Got Pimped While Shadowing?

[2011MS1]

So I was in a comprehensive shadowing program started by my local hospital. Everything was awesome, until I got to the radiology rotation. So I was first taken by a radiology tech who went around the place, showed me all the machines. etc. He also showed me some of the images he was looking at and explained a few science stuff.

While I have no interest in radiology to start with, I still try to get the main idea of everything. However, just same as every other specialties I shadowed, most of the vocabularies just fly over my head.

So now i enter the room of the radiologist, with the radiology tech at my side. After a few min of silence (he was reading the chart) he starts to question me.

"What is put in the food so that it would show up in the image here?"

So this was a short x ray video where you can see the food go from the person's mouth to esophagus to stomach, etc. I remembered that you add some kind of metal to the food so that it would block the radiation and show up in the x ray video.

"Some kind of heavy metal?"

Apparent that is not good enough. It was metal X. And it was not in a nice way like other doctor, who are trying to explain and teach me something. So this keeps going for the next hour where he keep quizzing me on stuff that no premed would know. All I can say is "I dont know". Then he would ask the same questions to the tech who cant even answer all of them.

One hour later I was like **** i am tired of this, I told this guy that I got to go and called sick for reminder of the shadowing rotation.

So that was the worst specialty rotation every out of the 12 I had. I thought shadowing was the coolest thing ever except for this one time. I still cant figure out why he was pimping a pre-med lmfao.

Anyone else got bad shadowing experience before?

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[Zona Pellucida]

At least your hospital has a program like this. Most people need to search and search.

Consider yourself lucky.

 

[tennisball80]

That's a sad story.

 

[2011MS1]

At least your hospital has a program like this. Most people need to search and search.

Consider yourself lucky.

Lol of course I know I am lucky with the program.

I just thought it was extremely hilarious that a fully certified radiologist would pimp a pre-med student.

 

[tennisball80]

Lol of course I know I am lucky with the program.

I just thought it was extremely hilarious that a fully certified radiologist would pimp a pre-med student.

Some people like to show off. I don't like these people.

 

[chrisski]

I've never herd "pimped" used in this context. I guess I'm not up on my hip youngster lingo. 🙂

 

[Zona Pellucida]

Lol of course I know I am lucky with the program.

I just thought it was extremely hilarious that a fully certified radiologist would pimp a pre-med student.

😳 Yeah... some people are just on power trips.

Don't let it bother you.

 

[anonymousername]

I've never herd "pimped" used in this context. I guess I'm not up on my hip youngster lingo. 🙂

from what I've heard, it's a term that M3, 4, and residents use often.

 

[FloatOn]

No, this has never happened to me before. One of the doctors I followed even told me to put away a little notepad I had out and to just watch and listen.

 

[TheMightySmiter]

I've never herd "pimped" used in this context. I guess I'm not up on my hip youngster lingo. 🙂

Yeah, when I first read the title I thought it was going to be a show-offy story about how the doctor OP was shadowing like gave OP's name to all his doctor friends, so that OP could shadow all of them too.


Seems to me that having people ask you really douchy questions is the opposite of being pimped, lol.

 

[2011MS1]

😳 Yeah... some people are just on power trips.

Don't let it bother you.

I thought it was more funny than anything else, which is why I wanted to share it with everyone lol.

Maybe since he was FMG he thought Med school/College is a combined program?

And yea they wont want you to have a notepad cuz that makes the patient nervous and I think can potentially be turned into a HIPPA violation

 

[Salient]

I had a doctor I was shadowing stop and ask me what I thought was causing the previous patient's chest pain once we left the room. Caught me a bit off guard, but she did it in a very tactful and educational way. It was fun to be "consulted," although I can see how a slight difference in attitude could make it a lot more like your experience.

 

[zetabetazeta]

Well, I shadowed a family physician early this week. He asked me some questions and after I said "I don't know", he patiently explained everything to me. I would like to believe that he was really willing to teach me and I think I was so lucky to shadow him. 🙂 Just consider it as a learning experience and at least now you know what metal should be used to make food show up in the image 😀

 

[FloatOn]

And yea they wont want you to have a notepad cuz that makes the patient nervous and I think can potentially be turned into a HIPPA violation

Hmm, I never thought about it as a HIPPA issue. It was more to write really general things about patients, like "really old man in car crash," that I could write my reactions and thoughts on afterwards. This could later help me generate ideas for my personal statement. Honestly, after I shadowed for more than a couple of days, what I saw and the patients I met started to blur together.

