How to deal with an attending who just does not care?

[deleted1139416]

Current 3rd year student who started a new rotation last week. My attending pretty much ignores me. I can’t reach him, and I get told by the nurse to leave within 1 hour of getting there, and I rarely ever see him. He even told
me that the rotation is useless. I don’t want to say what rotation this is for sake of privacy, but I’m just getting extremely nervous about this. What if he secretly just doesn’t like me? What’s he gonna write on my eval? The anxiety is really high.

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[MDMechEngr]

report him to your school. sound like a ****y rotation. is it at a DO program?

 

[GoSpursGo]

Talk to the clerkship director now. While it may be tempting to see if your preceptor will just give you straight 5s out of apathy, if you wait until after your eval comes in then it will be much more difficult to get anything changed if your eval is negative. And you would have little answer for the question of why you didn't speak up sooner.

 

[UnicornOpt]

House MD?

 

[deleted1139416]

Yes, it’s a DO school.

report him to your school. sound like a ****y rotation. is it at a DO program?

 

[Osminog]

Find and talk to students who’ve been on the rotation before you and ask them what their experience was and whether their evals were good. If their experience was similar and their evals ended up being good, just roll with it.

When it comes to DO school administrators, no good deed goes unpunished; as a student, it is generally best to keep a low profile. Reporting the preceptor might inspire them to force you to make up the rotation later this year or during fourth year. Reporting should be a last resort.

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

This is why the LCME/ACGME needs to force COCA to have stricter standards. DO schools opening left and right even though some existing schools can’t get adequate rotations

 

[throwaway123342]

This is why the LCME/ACGME needs to force COCA to have stricter standards. DO schools opening left and right even though some existing schools can’t get adequate rotations

Meh, went to an MD school. Half my rotations were like this. I think rotations where students do nothing but sit around and occasionally shadow is pretty common.

 

[deleted1139416]

Can I respectfully ask that we don’t turn this into an MD-DO debate?

 

[srirachamayonnaise]

Meh, went to an MD school. Half my rotations were like this. I think rotations where students do nothing but sit around and occasionally shadow is pretty common.

It seems like you went to one of those newly opened med schools. I don't think that's the norm at most good schools. I can tell you that at my school, we have a lot to do all the time. No one ever gets dismissed in an hour and attendings are super available all the time.

 

[GoSpursGo]

Can I respectfully ask that we don’t turn this into an MD-DO debate?

Fair request.

Ultimately I think @Osminog hit the nail on the head, you should talk to your co-students to get a sense of whether this is the "norm" at your school or not. If it is, then you may need to suck it up and teach yourself. If it is not then it may be worth reaching out.

 

[thumbz]

I had a preceptor like this, I went back for seconds in 4th year as a vacation month.

99% of the time the doc is collecting a small check from the school (or mandated by their job to teach you) and will give you strait 5's. As above, prior classmates will be able to tell you if this is the case.

I wouldn't worry that they don't like you - if that was the case they'd ignore you while also making your life miserable - AKA do a bunch of scut work and read various guidelines (like GOLD) cover to cover.

Not all rotations will be like this, but some will be. Teach yourself, and realize you'll have ****ty work horse rotations that make you miss this one.

 

[Angus Avagadro]

Some preceptors don't like newly minted 3rd yrs as they can't be usefull right off the bat and it takes months to get them up to speed. Attendings are also on productivity, so slowing them down to teach a new 3rd yr has a financial impact. Therefore, many 3rd yr rotations can turn into lots of shadowing. Not saying its right, just saying how it is.

 

[deleted1139416]

Thanks for the advice everyone. Just to go into a little more detail: this is a 3rd year elective and the reason I can’t do anything is for legal reasons .

 

[Goro]

Thanks for the advice everyone. Just to go into a little more detail: this is a 3rd year elective and the reason I can’t do anything is for legal reasons .

Hopefully something good will come out of the rotation, like networking, or even some data crunching and you could get a paper. Maybe a case report?

 

[thumbz]

Thanks for the advice everyone. Just to go into a little more detail: this is a 3rd year elective and the reason I can’t do anything is for legal reasons .

Wait what? Legal reasons?

Why on earth is it even an elective you can sign up for then? I definitely understand preceptors who give students easy months but if you legitimately can't see patients because of a legal reason your school is crazy for allowing this.