Kiss butt classmaes

[golgi]

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Hey guys,

Sorry to complain but I am going crazy. I am in my surgery rotation now and a few members in my group are driving me nuts. They kiss so much butt it's disgusting! I am a good student but I don't stoop low to get in good with people. I do my work and that's it. These people show up extra early at the butt-crack of dawn and try to scrub in on my cases and round on my patients when they are in a completely different service than me. These people don't even want to go into surgery! It's utterly outrageous. I am not a confrontational person at all but I don't know what to do without looking lazy or like a complainer. I would appreciate any advice on how to handle this but getting up at 4 am to beat those tools to the hospital is defintely not an option! Thanks for y'alls time!

 

[neilc]

ahhh, the dreaded gunners! my advice, beat them with a stick. tell them to keep their dirty mitts off of your patients and to stay out of your OR time.

if that doesnt work, spread rumors about them.

 

[Samoa]

I just do NOT understand the rationale for rounding on anyone's patients but your own. I mean, getting there at the crack of dawn to do your own work is one thing. Maybe they think they're helping you?

Even if they're not, that's probably how I'd approach it. Just say to the person, "Look, I know you think you're helping me by getting here early and rounding on my patients, but really all it does is make me look bad, so if that's not your intent, I'd appreciate it if you'd stop."

I realize it may very well be this person's intent to make you look bad. However, by phrasing it that way, you've backed them into a corner, where they either have to stop rounding on your patients, or admit their true motivation. Either way, you've effectively called them on their game, and they'll direct their tactics toward someone less savvy. AND, you've done it in a manner that doesn't give them any way to accuse YOU of anything.

 

[carrigallen]

I agree with the above posters. At the same time, reflect on what you have said.


Is it possible you are arriving way too late? As I recall, surgery rounds start awfully early, maybe everyone thinks you are slacking because you are tardy. That may also be why others are rounding on your patients.

Also: about the comment "but I don't stoop low to get in good with people". You might have manly pride, but I believe it is almost arrogant to think that your relations with other people don't matter. American men have a "lonesome cowboy" ideal that they can be the most powerful and strongest just by shear smarts and gritty work...without "stooping low" to schmooze with others.

But in business, and in medicine, this doesn't always pan out. Schmoozing is the name of the game, and you need to be able to do this *sincerely* with patients, colleagues, etc. I think maybe your pride/idealism needs to be put aside just a little bit for now. Just my $0.02

 

[Galaxian]

A red hot poker in the eye usually works best for these people...

 

[dry dre]

I would try to make a distinction between butt kissing classmates and hard workers. No one likes an azz kisser, the least of which are surgeons (who generally are very hard working individuals). If your classmates aren't hard working, rest easy that their smooching in the end will get them nowhere.

So long as you are pulling your load, know your patients, their disease processes, and the interventions related to their hospitalization (including procedure, anatomy, and pre/post op care) you are doing just fine. If your classmates are doing a better job at this then they are simply outperforming you.

BTW: I never think it's acceptable to snub out a fellow classmate by "stealing precedures" and the like. At the same time, it is even worse I think to knock on fellow classmates for taking their work "too seriously." I want my family taken care of by docs who take their work "too seriously," not by docs that took things easy when possible during training.

I don't mean to imply in the least that you are not a serious student!!!

 

[Finally M3]

Getting up at 4AM during surgery? Perish the thought....

While scrubbing in on your cases and rounding on your patients is going overboard....it was pretty much expected that you had to come in at 'the butt-crack of dawn' to preround prior to work rounds. Even if you didn't want to go into surgery. Who knows? Your classmates may actually be trying to learn/see something during their rotation!

I didn't want to go into surgery, and told my team members this my first day. However, it didn't mean that I slacked off, didn't get my **** done, and didn't prepare for the daily pimping sessions on rounds and in surgery.

 

[Mirror Form]

Originally posted by Finally M3
Getting up at 4AM during surgery? Perish the thought....

While scrubbing in on your cases and rounding on your patients is going overboard....it was pretty much expected that you had to come in at 'the butt-crack of dawn' to preround prior to work rounds. Even if you didn't want to go into surgery. Who knows? Your classmates may actually be trying to learn/see something during their rotation!

I don't see anything in his post that would indicate golgi didn't show up on time to pre-round on his own patients. Wanting to learn is one thing, but coming in an extra 30-60 minutes early (when you're already in there by 5am as it is) just to pre-round on other med students' patients is rude, annoying, and stupid. You don't learn the most while collecting vitals anyway, the gunners are obviously just trying to make themselves look good.

I had a similar gunner like that with me while I did gen surg. I talked to the other med students and we agreed to meet each morning informally as a group and decide which cases we'd be scrubbing in on so that the one gunner couldn't keep "accidentally" stealing cases. That way I got make him look really stupid once when he went ahead and tried to steal my open chole case (he just did it b/c the chief resident was doing that case and he wanted extra butt slurping time).