 

[fxny12004]

Though i havent been "pimped", i do have a sad story to share. The first time i ever shadowed was at a trauma 1 hospital. The attending i was shadowing was nothing short of a joker. When i introduced myself, she made a belittling comment about me in front of about 5 residents and a couple of M3's and M4's as they were about to be briefed on the cases that nite. 😏 I smiled and thought to myself, shes just "joking", and "her humor is different", so i brushed it off, and let it go.

As the night progressed, a patient screaming in agony from abdominal pain would not cease to yell from the pain. I mean she was in an extraordinary amount of pain, and from what i could tell, was not faking, as she had been in the ER bed for hours, and the doctors where either waiting for labs or something (patient belonged to another attending and she had no visible wounds). Anyways, i remember saying, poor woman, i hope she gets treated soon. Right at that moment, i remember the attending i was shadowing, yelling to the nurses in their station saying, "would someone please shut that woman up", while she comfortably sat in her chair holding the magazine she was reading.

But it doenst stop there......

Later on a homeless person with a speech impediment came in somewhat drunk and disoriented. He was in horrible health, and was missing all of his teeth. He was treated for dehydration. He was no stranger to the ER, as many of the doctors and nurses knew him from his frequent visits, as one of the nurses told me later on that night.

Anyways, when the attending came up to check on him with the residents and I around her, he tried to say something, and no one could in all honesty make out what he was trying to say, so she decided it was appropriate to make a joke about his impediment (not a nice one) and laugh in his presence.
Not to mention the fact that she mocked him as well everytime he tried to get a word out, like "What did you say, Bluh Blah Blah", hahahahah"
Of course all of the kiss ass residents smiled while i stood there in AWE with literally my jaw to the ground...

At that moment i thanked her for her time and for the opportunity, and walked out of the ER with a whole new perspective on medicine, and how not all doctors are created equal.

Honestly, she was a competent doctor, and treated medically her patients as well as any doctor would, but i think she was the absolute worse human being there that night and to be honest, the worse human being ive met so far. 👎

I do have to say i did meet some AMAZING doctors in that hospital in the ER.🙂

 

[2011MS1]

It is kinda weird but almost all the people I shadowed keeps warning me about malignant personalities in academic hospitals that you just described

 

[IDoIt4Love]

wow, i'm surprised that any doctor has enough free time on his hands to quiz you like that, and i'm also surprised that he even took the trouble. that's really random.

oh, and you're way too lucky to have this insane intensive shadowing opportunity to complain. your experience was amazing. leave it at that.

 

[Tatastrophy]

It is ok to say "I don't know, but.....insert question regarding the topic here"
I get asked questions like that all the time....without watching videos explaining it to me before hand...just try to reason through what you know and when you don't know-ask.
Yesterday a surgeon asked me why he asked the anesthesiologist to do Valsalva during a spinal cord surgery....I didn't even know what Valsalva was until the anesthesiologist gave me a vague hint which resulted in an answer that impressed him. Now I know exactly what it is for and will probably never forget it. Just work with what you got kid....I think you are underestimating yourself.

 

[dr zaius]

I was went on rounds in a burn ward and was pimped repeatedly. This was because they thought I was a medical student.

I answered maybe 2 out of the 30 questions correctly. They must have thought I was the worst student ever.

 

[2011MS1]

Oh yea, you know what is funny? I just remember another time where I got Semi-pimped.

This time I was shadowing at Academic hospital for my state medical school. 2 people: 1 cytopathologist 1 surgical pathologist.

To be fair they give me a small booklet to read for a little. But when they start asking me what kind of malignancy the pap smear and some other slide have. The only thing I can remember is epithelial melanoma of undetermined significance lol. Pathology terms are so freaking long. Oh well at least I learned something this time.

Yea if you really dont know how to find shadowing experience you can give me a PM. I shadowed at academic hospital, local hospital and private practice. I do NOT have any connection and made all the contacts myself.

 

[FloatOn]

I was went on rounds in a burn ward and was pimped repeatedly. This was because they thought I was a medical student.

