How do you deal with a fellow resident, who is a shirker?

[Planes2Doc]

Just as the title says... I wonder how different people deal with the "lazy" residents who try to avoid work responsibilities.

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[chocomorsel]

Don't you guys divide patients as evenly as possible? So if the work is not getting done on their patients, then it is obvious who's not doing it?
Unless of course he/she is constantly manipulating his/her coworkers to do the work, which in that case y'all need to stop.
Now if you are talking of he/she dumbing on the interns, well then, that's intern life for you.

 

[Psai]

Call their potential employers and tell them about their lack of work ethic. Inform their potential romantic prospects about their torpidness. Take a digit for each episode.

 

[SterlingMaloryArcher]

Call their potential employers and tell them about their lack of work ethic. Inform their potential romantic prospects about their torpidness. Take a digit for each episode.

Please tell me you are being serious

 

[atomi]

It’s not worth the fight. They’ll get what’s coming to them eventually. Just grit your teeth and power through. Eventually they will be trying to get out of something in front of attending and you’ll get an opportunity to proudly volunteer to do that task in front of them. No matter how much that tasks sucks, do not pass an opportunity like this up. Revel in your passive aggressive ownage of their laziness.

I deal with this from a particular resident who does everything humanly possible to get out of work and complain about literally everything and attempt to stack rotation schedule so that he/she gets the lightest possible workload.

I’ve noticed it’s getting worse and worse with the newer residents. New generation coming of medical school is overly coddled and entitled.

 

[chocomorsel]

It’s not worth the fight like @atomi said. However, I wouldn’t volunteer to do their work for them in front of the attending. Hell to the no. That’s enabling. I will pass that up with a smile on my face.
Like you don’t have enough stuff to do with your own patients.

 

[Psai]

It’s not worth the fight. They’ll get what’s coming to them eventually. Just grit your teeth and power through. Eventually they will be trying to get out of something in front of attending and you’ll get an opportunity to proudly volunteer to do that task in front of them. No matter how much that tasks sucks, do not pass an opportunity like this up. Revel in your passive aggressive ownage of their laziness.

I deal with this from a particular resident who does everything humanly possible to get out of work and complain about literally everything and attempt to stack rotation schedule so that he/she gets the lightest possible workload.

I’ve noticed it’s getting worse and worse with the newer residents. New generation coming of medical school is overly coddled and entitled.

It's not true! Bad people always have good things happen! I've seen it so many times

 

[Piebaldi]

Just as the title says... I wonder how different people deal with the "lazy" residents who try to avoid work responsibilities.

Difficult question to answer. Are you sure that your colleague truly shirks responsibility? For example I was attacked when I was a 3rd year by a dumb second year resident who told me that I did as little as possible (I was super fast, so I would be able to leave on time/early) - not because I did not see the same or frequently more patients. So in reality I was likely seeing more not less patients. So unless you can specify what the concern truly is, it's hard to answer.

How do you know whether your fellow colleague is a shirker?

 

[calvnandhobbs68]

Difficult question to answer. Are you sure that your colleague truly shirks responsibility? For example I was attacked when I was a 3rd year by a dumb second year resident who told me that I did as little as possible (I was super fast, so I would be able to leave on time/early) - not because I did not see the same or frequently more patients. So in reality I was likely seeing more not less patients. So unless you can specify what the concern truly is, it's hard to answer.

How do you know whether your fellow colleague is a shirker?

I agree with this, need to be a little more specific about what's going on exactly.

If you're talking about number of patients, they should (in most specialties) have their own patient load. A difference of 1-2 patients is whatever but if everyone else has twice as many patients as this person, just tell them they're taking the admission to even out the patient load if your senior lets you sort it out among yourselves. If you have a senior who is purposefully giving everyone else more patients because this resident sucks, tell them you're getting tired of having way more patients than the other person.

