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The surgeon-author Richard Selzer writes the following in an introductory piece to a text entitled Ward Ethics―Dilemmas for Medical Students and Doctors in Training:
"Medical students are so altruistic and humane when they start and then somewhere along the line they lose it, its beaten out of them. My own training as a surgeon is an example. Training in surgery has traditionally been carried out "en militaire." It was awful when I was in training because the brutality was handed down from the chiefs of surgery all the way to the chief resident, the intern, the medical students, and the nurses. We learned to pass on the brutality because it had been done to us and if you quailed or if you showed any kind of fear or sense of having been embarrassed, then you lost points and you were subject to further ridicule. It was a bad way to become a doctor because it was inhumane. You were brutalized emotionally, and sometimes physically, and it still goes on. "
Basically, I wanted to ask your opinion as residents how much does it picture the reality.
Is residency such a dehumanizing process?
"Medical students are so altruistic and humane when they start and then somewhere along the line they lose it, its beaten out of them. My own training as a surgeon is an example. Training in surgery has traditionally been carried out "en militaire." It was awful when I was in training because the brutality was handed down from the chiefs of surgery all the way to the chief resident, the intern, the medical students, and the nurses. We learned to pass on the brutality because it had been done to us and if you quailed or if you showed any kind of fear or sense of having been embarrassed, then you lost points and you were subject to further ridicule. It was a bad way to become a doctor because it was inhumane. You were brutalized emotionally, and sometimes physically, and it still goes on. "
Basically, I wanted to ask your opinion as residents how much does it picture the reality.
Is residency such a dehumanizing process?