I answered maybe 2 out of the 30 questions correctly. They must have thought I was the worst student ever.

This happened to me too!...though I wasn't asked too too many questions. I had to remind the doctor that I was still a pre-med college student, but I feel like in the back of the doctor's mind, I was secretly a med student and I was trying to get out of answering questions and other responsibilities.

 

[riverjib]

So I was in a comprehensive shadowing program started by my local hospital. Everything was awesome, until I got to the radiology rotation. So I was first taken by a radiology tech who went around the place, showed me all the machines. etc. He also showed me some of the images he was looking at and explained a few science stuff.

While I have no interest in radiology to start with, I still try to get the main idea of everything. However, just same as every other specialties I shadowed, most of the vocabularies just fly over my head.

So now i enter the room of the radiologist, with the radiology tech at my side. After a few min of silence (he was reading the chart) he starts to question me.

"What is put in the food so that it would show up in the image here?"

So this was a short x ray video where you can see the food go from the person's mouth to esophagus to stomach, etc. I remembered that you add some kind of metal to the food so that it would block the radiation and show up in the x ray video.

"Some kind of heavy metal?"

Apparent that is not good enough. It was metal X. And it was not in a nice way like other doctor, who are trying to explain and teach me something. So this keeps going for the next hour where he keep quizzing me on stuff that no premed would know. All I can say is "I dont know". Then he would ask the same questions to the tech who cant even answer all of them.

One hour later I was like **** i am tired of this, I told this guy that I got to go and called sick for reminder of the shadowing rotation.

So that was the worst specialty rotation every out of the 12 I had. I thought shadowing was the coolest thing ever except for this one time. I still cant figure out why he was pimping a pre-med lmfao.

Anyone else got bad shadowing experience before?

All experience is good experience. In this case, you learned (IMO) that Scrubs is actually not a complete exaggeration. He was messing with you. I telling him you "got to go" only made him laugh, and the fact that you "called sick" didn't really hurt anyone but you.

Just learn to deal with difficult personalities. You can file as many formal complaints as you want down the road, but it's usually pointless. You have to learn to suck it up. You won't be able to "call sick" during med school and residency.

 

[Spiker]

.

 

[FallenHero]

dunno about shadowing but i definitely got pimped during some interviews lmfao

 

[Narmerguy]

Yeah me and a guy who were shadowing together got constantly asked a bunch of questions even while the patient was being operated on (only numbed the foot area, didn't put him completely under). It was weird but cool because it wasn't in a mean way but an educational one. I did feel a little bad for pretty much not knowing anything.

 

[s1lver]

I still cant figure out why he was pimping a pre-med lmfao.

Some ppl are like that - they like to show how smart they are at every opportunity.

After the 15th question, you should've chuckled and reminded him that you're a pre-med who is just trying to shadow.

 

[rmbsstock]

Though i havent been "pimped", i do have a sad story to share. The first time i ever shadowed was at a trauma 1 hospital. The attending i was shadowing was nothing short of a joker. When i introduced myself, she made a belittling comment about me in front of about 5 residents and a couple of M3's and M4's as they were about to be briefed on the cases that nite. 😏 I smiled and thought to myself, shes just "joking", and "her humor is different", so i brushed it off, and let it go.

As the night progressed, a patient screaming in agony from abdominal pain would not cease to yell from the pain. I mean she was in an extraordinary amount of pain, and from what i could tell, was not faking, as she had been in the ER bed for hours, and the doctors where either waiting for labs or something (patient belonged to another attending and she had no visible wounds). Anyways, i remember saying, poor woman, i hope she gets treated soon. Right at that moment, i remember the attending i was shadowing, yelling to the nurses in their station saying, "would someone please shut that woman up", while she comfortably sat in her chair holding the magazine she was reading.

But it doenst stop there......

Later on a homeless person with a speech impediment came in somewhat drunk and disoriented. He was in horrible health, and was missing all of his teeth. He was treated for dehydration. He was no stranger to the ER, as many of the doctors and nurses knew him from his frequent visits, as one of the nurses told me later on that night.

