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How do I become more "likeable" on rotations?
- Thread starter leungdong
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You have to cater to the personality of whatever residents you have. Are they the type that always like to teach or be talking about medicine or are they the type where as soon as any acute issues are resolved they're talking about what they did at the gym the day before? If it's the former, it's easier, because all you need to do is ask a question occasionally or make a proposal about patient care to show that you're invested in what's going on. The latter is difficult if you aren't similar in personality/interests to your residents or have mastered the art of bull****ting from a young age. The easiest thing you can do is to smile, look happy, and laugh at any stupid jokes any superior person makes. Nod when someone's talking to make it very obvious that you're paying attention, things like that.
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i couldn't have said it better.
Just gotta know who you're working with. This just depends so much on personalities. A lot of advice you'll get is obvious stuff so I'll try to give some possibly controversial and less talked about ideas that I think made residents like me.
Sometimes if you're frustrated by something minor that isn't really anyone's fault, expressing this in the right way can make you seem real and your residents might identify with you. Nothing too serious and don't do this a lot but say you present on a patient and they tell the resident or attending a different story than they told you, depending on the resident you might be able to say something like "man, she told me something totally different. These inconsistent historians make me look bad." A lot of residents will know what this is like and identify with the situation. Again, super dependent on the resident and making sure you don't come off whiney. Overall I guess I'm just saying to be real.
Ask if you can do something to help. This is actually probably the most important. You might get stuck scribing some stuff or doing some more difficult monotonous tasks but it helps the resident a lot and they realize this.
Follow their lead as far as when to goof off and when to get serious. Enough said.
This one isn't really personality dependent and works with residents and attendings. If you are asked something and don't know it, go home and learn it. When it comes up again, make it clear that you did this. I would often mention something like "yeah, last time this came up I know I really sucked at X so that weekend I made it my priority to learn it. I think I did a little better today and I feel like I'm learning. Do you have any specific suggestions on how I can continue to improve?" People REALLY respect this attitude and people will like you for it.
Sometimes if you're frustrated by something minor that isn't really anyone's fault, expressing this in the right way can make you seem real and your residents might identify with you. Nothing too serious and don't do this a lot but say you present on a patient and they tell the resident or attending a different story than they told you, depending on the resident you might be able to say something like "man, she told me something totally different. These inconsistent historians make me look bad." A lot of residents will know what this is like and identify with the situation. Again, super dependent on the resident and making sure you don't come off whiney. Overall I guess I'm just saying to be real.
Ask if you can do something to help. This is actually probably the most important. You might get stuck scribing some stuff or doing some more difficult monotonous tasks but it helps the resident a lot and they realize this.
Follow their lead as far as when to goof off and when to get serious. Enough said.
This one isn't really personality dependent and works with residents and attendings. If you are asked something and don't know it, go home and learn it. When it comes up again, make it clear that you did this. I would often mention something like "yeah, last time this came up I know I really sucked at X so that weekend I made it my priority to learn it. I think I did a little better today and I feel like I'm learning. Do you have any specific suggestions on how I can continue to improve?" People REALLY respect this attitude and people will like you for it.
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Regrettably, I figured it out a little too late in the midst of 3rd year, but what gave me stellar evaluation towards the end of 3rd year was stopping to care about what my attendings and residents thought of me.
That didn't mean I did whatever I wanted with no care or reason. Rather, I worked diligently, stayed on top of tasks, looked for ways to help my residents without being prompted, etc. But additionally, I behaved almost exactly as I did with my friends. I stopped caring about what facade I should keep up to brown-nose my higher-ups because evals, ultimately, are too subjective. Best thing I could do was relax and let them enjoy the real me. And I saw my evals improve significantly over my previous baseline as a result.
That didn't mean I did whatever I wanted with no care or reason. Rather, I worked diligently, stayed on top of tasks, looked for ways to help my residents without being prompted, etc. But additionally, I behaved almost exactly as I did with my friends. I stopped caring about what facade I should keep up to brown-nose my higher-ups because evals, ultimately, are too subjective. Best thing I could do was relax and let them enjoy the real me. And I saw my evals improve significantly over my previous baseline as a result.
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I don't know if we should take that as an n=1 or what. Because what you said sounds like the right thing to do... But , like you also said, Evals are subjective, so statistically don't you think the probability of getting better Evals is higher when you're brown nosing a little? I am actually like you and find it very difficult to BS and laugh at every little joke just to get ahead. That's exhausting... But it seems like only on tv shows does a resident or attending "respect" when a resident or student stops ass kissing.
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Learn medicine. Take care of your patients. Don't worry about anything else.
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A little brown nosing will probably help, but it's just not me. I do laugh easily though because I always try to find entertainment in the simplest of things, so that probably helps. I have, however, seen people go a little too far with the brown-nosing while the resident or attending grew increasingly annoyed by it. I think all they want is someone normal around them, better if they can relate to them.