If you're talking about someone who's a general pain by being "sick" all the time or showing up late/trying to cut out early all the time...generally that kind of stuff is best left to administration to deal with. If, for instance, they're showing up a half hour late for signout every day (not just like a one or two time thing), I'd let your chiefs know so they can give them a little talking to about "professionalism". I'd also remind them of when signout time was if it happened a few times.

If you're talking about someone who's consistently punting work off to you all the time on nights/call when it's clearly day team work or trying to punt off admissions to night/day team when it's clearly out of the norm (like trying to get you to do admissions that came in hours before), I'd address this directly. Let them know frankly that when you're on nights/call it's not acceptable for them to pass off work or admissions they should have done during their shift, regardless of if they've been able to get away with it with other people. This tends to nip this in the bud fairly quickly.

If it's not anything specific and you just think this person is lazy, there's not much to do about it.

 

[Naruhodo]

It's not true! Bad people always have good things happen! I've seen it so many times

Oh man, I once had a labmate I didn't care for much tell me after I interviewed for a competitive job that I really, really wanted, "Oh don't worry you'll definitely get the job. You always get everything, because you look good on paper. But you should realize that you won't be good at it, and should turn it down." It was the weirdest combination pep talk/ put down I have ever experienced. I did get the job and, IMHO, I totally rocked it.

Personally I'm an avoider when it comes to interpersonal conflict. It can be hard when you have to be around someone (like a co-resident) but I'd try to be professional around the person and realize it's not your job to draw others attention to that person slacking off. Minimize social/extra interactions if they are a drain on you. It's not worth your energy and others will also notice what you've been noticing.

 

[Raryn]

Where I did residency, the program left it up to the residents how much work to leave for the next shift.

Ex: Sign out was at 7am. If the night team got called about a new patient at 630am, 99% of us would jot down the information and leave it for the next person - 30 minutes just isn't enough time to go see a patient, do the orders, start on an H&P, while signing out all the other patients and be ready for rounds.

If it was 6am, most of us would still probably leave it for the next person unless the patient was simple.

An hour was a pretty reasonable informal limit - people would occasionally stretch it further in cases where they had a really busy shift - obviously if its your tenth patient and you're wrapping up the other nine, there's more understanding compared to if its your second patient all night.

The same general rule would hold for the transition the opposite direction - the day shift could hold patients for the night shift. We all spent three years working with each other, so we understood that what goes around always comes around.

But here's the thing - there was no enforcement. The program directors and attendings didn't give a damn who admitted which patients as long as everyone got seen. They explicitly said they could make rules if we all complained enough - but they also said that we were adults and would probably prefer to figure it out on our own.

It worked great - except for a few people. There were some bad actors (<10% of the residents) that would inevitably try to shirk and leave more work for the next guy. It's not like they could easily hide it - The ED would explicitly write in their notes "Discussed with Dr. Jones at 4:30pm" or whatever - but they did it shamelessly.

Do it once or twice and it's not a big deal, but do it consistently? Well, residents talk to each other. We'd bitch, laugh at the guy, then do the same to him. "You scratch my back, I scratch yours" works - so does "You screw me over, I screw you."

Anyway, it's just a convoluted way of answering your questions: Don't worry about the shirkers much. They'll develop a reputation that won't do them any favors.

 

[Wordead]

Vengeance is really the best. Just delicious. Go out of your way to really crush them. Throw em under the bus whenever possible and subtly bring up their inadequacies to attendings.

 

[calvnandhobbs68]

Where I did residency, the program left it up to the residents how much work to leave for the next shift.

Ex: Sign out was at 7am. If the night team got called about a new patient at 630am, 99% of us would jot down the information and leave it for the next person - 30 minutes just isn't enough time to go see a patient, do the orders, start on an H&P, while signing out all the other patients and be ready for rounds.

If it was 6am, most of us would still probably leave it for the next person unless the patient was simple.