Anyways, when the attending came up to check on him with the residents and I around her, he tried to say something, and no one could in all honesty make out what he was trying to say, so she decided it was appropriate to make a joke about his impediment (not a nice one) and laugh in his presence.
Not to mention the fact that she mocked him as well everytime he tried to get a word out, like "What did you say, Bluh Blah Blah", hahahahah"
Of course all of the kiss ass residents smiled while i stood there in AWE with literally my jaw to the ground...

At that moment i thanked her for her time and for the opportunity, and walked out of the ER with a whole new perspective on medicine, and how not all doctors are created equal.

Honestly, she was a competent doctor, and treated medically her patients as well as any doctor would, but i think she was the absolute worse human being there that night and to be honest, the worse human being ive met so far. 👎

I do have to say i did meet some AMAZING doctors in that hospital in the ER.🙂

God knows how much we need people like you as doctors. You are so much needed as a human before a doctor, since these days its easier to find a doctor than to find a human doctor. I work in the mental health field and with Juveniles probation youth and you cannot imagine how many doctors (males and females) make fun of them when I take them to the hospital. I understand doctors are parents too and get mad when they see teenagers with nasty tattoos or hair color or piercings. I understand when I bring teenagers who have tried to cut themselves and/or tried to commit suicide by taking drugs, that this can be upsetting for doctors and "taking their precious time because of a kid trying to get attention". But because of lots of reasons, some of which these kids did not grow up in nice, loving, warm and caring homes, these kids ended up where they are now. These are the children who have been molested maybe when they were even babies, by their mothers or fathers. Or even sold for the sake of drugs, made to use drugs by their parents and were physically and emotionally abused by their family (cause God only knows who are their true parents). I hate it when doctors with low self esteem try to show off infront of their peers or infront of me, make fun of these youth. And especially when they raise their voice, they sound like the abuser to these youth, which makes the youth in the fight or flight mode,.....we end up having to call the cops, having to handcuff the kid, and the doc's self esteem is high up in the sky and the kid is more broken with more charges on their records. I have seen this happen six times in 2009 at least with me.
Doctors are like any other humans, sometimes they want to step on the weak to boost their self esteem 🙁

 

[MarieMarie]

I was went on rounds in a burn ward and was pimped repeatedly. This was because they thought I was a medical student.

I answered maybe 2 out of the 30 questions correctly. They must have thought I was the worst student ever.

I'm willing to bet this is what happened.

I shadowed a physician who is also a preceptor for family medicine rotations. Her patients were used to seeing her with a student, which was nice. She would forget I was a premed and kept apologizing for explaining things over my head, when we spoke after seeing a patient

She had a really smooth way of talking to a patient and a student at the same time without talking down or belittling anyone. Gives me something to aspire to 🙂

 

[goldandapager]

Nevermind. I just got PIMPed (put in my place).

 

[7starmantis]

"Pimped" as used in this thread is out of context. If a physician "pimped" you, he would've asked you to get coffee for the tech.

Nah, its used this way all the time. I never got pimped, they did ask me lots of questions but I knew the head of trauma for like 10 years so he was always trying to pimp me for fun. I didn't mind, everyone knew I wasn't a doctor or even a med student, but who cares about anyone else anyway? I enjoyed learning, it was done in a funny way but always was explained afterwards.

I did watch a few student NP's get (what they would describe as pimped) because they couldn't answer a few questions. Usually they got them with the difference between a ventilator and a respirator and then one got all flustered trying to explain why antibiotics couldn't be used instead of decubital debridements. Its all part of the process, just learn from it and your better for it.

 

[Ginger Ale]

that's pretty funny, I'm sure it'll make a great story for an interview or something.

The doctor i'm shadowing does ask me questions in front of patients, and if I don't know the answer he takes the time to explain it to both me and the patient. The other day he told me to listen to a guys next and asked me if I heard anything. When I told him I did, he sternly told me I shouldn't hear anything in that patient, but when he put his steth to the guys next he heard something too. He quickly let me know it was a good catch, and we moved on haha

 

[2011MS1]

"Pimped" as used in this thread is out of context. If a physician "pimped" you, he would've asked you to get coffee for the tech.

PIMP=Put In My Place

When attending or you superior ask you, in front of other people, random ass question like extreme minutes details that you are highly unlikely to know to put you in your place.

 

[2011MS1]

It doesn't sound like you were pimped. He asked you a specific question. Not that its common knowledge, but requiring you to answer with a specific metal isn't too harsh, IMO. Barium usually is added or gadolinium.

