have you ever been scutted out by your intern?

[ASDIC]

---

Members don't see this ad.

I just finished a rotation and had a very stressful time with some interns on my team. The 2 interns we had were on off service rotation with us and they were incredibly lazy asking medical students to do everything.

One night while I was on call, one of the interns slept through 2 of his overnight pages while on call and apparently "hung" out at the reading room chatting with the radiologists while neglecting floorwork. My senior resident on the team apparently thought that everything was up and up on the floor while she slept through the night. In the mean time, the intern paged the medical students and lied to us about how the senior resident had told him to ask the medical students to do the admission orders, H&Ps, progress notes, get ABGs drawn and do consults. It was just me and another medical student and we finished 10 progress notes between us, 4 admission orders, 5 H&Ps and a consult, along with being unsuccessful on the ABG on a massively obese patient.

I was also on call with him on another night but the senior resident was also awake this time and he apparently didnt abuse us again.

Just wondering if anything like this has happened to anyone?

 

[lord_jeebus]

It sucks that your intern was so lazy, and plain inappropriate that he lied, but I wouldn't call H&Ps, progress notes, orders, consults, or an ABG "scut." What you did had educational value and in the long run will make you a better resident and a better physician.

 

[PeepshowJohnny]

It sucks that your intern was so lazy, and plain inappropriate that he lied, but I wouldn't call H&Ps, progress notes, orders, consults, or an ABG "scut." What you did had educational value and in the long run will make you a better resident and a better physician.

Agreed. Scut work is stuff like "Go down to medical records and get the patients old charts" and "Wait outside the OR and call me when the patient gets to the room". Sometimes it can even be counter to your education.

During my subI an intern was strongly scolded by the attending for making her third year do scut during TEACHING rounds. It was really blatant and obnoxious. The attending would try to bring up a teaching point about A. Fib or something, but the intern would send her med student off to find a nurse to explain an order to her. She deserved the rebuke.

 

[doozenberg]

Real scut is filing away 40 trauma notes in patient charts spanning 7 floors. Or waiting on hold forever to get the outside hospital to fax you the patient's other medical records. But even stuff like that helps the team out overall. You take the hit now and then as part of the deal, just so long as it isn't the defining feature of your rotation. That's my take.

 

[Droopy Snoopy]

I just finished a rotation and had a very stressful time with some interns on my team. The 2 interns we had were on off service rotation with us and they were incredibly lazy asking medical students to do everything.

One night while I was on call, one of the interns slept through 2 of his overnight pages while on call and apparently "hung" out at the reading room chatting with the radiologists while neglecting floorwork. My senior resident on the team apparently thought that everything was up and up on the floor while she slept through the night. In the mean time, the intern paged the medical students and lied to us about how the senior resident had told him to ask the medical students to do the admission orders, H&Ps, progress notes, get ABGs drawn and do consults. It was just me and another medical student and we finished 10 progress notes between us, 4 admission orders, 5 H&Ps and a consult, along with being unsuccessful on the ABG on a massively obese patient.

I was also on call with him on another night but the senior resident was also awake this time and he apparently didnt abuse us again.

Just wondering if anything like this has happened to anyone?

That's not scut, that's M3 year. Count yourself lucky that you've managed to make it to almost February with this being the closest you've come to actual scut work.

 

[johnsmith777]

welcome to med school.

**** flows down hill and as a med student you are the lowest on the hill.

things won't always be this way, as one day, you'll be the boss and be giving the orders.

 

[LadyWolverine]

While I agree that things like writing up admission orders, H&Ps, and progress notes, putting in routine orders, doing some procedures, and calling/going on consults definitely do not fall into the realm of scut (rather, with the proper guidance and feedback, can be valuable learning experiences - but it seems rare to get said guidance and feedback in the setting of academic medicine these days), certain things are most definitely scut. Running all over the hospital putting notes in charts, calling/faxing hospitals for patient records, dropping off/picking up films at radiology, calling to make PCP and clinic appts for inpatients prior to their discharge, calling the lab for results that aren't up yet, other menial tasks ("can you walk Ms. Jones and make sure her SaO2 doesn't drop when she's off the NC"-type stuff) - THIS is scut. And, yes, as a member of the team, you are expected to do some of this work, especially when it comes to your own patients.

