Is this frequently done at most programs, or are there a few particularly malignant gen surg programs?

 

[funkless]

Hazing in general surgery. Oh.

How common is this? Is this frequently done at most programs, or are there a few particularly malignant gen surg programs?

Just a few. And by "a few," I mean "basically all of them."

 

[Faebinder]

Hazing in general surgery. Oh.

How common is this? Is this frequently done at most programs, or are there a few particularly malignant gen surg programs?

I have yet to see a surgery program that does not Haze out residents of "not-similar-to-attendings" mentality. It will stay like that for a long time to come. All surgery specialties do it though perhaps to a lesser extent than general surgery.

 

[dynx]

Hazing in general surgery. Oh.

How common is this? Is this frequently done at most programs, or are there a few particularly malignant gen surg programs?

well, you need to make a distinction between being reamed in public for being a ***** and true hazing. I think the former is unavoidable. If you mess up you'll be corrected, often harshly, surgery attracts agressive personalities and they will not be using positive reinforcement to redirect your behavior. If you mess up often enough people will start to scrutinize your performance closer...then its a **** storm. Closer scrutiny brings more failings to light which brings more **** and closer scrutiny and so on. When this happens seemingly safe residents can get run out of a program, more often the resident deserves to be gone.

True hazing, where people just decide to give you **** because you don't use the right kind of salad dressing may occur with the random ass-hat attending but is not likely to be picked up by others in your program unless you are at one of the "few malignant gen surg programs". I've heard of it but, doubt it occurs as often as people like to make you think.

 

[dutchman]

Hazing in general surgery. Oh.

How common is this? Is this frequently done at most programs, or are there a few particularly malignant gen surg programs?

The funny thing is that these surgery programs seem to be the only ones that don't recognize they are making complete asses of themselves. All that fake tough guy crap sounds like a stereotype, but some fools are hell bent on sustaining the stereotype. Not to say all surgeons are that way, but there are enough dicks in surgery to give you that impression, and they just happen to be the most conspicuous.