 

[lowbudget]

Man, I'm glad we have normal students at my school. I have NEVER heard of people on other services rounding on my patients, unless it was a consult or something. That's too hilarious. As far as cases, we may double up or something just to see a cool case, but typically, we figure out what other people want to do as far as specialty goes and let those guys get first dibs. And once the surgeon/gyn wanna-bes get their giggles, the rest of us get in on interesting cases... out of fairness, of course. And if someone ever edges you out on a case, just leave and go study. Who cares? See ya at the shelf, crackhead!

The other alternative is to step it up yourself and meet the challenge. It's not stooping low so long as you're not butt kissing. But if you're making the resident's job easier, learning something from it, good karma always comes back. Otherwise, just do a countdown for that last day...

So is this typical of people who go to school with students who care? Holy mother.

 

[puffy1]

probably something worse than gunner 3rd-year students are 4th-year students who think they're staff. Some of them almost portray a "holier than thou" attitude towards 3rd-years.

 

[Seaglass]

Maybe those 4th years are just trying to get you a good grade!

C

 

[Harrie]

Getting up at 4am on surgery is early??? When I was on surgery (last month), I got to the hospital at 4:00 or 4:30 every day, which seemed pretty typical for all of the students.

 

[MD'05]

You have to get up at 3:00 to round by 4:00 cause surgery starts at 6:00 ...

To vent a little ... I just started my surgery rotation and what a couple of crazy days ... not the gunner students, but the psycho surgeons. I have never seen such hypocrites in my life. They talk about all this team work and stab each other in the back left and right. And don't be a woman -- do they hate women. And don't be gay, even though I think they bone each other the way they hate women.

I am sure that my experience is an isolated one.

 

[irlandesa]

Originally posted by Sledge2005
I had a similar gunner like that with me while I did gen surg. I talked to the other med students and we agreed to meet each morning informally as a group and decide which cases we'd be scrubbing in on so that the one gunner couldn't keep "accidentally" stealing cases. That way I got make him look really stupid once when he went ahead and tried to steal my open chole case (he just did it b/c the chief resident was doing that case and he wanted extra butt slurping time). [/B]

YES, great advice; in fact, our residents essentially mandated that students get the OR list the previous evening and split up the cases among ourselves the night before. One chief resident would even assign cases to each student at sign-out rounds the night before to make sure that everyone got a chance to work with different attendings and see different cases. And we had a chance to read up on the case beforehand; failure to read and know what was going on was NOT tolerated well by some attendings. Although I never had a problem with classmates rounding on my patients, it would be good to firmly establish with your irritating classmates that you'll stick to rounding on patients on your own service and preferably, patients whose case you scrubbed in on.

I agree that 4 AM is not that early to wake up for surgery, but it really depends on how much time you need to round on each patient (this varies based on individual style, what time your note needs to be in the chart, and patient problems), how many patients you have, and commuting time. I was fortunate enough to live close enough to the hospitals where I did surgery so that 4:15-4:30 was a good wake up time for me, but I know of many others that had to wake up at 3 or earlier b/c they were carrying a lot of complex patients and had more of a commute. This is more for the benefit of pre-clinical students; I know I would have benefitted from knowing this before 3rd year.

 

[beezar]

Being on the other side (now as an intern), I have to tell you that those gunner medical students who step on other people are so damn easy to spot. And are not usually confronted, but talked about amongst residents behind their backs. And are very annoying.

Which reminds me of one incident, where one gunner student on a consult service called me (the primary service intern) asking me to cosign her orders that she already wrote on one of my patients because her resident was in clinic and couldn't do it. First of all, consult services should not be writing orders without asking the primary service first. Second of all, she didn't inform me that one of her orders included potassium replacement (which I found out after I got to the chart)--normally I wouldn't get too angry about this, but in this incident, her decision to replace K+ was based on the day before's value (which was replaced overnight) rather than that same morning's value (which was high-normal). That was not cool, and potentially dangerous.

What's my point? I don't know... I'm just still pissed off at that gunner student...

 

[irlandesa]

Originally posted by beezar
Being on the other side (now as an intern), I have to tell you that those gunner medical students who step on other people are so damn easy to spot. And are not usually confronted, but talked about amongst residents behind their backs. And are very annoying.

Which reminds me of one incident, where one gunner student on a consult service called me (the primary service intern) asking me to cosign her orders that she already wrote on one of my patients because her resident was in clinic and couldn't do it. First of all, consult services should not be writing orders without asking the primary service first. Second of all, she didn't inform me that one of her orders included potassium replacement (which I found out after I got to the chart)--normally I wouldn't get too angry about this, but in this incident, her decision to replace K+ was based on the day before's value (which was replaced overnight) rather than that same morning's value (which was high-normal). That was not cool, and potentially dangerous.