HOWEVER, when it comprises a significant portion of your day (i.e. your intern/resident is assigning you all the scut for not only the patients that you are following, but the other patients as well, basically making you do all of their "boring" work while they disappear and don't teach you anything), it really takes away from the educational experience that you should be having. This is the biggest gripe that I had with one month of my IM rotation - once attending rounds were over, it was "All scut, All the time." The senior resident would write up a checklist of everything that needed to be done for each patient on the dry erase board, and then she'd delegate tasks to each of us (e.g. "put in X orders, call Y consult, get records from Z hospital, etc). We spent no time actually talking about differentials or plans, and the interns/resident hardly ever went to see patients with us to help us hone our physical exam skills. We were basically just there as an extra pair of hands to help take care of the "busywork." Not exactly worth $20K per year, if you ask me. On the majority of my IM rotation, there was very little "medicine" going on.

Your interns/residents/attendings should be reviewing your H&Ps and giving you feedback, going through your/their assessment and plan with you, showing you how to do useful procedures - not sending you off to sharpen your social work or fax machine skills for half the day. You should NOT be doing all of their work for them. Remember, you are paying big $$$ to be where you are - you are not being paid to do their scutwork for them. You should pull your weight, but not to the point where it cuts into your learning. And I think it's OK to speak up about it - your clerkship director should definitely know if you're not getting your money's worth when it comes to education.

 

[ASDIC]

I do agree that all of this was a learning experience. But maybe I should have included what real scut would have been. Of course, doing all of this is what I am for.

With all that I did that day, my intern never went over with me or gave feedback. A lot of other students had complained about him to the course director, but since he was off service no action was taken.

But the good thing that came out of this was I learned how to write orders, something a lot of my classmates dont know how to do. I only complained because I was asked to do work in a rotation I felt was not in my career goals.

 

[Doctor Bagel]

HOWEVER, when it comprises a significant portion of your day (i.e. your intern/resident is assigning you all the scut for not only the patients that you are following, but the other patients as well, basically making you do all of their "boring" work while they disappear and don't teach you anything), it really takes away from the educational experience that you should be having. This is the biggest gripe that I had with one month of my IM rotation - once attending rounds were over, it was "All scut, All the time." The senior resident would write up a checklist of everything that needed to be done for each patient on the dry erase board, and then she'd delegate tasks to each of us (e.g. "put in X orders, call Y consult, get records from Z hospital, etc). We spent no time actually talking about differentials or plans, and the interns/resident hardly ever went to see patients with us to help us hone our physical exam skills. We were basically just there as an extra pair of hands to help take care of the "busywork." Not exactly worth $20K per year, if you ask me. On the majority of my IM rotation, there was very little "medicine" going on.

Sounds a lot like my feelings about my IM rotation. I'm guessing it will make me a better intern because I'll know how to do some of that lame administrative tasks that really have nothing to do with medicine, but yeah, it doesn't seem like the best use of a student's time. We also had very little discussion of differentials and treatment plans -- maybe I wouldn't have felt so lost if we had more of that. I also got the impression that an intern on wards spends all her time doing busy work, which is an unfortunate use of their time.

As for the op's stuff, yeah, it's not technically scut because it is educationally valuable, but it's still lame. As a patient, I'd be especially worried about medical students writing orders and doing procedures without resident supervision.

 

[SoCuteMD]

I do agree that all of this was a learning experience. But maybe I should have included what real scut would have been. Of course, doing all of this is what I am for.

With all that I did that day, my intern never went over with me or gave feedback. A lot of other students had complained about him to the course director, but since he was off service no action was taken.

But the good thing that came out of this was I learned how to write orders, something a lot of my classmates dont know how to do. I only complained because I was asked to do work in a rotation I felt was not in my career goals.

Such as? Writing H&Ps, orders, drawing ABGs? Hate to break it to you, but ALL of those are necessary skills.

Did you ASK your intern for feedback? Or just assume that s/he knew you wanted it?

 

[SLUser11]

But the good thing that came out of this was I learned how to write orders, something a lot of my classmates dont know how to do. I only complained because I was asked to do work in a rotation I felt was not in my career goals.

Wow. That's some serious tunnel vision.

 

[opb]

I have been scutted by interns, residents, and attendings. Getting scutted out is just a part of being a medical student. The amount of scutwork varies team by team, but that's just part of the job.

 

[BigRedBeta]

But the good thing that came out of this was I learned how to write orders, something a lot of my classmates dont know how to do. I only complained because I was asked to do work in a rotation I felt was not in my career goals.

Cue Ronnie Coleman, 7 time Mr. Olympia...

"everybody wanna be a bodybuilder, ain't nobody want lift no heavy-ass weights"


Or my personal motto:
"...if it was all fun and games, every jackass would be doing it"