How to deal with an obnoxious classmate

[starayamoskva]

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Does anyone have experience dealing with a classmate during clinical rotations who is a completely obnoxious ass?
This girl constantly tells everyone what to do and how to do it including upper levels. She has even corrected the attending during rounds.
As an example, during family medicine, a hyperemesis patient was admitted. FM at our facility doesn't normal admit prenatal patients, the M4 is listening and says WHAT? as in why would you admit that here and the girl starts telling her what hyperemesis is.
We have talked to her, the attending on our last rotation talked to her which helped for like two days then she is right back to her usual self.
Any helpful hints. We have considered murder but feel it isn't an option.

 

[kcrd]

That sounds really annoying. Tell her she'll get a bad grade in her rotation if she keeps pissing people off. Keep in mind that the more annoying she is, the better you look in comparison, and do your best to try not to let it get to you.

 

[ckent]

She sounds crazy. You should just try your best to ignore her. We all have certain classmates that we don't get along with. The best policy is just to smile, say hello, then go your separate ways. If she wants to make an a*s of herself in front of everyone, why should that bother you? Let her do what she wants, it's her grade.

 

[irlandesa]

We had an annoying guy in our psych rotation who was an M3 but should have been M4; said completely inappropriate things to patients, corrected people on their information when they were trying to give didactic sessions (even when he was wrong), and was totally condescending ("are you sure you'll be able to present this patient?"). It turned out that he was in our rotation b/c he failed Step 1 the first time and had to be pulled out of Psych originally; he also failed his surgery rotation last year and will be repeating with me in Block 2 this year (of course, he would never admit this). Such facts made it very easy for me to ignore him; he left me alone when I made it clear that I wasn't going to stroke his ego b/c he obviously was trying to cover up the fact that he was not a brilliant academic success in reality. IMO, the best thing to do with your classmate is to NOT acknowledge her when she tells you what to do or wrongly corrects you; when she stops getting attention she'll hopefully pipe down.

 

[Tazmaniac]

The best thing to do: Ignore them, be professional.

The most satisfying thing to do: Smack them with a left hook with attendings cheering.

Compromise: Be professional. Be very, very, overly nice to them. To a point of obnoxiousness. "May I carry your books?"-nice. 🙂.

-Todd MSIV
(I don't endorse the compromise)

 

[BPKurtz]

Yeah, basically what these guys said. The strategy often utilized can be summarized as "give them enough rope with which to hang themselves." These people ALWAYS ALWAYS get what's coming to them from the wrath of the attending and residents without fellow med students getting involved.

For better or worse, a lot of people in medicine (especially non-surgical fields) tend to be passive-aggressive, and the couple of times I've been in a situation like this, the entire team was sweet and darling until they mercilessly nailed the student to the wall on their evaluation and had to repeat the clerkship.

A more appropriate way to supervise your subordinates would be to take the person aside early on and clearly explain their deficiencies, so they can rectify them, but many docs don't work this way. I wonder if they're secretly rooting for the student to keep going with the ridiculousness so we can all witness the spectacle of an enormous disaster occurring before our eyes.

bpkurtz

 

[shag]

Originally posted by Tazmaniac
Compromise: Be professional. Be very, very, overly nice to them. To a point of obnoxiousness. "May I carry your books?"-nice. 🙂.

-Todd MSIV
(I don't endorse the compromise)

I definately endorce the compromise. Who was it that said "keep you friends close and your enemies closer." These types of folks are often gunners, so keeping an eye on them may prevent you from being shown up.

Also, an occasional "professional" passive-agressive remark every one in a while may improve your eval 😀.

For example:

Resident: "I can't believe your partner corrected me when I was presenting Mr. Williams. (S)He was wrong, but still made me look like and idiot."

You (in that commiserating tone): "Yea, (s)he works very hard, but can be overbearing at times. (S)He is very smart, but can sometimes be really difficult to work with."

Resident: "I'll say!" ...

That was pretty mean, wasn't it

 

[Renovar]

What I would do is hold you ground at all times. Against hostile a$$hole classmates, guards should be up. That means if on rounds, she start yapping about the latest NEJM findings on your patient, make sure you have the latest article on hand and make copies for the team. You never know when they are going to stab you in the back and make you look bad. She can yap all she wants when they are not dealing with your patients or during her presentation, but if it has something to do with YOUR presentation or YOUR patients, never give an inch.

Dont be obnoxious yourself, but stand your ground. You dont need to return the favor or be angry to her in any way. Just let her unravel herself in front of the attending and look bad herself in front of the team.

 

[supercut]

Yikes!!!

If I had two or more medical students competing with one another to discuss articles/show them to me, I think I'd explode!!

As a fellow student, you can't do much to correct another student's behaviour. Sounds like this particular student has been talked to and has choosen to ignore the advice.

Just do your job. Ignore her as best as you can. Study what you need to study so that you can answer whatever pimping questions are directed at you. If your team wants articles, bring in a few ones relevant to your patients. But don't try to upstage the gunner by trying to beat her to the punch.

Stand up for yourself politely but firmly if she tries to steal procedures from you (if you are allowed to do any in your institution). Each student should be allowed to do any student appropriate procedures on their own pts. If students are allowed to do any on non student pts, they should be distributed evenly among students.

Leave it to the residents/attendings to correct/evaluate her appropriately.