What's my point? I don't know... I'm just still pissed off at that gunner student...

yeah, I agree that gunner students can be annoying, but as a student I have to say that the instructions and guidelines given to us by the residents on working with primary services while on consult (and vice versa) are often not 100% correct and clear. And often we are told different things by different residents, which ends up making us look bad. If your gunner student was a 4th year, you are right that she should know better, but for us junior med students, we are still learning the "rules" that are now second nature to you..

that being said, please DO say something to the gunner students instead of just making fun of them behind their back (not that they don't deserve it)! it will make life so much more pleasant for the rest of us. one guy in my peds rotation was totally obnoxious; he wouldn't allow anyone else to answer questions at attending rounds and told me in front of a resident that it was stupid for me to even consider going into primary care internal medicine. I wish one of the house staff had told him very gently to settle down a little bit, but who knows, he may not have responded at all..

 

[Samoa]

Originally posted by beezar
Which reminds me of one incident, where one gunner student on a consult service called me (the primary service intern) asking me to cosign her orders that she already wrote on one of my patients because her resident was in clinic and couldn't do it. First of all, consult services should not be writing orders without asking the primary service first. Second of all, she didn't inform me that one of her orders included potassium replacement (which I found out after I got to the chart)--normally I wouldn't get too angry about this, but in this incident, her decision to replace K+ was based on the day before's value (which was replaced overnight) rather than that same morning's value (which was high-normal). That was not cool, and potentially dangerous.

Hey, at least you read the orders before cosigning. I can't tell you how many times that *doesn't* happen--it was like a running joke in the pharmacies where I used to work: "OK, med student orders...let's just go ahead and page the resident on call so we'll have him on the phone already when we find that inevitable mistake that would have been glaringly obvious had he actually READ what he was signing..."

And it's a nightmare for the allied health staff to figure out who to call, because only the med student will put their pager number on the orders, but they have no authority to change them, and by the time we get the orders, a huge amount of time has ALREADY been wasted, and there's often not time for the "educational" process. The cosigner's signature is usually indecipherable, and nobody wants to take responsibility for it. Don't get me wrong--the med students were often the NICEST people to deal with, and everyone understood the need for them to be writing orders. But I still hated getting them.

 

[jmattwilson]

I hate A%^ sniffers as well. I was with the biggest one in my school on OB/GYN. Needless to say the obnoxious cluster B personality trait resident loved it all night. Other residents told me they found this students actions revolting. I have come to the conclusion that 100% of the quality residents who truely love teaching medical students ask no more than your best and they typically know exactly what that is when it is sincere.

 

[DOtobe]

Originally posted by puffy1
probably something worse than gunner 3rd-year students are 4th-year students who think they're staff. Some of them almost portray a "holier than thou" attitude towards 3rd-years.

Grrr...I had a fourth year with me on my last rotation who was like that. She would pimp me every day on my patients, and the attendings never pimped me at all! But at least the attendings weren't all that crazy about her...

 

[raspberry swirl]

silly me. . . i was soo looking forward to 3rd and 4th year 🙁

 

[DOtobe]

Originally posted by raspberry swirl
silly me. . . i was soo looking forward to 3rd and 4th year 🙁

Oh, don't worry. Kiss butt classmates or not, it's still SOOO much better than years 1 and 2. 👍

 

[jmattwilson]

Oh, don't worry. Kiss butt classmates or not, it's still SOOO much better than years 1 and 2.

RIGHT ON way better than the first two years. No matter how many a%^ kissers you have to put up with nothing is cooler than when that surgery attending you have been working your butt off for, week after week, hands you a sharp tool for the first time and lets you go to town!!! Best D#^$ experience of my med school carrer hands down. Best of all there are countless other moments like that on every rotation.

 

[Tazmaniac]

Oh, don't worry. Kiss butt classmates or not, it's still SOOO much better than years 1 and 2.

3rd year is when the hardcore gunners of 1st and 2nd years start getting burned, collecting on the windsill like flies 🙂.

Sometimes, the best thing to do is directly confront the gunners. "I'll be in this case, you can have those cases." They obviously aren't confronting you so you might as well pick up the metaphorical stick and whack them with it.


-Todd MS-IV USC

 

[ericdamiansean]

if we spread rumors about them, we'll stoop to their level right?

heck, if to do well in your school, you need to kiss ass...then life's tough

it happens everywhere..more prevalent among certain groups of people..perhaps these people have some sort of personal issues or had a bad childhood😀

anyway, don't just hit them with a stick, they'll see who's hitting them

Get someone trusted, go from the back, cover them with a gunny sack, and then BEAT THE CRAP OUT OF THEM

FOR ADDED EFFECT: REPEAT UNTIL CRAP IS NO LONGER THERE, everyday, for at least a month 😀