FormerResMD
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- Oct 9, 2018
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My residency director is a psychopath. I do not use the term to be impolite or spiteful, although I do not care for this person at all. I intend to use an exact psychiatric term to describe him, in order to understand his actions. His behavior is fixed, stereotypical and predictable in its nature, which indicates a personality disorder. It involves predation on persons in medical training over whom he has power; this suggests a cluster B personality disorder, psychopathy. Other physician observers have concurred.
After the first year of residency, I found an opening at another residency, and asked for transfer. He refused to send the appropriate documentation to the other residency and stated that he would follow any movement I made for postgraduate training with a horrible warning to any other program. Pleased, he then set out abusing me for the rest of the residency. My complaints to senior administration were simply handed back to him. I felt like he would be pleased if I would just do the program a favor and die.
I would recommend the medical community look critically at the history of resident suicides in the Internal Medicine program at X. Actually, I got off lightly, being a male. This church Minister and man of God used to troll the pictures of the female medical students to select them for his Internal Medicine rotation. The most desirable one or two would be selected to go away with him to a conference. And if she didn’t put out, she wouldn’t get a good rating. He told one of the female residents, “Your ass is too fat. Your husband will stop ****ing you and get someone else.” He used to demand the female residents take his scrutiny during his supervision – even the ones who didn’t put out. He corrupted the entire residency process. I am certain that he wished me to suicide during residency. It’s a way of getting rid of undesirable residents. What happened to him after ten years of being Residency Director in X? He went to an Ivy League medical school as Dean of Education and Training residency. Talk about the perp shuffle.
Most bullies are just jerks. Many are sexual harassers. Some are psychopaths, predators, as sick as Ted Bundy. Their crimes should be detailed, and law enforcement should be shown that they do. I expect that a rash of suicides, especially by females, might be a fingerprint of a perpetrator.
Robert Hare’s Snakes in Suits offers an insightful perspective into high-functioning psychopaths. It’s a must read, unfortunately, for first-year students and residents.
Directorship of residencies is a psychopath’s playground. The method of operation for the predatory psychopath is to control, isolate, belittle and destroy one’s personal values and guide-map to identity and worth. Students of psychopathy such as Hervey Cleckley and Robert Hare show how well the high-functioning clinical psychopath can hide in the waters of organizations, especially those with rigid control. Studies of criminal psychopathy show that 25% of male inmates in prisons are psychopaths.
But not all psychopaths are low-functioning. I wonder how that 25% compares to medical school and residency training individuals. Psychopathy, like narcissism, is associated with extraversion and positive affect. The so-called core personality traits of psychopathy, may even be beneficial for the psychopath (in terms of nondeviant social functioning). You can see why residency programs fit like a glove for the psychopathic doctor.
A psychopathic residency director would see resident suicides as acceptable. They are merely the training process taking its course, filtering out the unwanted and less capable from the class. Too many suicides lead to bad press, though.
Not every residency director, thank God, is a psychopath. But too many are. What I find incomprehensible is why the normal social function of neutralizing and walling off psychopaths does not work in medical training. The more inhumane systems are, the more they select for those with extroverts and enthusiastic persons with shallow affect, superficial charm, manipulativeness, lack of empathy, the more they catch these people with severe personality disorder up into the medical training process.
I cherish what I do as a healer. It is a vocation. I am really happy being a doctor – now that I’ve gotten away from the mechanical system of training doctors that often hides the human pus like Dr. Z. It needs to be drained. It is wrong and inhuman. And if an organization is inhuman, then human beings cannot flourish there.
Why residents are taking their lives so frequently at these specific institutions need to be looked into and as a warning to MS4s who have the fortunate opportunity to choose which program you enter, be warry of the superiors. Make sure you know why you're getting into before it's too late. Garner information from current residents about their experiences with the program.
After the first year of residency, I found an opening at another residency, and asked for transfer. He refused to send the appropriate documentation to the other residency and stated that he would follow any movement I made for postgraduate training with a horrible warning to any other program. Pleased, he then set out abusing me for the rest of the residency. My complaints to senior administration were simply handed back to him. I felt like he would be pleased if I would just do the program a favor and die.
I would recommend the medical community look critically at the history of resident suicides in the Internal Medicine program at X. Actually, I got off lightly, being a male. This church Minister and man of God used to troll the pictures of the female medical students to select them for his Internal Medicine rotation. The most desirable one or two would be selected to go away with him to a conference. And if she didn’t put out, she wouldn’t get a good rating. He told one of the female residents, “Your ass is too fat. Your husband will stop ****ing you and get someone else.” He used to demand the female residents take his scrutiny during his supervision – even the ones who didn’t put out. He corrupted the entire residency process. I am certain that he wished me to suicide during residency. It’s a way of getting rid of undesirable residents. What happened to him after ten years of being Residency Director in X? He went to an Ivy League medical school as Dean of Education and Training residency. Talk about the perp shuffle.
Most bullies are just jerks. Many are sexual harassers. Some are psychopaths, predators, as sick as Ted Bundy. Their crimes should be detailed, and law enforcement should be shown that they do. I expect that a rash of suicides, especially by females, might be a fingerprint of a perpetrator.
Robert Hare’s Snakes in Suits offers an insightful perspective into high-functioning psychopaths. It’s a must read, unfortunately, for first-year students and residents.
Directorship of residencies is a psychopath’s playground. The method of operation for the predatory psychopath is to control, isolate, belittle and destroy one’s personal values and guide-map to identity and worth. Students of psychopathy such as Hervey Cleckley and Robert Hare show how well the high-functioning clinical psychopath can hide in the waters of organizations, especially those with rigid control. Studies of criminal psychopathy show that 25% of male inmates in prisons are psychopaths.
But not all psychopaths are low-functioning. I wonder how that 25% compares to medical school and residency training individuals. Psychopathy, like narcissism, is associated with extraversion and positive affect. The so-called core personality traits of psychopathy, may even be beneficial for the psychopath (in terms of nondeviant social functioning). You can see why residency programs fit like a glove for the psychopathic doctor.
A psychopathic residency director would see resident suicides as acceptable. They are merely the training process taking its course, filtering out the unwanted and less capable from the class. Too many suicides lead to bad press, though.
Not every residency director, thank God, is a psychopath. But too many are. What I find incomprehensible is why the normal social function of neutralizing and walling off psychopaths does not work in medical training. The more inhumane systems are, the more they select for those with extroverts and enthusiastic persons with shallow affect, superficial charm, manipulativeness, lack of empathy, the more they catch these people with severe personality disorder up into the medical training process.
I cherish what I do as a healer. It is a vocation. I am really happy being a doctor – now that I’ve gotten away from the mechanical system of training doctors that often hides the human pus like Dr. Z. It needs to be drained. It is wrong and inhuman. And if an organization is inhuman, then human beings cannot flourish there.
Why residents are taking their lives so frequently at these specific institutions need to be looked into and as a warning to MS4s who have the fortunate opportunity to choose which program you enter, be warry of the superiors. Make sure you know why you're getting into before it's too late. Garner information from current residents about their experiences with the program.