Ha you are right about the first question. But not about the next hour. I dont even remember the questions because they were so out of my league.

 

[MilkmanAl]

I got asked a few questions when I shadowed. I actually thought it was kind of cool that the doctors were trying to get me involved rather than just having me sit around watching stuff. Some of the questions were way out of my league at the time, but it was still interesting. Doctors were pre-meds once, too; I doubt they expect you to know anything.

 

[SouthernSurgeon]

"Pimped" as used in this thread is out of context. If a physician "pimped" you, he would've asked you to get coffee for the tech.

No, you are incorrect (so are the other pre-meds in the thread, so don't feel too bad). Read "the art of pimping"

http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/summary/262/1/89

 

[2011MS1]

No, you are incorrect (so are the other pre-meds in the thread, so don't feel too bad). Read "the art of pimping"

http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/summary/262/1/89

That article is semi-joking, I read it a few days ago. One of the tactic is to have a muffin next to you so if you are about to get pimped you take a big bite and it would be hard for the to ask you while you are eating.

I wonder how well does that work? lol (Can you even just bring a muffin around during rounding??)

 

[SouthernSurgeon]

That article is semi-joking

you think? 🙄

Can you even just bring a muffin around during rounding??

You're the attending...you do what you want!

 

[2011MS1]

Best Definition:

Ummm, my experience with pimping is a bit harsher than what you described. Pimping is when an attending (or resident) starts asking you questions during rounds, in the OR, at the bedside, etc about a certain topic of interest -- if you get the question right, then they ask you another, then another, then another, until you get one wrong. Even after you get it wrong they might still keep asking you questions. Oftentimes the questions are "guess what I'm thinking" questions. Pimping can be very nervewracking, especially if you're not too comfortable with the topic you're discussing.

Another style is called a pimping session, usually occurring during attending teaching rounds. This is a slightly different take on the same concept -- the attending asks a question aimed at the most junior person in the room, usually the med student. If they can't answer it, it goes to the intern, then it goes to the senior resident, and so on, until someone gets it right. Then the attending keeps asking harder and harder questions always aimed first at the med student, so eventually the med student is saying "i don't know" to almost every question.

Pimping is an interesting experience, and it varies widely based on an attending's style. At first, to new clinical students, it seems incredibly harsh, and most students get really upset with themselves for not knowing the answers. Then everyone just develops really thick skins so that it no longer bothers them as much to feel incredibly stupid in front of everyone they're working with! (Just remember -- no other student would know the question you're being askied!)

PS -- my most memorable pimping experience was being pimped almost every day during CCU rounds with about 20-25 attendings/fellows/residents consistently present (including 4-5 attendings at once)!! Not a typical scenario, by the way.

I wonder how did that article even get published in JAMA do they allow one of those satire once in a while?

 

[Tatastrophy]

That article is semi-joking, I read it a few days ago. One of the tactic is to have a muffin next to you so if you are about to get pimped you take a big bite and it would be hard for the to ask you while you are eating.

I wonder how well does that work? lol (Can you even just bring a muffin around during rounding??)

This past summer while I was a research intern in an ICU, one of the Med Students would bring granola bars, cookies, twizzlers, lolli's and juiceboxes (juicy juice if I remember correctly) while we went on rounds. None of the attendings cared and he still got asked questions (like every member of the team...including us research interns)...he was just a hungry fella 😛

 

[Omni]

At least your hospital has a program like this. Most people need to search and search.

Consider yourself lucky.

I don't understand why that is a common response to questions like this on SDN. That's the same thing as being at a restaurant and responding to "This food seems undercooked. Anyone else think so?" with "Well you should be thankful that you have food in front of you. Many people in the world are starving".
Yeah, of course he's happy/thankful for the experience, but he's asking if anyone else has had this kind of run in.

Back to topic:
I haven't had one for shadowing in that kind of setting, but I had one with a paramedic (I'm an EMT). He was trying to one up me for telling him to grab on to the stretcher while me and someone else pushed the behemoth into the ambulance. He took that as me trying to subordinate him so he started asking me a bunch of questions to make me "look bad." I got some of the questions right (they just required a basic understanding of physiology some chemistry), but after a few minutes, I started ignoring him to concentrate on the patient.
Weird people.

