At my former institution, one of the residents had an emergency appy, and was ordered back to work on POD 1. Don't tell me this is about strep throat bitchiness. This is a real problem. That particular hospital threatened to fire over half a dozen residents, and did fire or attempt to fire 3 a year.
And you are stupid for not getting treated right away. Strep is nothing to mess around with since your body will clear the strep infection but now, since you waited so long those same antibodies can attack the surface of your heart valves and you are now at elevated risk for both rheumatoid arthritis and rheumatic heart disease.
One resident was fired because he asked if working 110 hours a week was in compliance with ACGME rules. People are told to lie on the work rules summations. If they have to work more than 80 hours then they're being "inefficient and will have to be put on probation and remediated." This stuff happens. Another because he suggested after being on for 40+ hours that he would be happier in anesthesia. Another after he reported illegal charging for procedures, another for "sexual harrassment" even though both parties agreed there was no sexual harrassment. As the synopsis reports, some programs will fire a resident simply because they can and to make sure that the remaining residents do what they're told and keep their mouths shut lest they be out on the street selling pencils after spending 4 years in med school. If you guys have any doubt about the seriousness of this problem, check out some of the sister web sites around.
A program director told one resident "If I have anything to say about it, you'll never get another job in medicine again. Your career is over." I know this guy and he did nothing to deserve this. He's bankrupt, nearly homeless, and cannot find another job. He was fired in the last quarter of his 3rd year of residency. The program director changed the appeals process every time he looked like he was going to prevail. He had the support of the faculty, but the PD had decided to can him and that was that. No reason, just didn't like him. The rest of us saw this and just kept our heads down and our mouths shut, since the same could happen to us.
Don't tell me this stuff doesn't happen or its just disgruntled residents "bitching." PDs have darn near absolute authority and power to end any resident's career. Their power is nearly unchecked and the ACGME will not do anything to stop it. If your program director is malignant, writes a less than glowing LOR, you are finished. You might as well take your MD degree, hide it in a box so your fellow burger flippers don't know.
Take a look at the Semmelweis Society web site.
www.semmelweis.org They have many examples, including a med student who got into trouble for describing bad medical practices at a rotation hospital.
Someone else described a bad program on this site see Graduating DO warning thread, and mysteriously his posting was later removed. My guess is that poor barstid got a broom handle in his backside, if they didn't actually fire him a month short of his residency completion too. Gotta go, but I think this is a problem. How big I don't know but I think we need to find out. Congress was about to pass laws before the ACGME crackdown on the 80 hour week,
