Medical How should friend handle professionalism violation?

[Goro]

Hey guys,

A friend of mine has been a great student through medical school with no prior violations of any sort, no academic problems, basically just a good student coasting under the radar. Recently during M3 year, he took an excused absence for a family event for 2 days but was found that 1 of those days he was actually doing something else. So basically he was at a family event 1 day and then another event the other. The school found out and now he has a committee hearing.

He's never had anything like this ever before and is not really sure what to expect and what are the outcomes. Again, he has been the perfect student with no violations or worries of any sort. Any advice or experience with things similar to this that I could talk to him about? I know the no prior Hx is extremely uncommon but that is what is worrying him the most since he's never dealt with something like this before.

He is extremely apologetic that he did something else one of those days but in my opinion, obviously he shouldn't have done the other thing but some student randomly reported him and got lucky this time. So any advice?

1) He has to own this
2) He has to not screw up again, because multiple eyeballs will be on him now.
I think that should be enough.

but in my opinion, obviously he shouldn't have done the other thing but some student randomly reported him and got lucky this time.

Not quite sure what you're trying to say, but luck has nothing to do with ethics. It almost seems as if you're trying to pass the blame to the student who reported your friend. Perhaps you should look up your school's honor code?

Keep in mind that clinical faculty take professionalism very seriously. They know from evidence that dishonest doctors start out as dishonest students.

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[TheBoneDoctah]

Admit his faults and move on. That's all he can do at this point. From here on out...be an angel. Professionalism is huge in medicine.

 

[Goro]

What do you maybe see as some results to the meeting? Such as consequences and given he has had a perfect track record till this point and never plans to do this again or has ever had a problem before?

I suspect that they will give him a warning.
Someone may try to play bad cop and tell him that expulsion is a possibility.

Expulsion is a possibility, but that doesn't mean it's a likely possibility. The threat may be thrown out there just to make sure it's a come-to-jesus moment.

 

[TheBoneDoctah]

Doubt anything comes of it. Slap on the wrist.

 

[NotAProgDirector]

Might it matter on what this other event was?

I could imagine different outcomes for:

1. Religious event of some sort
2. Outdoor activity for relaxation (running a race, skiing, etc)
3. High stakes poker game, gotta pay those tuition bills
4. Proud boy rally

Something tells me that the further the event is on this scale, the more of a problem it might be.

 

[TheBoneDoctah]

To my knowledge, the family event was a religious one and the other event was a sports event of some sort for relaxation basically.

I think the moral of this story is just to be honest...like everything else in the medical world. He should take this as a warning and learn from it. Nothing he can do now about it.

 

[lord999]

One complicating factor, it's one thing to be caught and it's another to lie about it given the clinical implications and the requirements for isolation. If your friend broke containment in a way that violates a facilities orders by attending a sports event and then was not honest about it, this might be a bigger problem due to the context this year.

We have a couple of faculty who are in serious trouble for going to a sports event this month which requires 14 days of quarantine afterwards for the unit they were working in (ICU). They came back and lied about their activities and were outed. Contract withdrawal is on the table for those two apparently and the NPDB is a guarantee.

 

[TheBoneDoctah]

The “COVID quarantine/containment” component was not a factor in this case to my knowledge. He had a meeting with a senior dean for admissions on Friday just to talk and basically said “as long as you’re remorseful and not defensive and prove you’ve learned from this nothing is going to happen”, which is exactly what he plans to do.

Perfect. Voltaren gel for his slap on the wrist. Move on with life.

 

[TheBoneDoctah]

Friend had his meeting today. Basically they are having him attend a state board of medicine meeting, meet with the ethics professors, but nothing else. “Come-to-Jesus” moment also emphasized and that nothing like this would be tolerated again. He has 200% learned his lesson.

Good. Hope he has learned the lesson.

 

[Goro]

A day later, my friend is back to his normal schedule and doing well on rotations and such like he always has been. He is obviously mortified that this even occurred and never thought he'd have a problem with honesty and integrity ever, but **** happens, and it's time to learn, move on, and make sure things like this never occur again.

However, he is still anxious, hypercritical of everything he does and says and I feel like it will negatively impact him for a little. Any tips or advice to get him back to his normal self knowing that before this he has been basically the perfect student and to get back into that mindset? I have talked to him but looking to you guys with more experience and advice. Thanks in advance.

He needs to talk out his concerns instead of keeping them bottled up inside.

 

[Goro]

His concern is that he just never wants it to happen again. He is just scared that when he never expected something like this to happen, it did. But I get that he just needs to continue being professional and doing him (prior to incident) and he will be back to the perfect student but I guess this just took a hit to his mental state if that makes sense.

HIs concerns are secondary to how he's reacting to them. I sense it might even lead to some performance anxiety issues.

Just tell him to use common sense the next time. And if need be, he should talk to a mental health professional.

 

[TheBoneDoctah]

Now that he is aware of what can happen, he should/will pay more attention to his actions. He really should try and put this in the past though. You don't want this little hiccup to stunt his success in medical school.

 

[NotAProgDirector]

I agree with others that this will have no impact on his future.

However, I disagree with the statement that "he just never wants it to happen again". It didn't "just happen", completely out of his control. He made the decision to skip a day of school and lie about it. The best way to make sure that doesn't happen again is to not do it again. This is completely under his control, not some outside force that he has no control over.