 

[runrunrudolph1]

haha similar thing happened to me in the OR, the attending decided to grill me on subjects that I had not even heard of (and yes he knew I was only a pre-med) he just found it funny to see me squirm. Lucky for me (I was next to the anesthesiologist behind the blue curtain) she -an anesth- started writing down the answers on the sheet next to the pt's head and the attending left me alone. But up until that point I wanted to run out of the OR...

 

[FloatOn]

That article is semi-joking, I read it a few days ago. One of the tactic is to have a muffin next to you so if you are about to get pimped you take a big bite and it would be hard for the to ask you while you are eating.

I wonder how well does that work? lol (Can you even just bring a muffin around during rounding??)

We should have the med students on here try it out and report back. Any takers?

This past summer while I was a research intern in an ICU, one of the Med Students would bring granola bars, cookies, twizzlers, lolli's and juiceboxes (juicy juice if I remember correctly) while we went on rounds. None of the attendings cared and he still got asked questions (like every member of the team...including us research interns)...he was just a hungry fella 😛

Brilliant! Another use for those large white coat pockets!

haha similar thing happened to me in the OR, the attending decided to grill me on subjects that I had not even heard of (and yes he knew I was only a pre-med) he just found it funny to see me squirm. Lucky for me (I was next to the anesthesiologist behind the blue curtain) she -an anesth- started writing down the answers on the sheet next to the pt's head and the attending left me alone. But up until that point I wanted to run out of the OR...

Niceeee.

 

[boaz]

"What is put in the food so that it would show up in the image here?"

So this was a short x ray video where you can see the food go from the person's mouth to esophagus to stomach, etc. I remembered that you add some kind of metal to the food so that it would block the radiation and show up in the x ray video.

"Some kind of heavy metal?"

Apparent that is not good enough. It was metal X. And it was not in a nice way like other doctor, who are trying to explain and teach me something. So this keeps going for the next hour where he keep quizzing me on stuff that no premed would know. All I can say is "I dont know". Then he would ask the same questions to the tech who cant even answer all of them.

It's Barium, by the way. BaSO4.

That story is pretty crazy, imo. I assume he knew you were just premad?

 

[2011MS1]

It's Barium, by the way. BaSO4.

That story is pretty crazy, imo. I assume he knew you were just premad?

Pretty sure the tech told him when he introduced me (I cant clearly remember it has been a while). But there is no reason to assume other wise. It was a community hospital, no residency/rotation program, and i dont think med student just randomly drop in for no reason 🙂.

Like I said maybe since he is foreign medical graduate he assumed that I am in some kind of 6 year bacc-med program that alot of countries have?

 

[TaylorMDhopeful]

I was told by a few medical students/physicians that once you visit a medical school for interviews and revisits you should ask them how much pimping and scut work occurs during clinical rotations. Pimping isn't as bad as a medical student (sucks to go through it as a pre-med, I can only imagine) if you are supposed to know the information by that point but a lot of scut work defeats the purpose of the learning experience on your rotations.

 

[JPMo]

I went through a similar experience in HS when i did this youth apprentice program. My rotation for the day put me in the OR with an ENT who started asking me questions...luckily for me i knew most of them! 😎 But then again most of us here probably would too cause they were pretty basic A&P stuff. The one that stumped me was the birds of the body? I was like wtf!!?? so he explains that its the esophagoose...etc! I forgot the rest

 

[BBender716]

Some hospital staff/physicians are unclear about who is actually shadowing. I know my hospital had a similar program and some of my "preceptors" thought I was attending one of the local medical schools. "Whoa whoa whoa, I have NOT yet memorized all of the normal osmolarity levels."

Sometimes they really aren't trying to "pimp" you. Unless you come across a doctor notoriously for doing so... Dr. Xzibit

 

[The right Path]

Though i havent been "pimped", i do have a sad story to share. The first time i ever shadowed was at a trauma 1 hospital. The attending i was shadowing was nothing short of a joker. When i introduced myself, she made a belittling comment about me in front of about 5 residents and a couple of M3's and M4's as they were about to be briefed on the cases that nite. 😏 I smiled and thought to myself, shes just "joking", and "her humor is different", so i brushed it off, and let it go.