An hour was a pretty reasonable informal limit - people would occasionally stretch it further in cases where they had a really busy shift - obviously if its your tenth patient and you're wrapping up the other nine, there's more understanding compared to if its your second patient all night.

The same general rule would hold for the transition the opposite direction - the day shift could hold patients for the night shift. We all spent three years working with each other, so we understood that what goes around always comes around.

But here's the thing - there was no enforcement. The program directors and attendings didn't give a damn who admitted which patients as long as everyone got seen. They explicitly said they could make rules if we all complained enough - but they also said that we were adults and would probably prefer to figure it out on our own.

It worked great - except for a few people. There were some bad actors (<10% of the residents) that would inevitably try to shirk and leave more work for the next guy. It's not like they could easily hide it - The ED would explicitly write in their notes "Discussed with Dr. Jones at 4:30pm" or whatever - but they did it shamelessly.

Do it once or twice and it's not a big deal, but do it consistently? Well, residents talk to each other. We'd bitch, laugh at the guy, then do the same to him. "You scratch my back, I scratch yours" works - so does "You screw me over, I screw you."

Anyway, it's just a convoluted way of answering your questions: Don't worry about the shirkers much. They'll develop a reputation that won't do them any favors.

The only problem I have with this approach is, why be so passive aggressive about it? Just straight up say "you should have done that admission that came in two hours ago" and if they give you **** about it then I'd just tell them you're gonna get the same thing back. The problem with passive-aggressiveness is that both sides kinda feel like they're getting away with something because they aren't telling the other person about it directly so it tends to perpetuate the problem. In my experience, the majority of people if they get openly called out on something do get embarrassed and stop doing it to you (but some won't). If you both just passively retaliate against each other, it just keeps the problem going without actually opening addressing it.

I worry about the shirkers when they make me have more work. You wanna slack off in your own clinic or be lazy with your own patients, fine but if you're pushing work onto me or making me stay longer to clean up after your mess, that's a problem.

 

[rokshana]

Realize though, as a hospitalist, work will always be left...if you have admitters and rounders, then the day admitter will leave things for the night admitter and the night admitter will leave things for the day admitter...this is the real world after residency where there are no caps on your admissions and people will leave crap behind...

 

[hmockingbird]

If you haven’t tried confronting them directly, it’s worth a shot. I had an issue with a co-intern not being willing to divide up new admissions fairly and was able to solve it by just talking to the whole group about “let’s come up with a simple process for dividing up new admissions”.

PS: people definitely get reputations if they continue to behave like this!

 

[studyaholic]

I've been keeping my head down and just trying to get through residency. This slacker/gunner/passive aggressive issue is in every institution and career path. Just do the extra work, and eventually someone will notice...then the slacker sees you get compliments and have a good reputation--->it will drive them insane and they'll fumble when you're not around. An intern is just a reflection of the senior! Truth is, you will end up knowing more and being a better doctor in the end I wouldn't say I'm jaded, but I literally just don't care what others do and don't do, I just care about my patients and that's what's getting me through.

 

[Psai]

I've been keeping my head down and just trying to get through residency. This slacker/gunner/passive aggressive issue is in every institution and career path. Just do the extra work, and eventually someone will notice...then the slacker sees you get compliments and have a good reputation--->it will drive them insane and they'll fumble when you're not around. An intern is just a reflection of the senior! Truth is, you will end up knowing more and being a better doctor in the end I wouldn't say I'm jaded, but I literally just don't care what others do and don't do, I just care about my patients and that's what's getting me through.

Thats what you think then the slacker makes it through and keeps being a scrub, ruining the chances of their juniors at good fellowships or jobs by giving your residency a bad rep

 

[studyaholic]

Thats what you think then the slacker makes it through and keeps being a scrub, ruining the chances of their juniors at good fellowships or jobs by giving your residency a bad rep

Like Dr. Raryn said on this post-people notice! Fellowships probably deal with this type of stuff all the time, and unfortunately some people get their act together when they get to that poin.