As the night progressed, a patient screaming in agony from abdominal pain would not cease to yell from the pain. I mean she was in an extraordinary amount of pain, and from what i could tell, was not faking, as she had been in the ER bed for hours, and the doctors where either waiting for labs or something (patient belonged to another attending and she had no visible wounds). Anyways, i remember saying, poor woman, i hope she gets treated soon. Right at that moment, i remember the attending i was shadowing, yelling to the nurses in their station saying, "would someone please shut that woman up", while she comfortably sat in her chair holding the magazine she was reading.

But it doenst stop there......

Later on a homeless person with a speech impediment came in somewhat drunk and disoriented. He was in horrible health, and was missing all of his teeth. He was treated for dehydration. He was no stranger to the ER, as many of the doctors and nurses knew him from his frequent visits, as one of the nurses told me later on that night.

Anyways, when the attending came up to check on him with the residents and I around her, he tried to say something, and no one could in all honesty make out what he was trying to say, so she decided it was appropriate to make a joke about his impediment (not a nice one) and laugh in his presence.
Not to mention the fact that she mocked him as well everytime he tried to get a word out, like "What did you say, Bluh Blah Blah", hahahahah"
Of course all of the kiss ass residents smiled while i stood there in AWE with literally my jaw to the ground...

At that moment i thanked her for her time and for the opportunity, and walked out of the ER with a whole new perspective on medicine, and how not all doctors are created equal.

Honestly, she was a competent doctor, and treated medically her patients as well as any doctor would, but i think she was the absolute worse human being there that night and to be honest, the worse human being ive met so far. 👎

I do have to say i did meet some AMAZING doctors in that hospital in the ER.🙂

Wow, that is a sad story. Unfortunately, just like any other field, you will run into all kinds of people in healthcare. It is particularly reprehensible however when it occurs in a setting in which a PROFESSIONAL is entrusted to provide a SERVICE to a VULNERABLE person. All I can say is, it's not the last time you'll witness shockingly inexcusable behavior. That said, it should never be tolerated/ignored, and you have to be the change that you want to see. And that can require some big cajones sometimes.

Regarding pimping during a shadowing experience- I can see how it may confuse someone who doesn't understand the context of that learning method. Many pre-meds don't quite know what to expect at all. Shadowing experiences can range from feeling like a nuissance, to being just about completely ignored, to being pimped mercilessly.

There are circumstances in which med students and I guess even pre-meds are pimped with a malicious intent. And some would consider that a preferable experience to just being ignored or being treated like a burden. The reason being, is that you'd at least learn something. If nothing else, a taste of what it's like to be pimped.

Pimping is like socratic learning, but with more pressure. It's actually a good experience because in medicine, you need to train your mind to think under pressure, be able to perform when challenged, and find out what your limitations of your knowledge are. You can't expect to be able answer every or even many questions correctly. The physician pimping you doesn't expect you to know, either- and it's not because s/he is confused about your eductational status. What is the point of questioning you on information that you already know? So that you can feel good about yourself and smart? Wrongo. There is a huge learning curve to become a physician. Take advantage of and be appreciative of good learning opportunities.

And for those guys that are truly just pimping you to get their jollies off of making you squirm? Well, don't worry about that crap. It's good for you, too. Helps you develop a thick skin.

 

[familyaerospace]

Sad thing is that is how almost all of my normal every day doctors visits go... you know, when I'm actually a patient. I've only shadowed one doctor so far and he didn't ask any questions. When there are shadows in the room with me and my doctor and if they can't answer, I always ask if I'm allowed to answer. They usually let me and then they yell at me for acting like a doctor. 😀

By the way, I believe "barium" was the answer he was looking for. I think the only reason I remember that is because my father drank some barium (or ate something with barium) for a problem he had and he kept telling me that his poop was white for a few days. Gotta love fathers who don't understand the concept of "Too Much Information."

 

[Captain Fantastic]

I've never herd "pimped" used in this context. I guess I'm not up on my hip youngster lingo. 🙂

If this is youngster lingo, how old are you, exactly?

Earliest reference is 1628 -- a teaching physician was unhappy with his student's enthusiasm and threatened to "pimp" them. First recorded reference to "pimping" as the asking of difficult questions to medical students was in 1889 Germany. In 1916 Flexner noted that Osler's students at Johns Hopkins referred to his questioning as "pimping."