MD M3 on surgery. Can I put in minimal effort going forward?

[Super_Med]

MS3 here midway through my surgery rotation. I received my final eval already (I know, VERY early), and it was amazing (5/5s throughout). However, I realized during the rotation that surgery is just not my thing. The attendings and residents are all super nice (not at all toxic or demeaning), and the hours aren't horrible (6am-5pm most days), but I'm just not enjoying surgery in general. I can't see myself going into this field. I still want to honor the shelf to honor the rotation (and judging by my UW scores, I have a long way to go). Since my evals are in, I really have no motivation to appear interested in cases or volunteer to do things; I just want to study for and kill the shelf. Would it be bad if I did this (i.e., just sit around and do Anki/UW if I'm not asked to do something)? Obviously if my attending/resident asks me to do something, I'll do it, but most of this rotation has been me volunteering to help out, practice something, or scrub in on cases in the OR. I guess what I'm asking is, if you're a resident/attending and see a med student clearly uninterested in being there but still does what you ask, would you feel like you'd need to go the extra mile to report that student/get their eval rescinded?

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[DarkBluMage]

MS3 here midway through my surgery rotation. I received my final eval already (I know, VERY early), and it was amazing (5/5s throughout). However, I realized during the rotation that surgery is just not my thing. The attendings and residents are all super nice (not at all toxic or demeaning), and the hours aren't horrible (6am-5pm most days), but I'm just not enjoying surgery in general. I can't see myself going into this field. I still want to honor the shelf to honor the rotation (and judging by my UW scores, I have a long way to go). Since my evals are in, I really have no motivation to appear interested in cases or volunteer to do things; I just want to study for and kill the shelf. Would it be bad if I did this (i.e., just sit around and do Anki/UW if I'm not asked to do something)? Obviously if my attending/resident asks me to do something, I'll do it, but most of this rotation has been me volunteering to help out, practice something, or scrub in on cases in the OR. I guess what I'm asking is, if you're a resident/attending and see a med student clearly uninterested in being there but still does what you ask, would you feel like you'd need to go the extra mile to report that student/get their eval rescinded?

Are they allowed to adjust your MSPE for additional comments?

 

[operaman]

I’d be careful and only dial back a tiny bit lest they decide to change their mind later. Don’t go so far as to look like you’re blowing it off after the good eval, but you can probably ease up a little without being too obvious and give yourself more quality time for study.

 

[Super_Med]

Are they allowed to adjust your MSPE for additional comments?

Potentially, but I think this would require a lot of work on their behalf. To clarify, I'm working with different attendings/residents now (different from the ones who wrote my great evals), so my new ones (if they wanted to report me) would need to reach out to the clerkship director directly to specifically add comments to the eval already submitted for me by different attendings/residents. It's possible I guess, but I'm wondering if many attendings/residents would go out of their way to report a disinterested med student who still shows up on time, does what is specifically asked of them, and is kind/polite to them and other staff.

 

[operaman]

Potentially, but I think this would require a lot of work on their behalf. To clarify, I'm working with different attendings/residents now (different from the ones who wrote my great evals), so my new ones (if they wanted to report me) would need to reach out to the clerkship director directly to specifically add comments to the eval already submitted for me by different attendings/residents. It's possible I guess, but I'm wondering if many attendings/residents would go out of their way to report a disinterested med student who still shows up on time, does what is specifically asked of them, and is kind/polite to them and other staff.

Yeah you’re probably in the clear, but since you’ve put in the effort this far you’d hate to blow it. If you’ve gotten such good evals you must have pretty good social awareness, so just feel out the new folks and get a sense of them before making any changes to what you know works.

If they seem cool and normal, shouldn’t be any problem to meet expectations without using your additional time to volunteer for other duties/cases/etc. But if they seem old school and more hardcore surgery types, don’t let up too much because those are the kind of people that would make the effort to put in a less glowing eval.

 

[ACSurgeon]

MS3 here midway through my surgery rotation. I received my final eval already (I know, VERY early), and it was amazing (5/5s throughout). However, I realized during the rotation that surgery is just not my thing. The attendings and residents are all super nice (not at all toxic or demeaning), and the hours aren't horrible (6am-5pm most days), but I'm just not enjoying surgery in general. I can't see myself going into this field. I still want to honor the shelf to honor the rotation (and judging by my UW scores, I have a long way to go). Since my evals are in, I really have no motivation to appear interested in cases or volunteer to do things; I just want to study for and kill the shelf. Would it be bad if I did this (i.e., just sit around and do Anki/UW if I'm not asked to do something)? Obviously if my attending/resident asks me to do something, I'll do it, but most of this rotation has been me volunteering to help out, practice something, or scrub in on cases in the OR. I guess what I'm asking is, if you're a resident/attending and see a med student clearly uninterested in being there but still does what you ask, would you feel like you'd need to go the extra mile to report that student/get their eval rescinded?

Are you sure this is a final eval?

Will there be more evals coming in?

Agree to slowly dial back and not make any drastic changes

 

[Angus Avagadro]

All good advice above. You have put in the work and recieved the recognition. How you behave now is more about your character. I might lighten up a little, but not to the point where others might notice a change. That could end up in your MSPE if they think you are slacking. Residencies aren't looking for applicants who want to do just enough to get by.

 

[deleted1168269]

Ease up gradually so they don’t think that you are acting differently all of a sudden because you got what you wanted

 

[Styrene]

MS3 here midway through my surgery rotation. I received my final eval already (I know, VERY early), and it was amazing (5/5s throughout). However, I realized during the rotation that surgery is just not my thing. The attendings and residents are all super nice (not at all toxic or demeaning), and the hours aren't horrible (6am-5pm most days), but I'm just not enjoying surgery in general. I can't see myself going into this field. I still want to honor the shelf to honor the rotation (and judging by my UW scores, I have a long way to go). Since my evals are in, I really have no motivation to appear interested in cases or volunteer to do things; I just want to study for and kill the shelf. Would it be bad if I did this (i.e., just sit around and do Anki/UW if I'm not asked to do something)? Obviously if my attending/resident asks me to do something, I'll do it, but most of this rotation has been me volunteering to help out, practice something, or scrub in on cases in the OR. I guess what I'm asking is, if you're a resident/attending and see a med student clearly uninterested in being there but still does what you ask, would you feel like you'd need to go the extra mile to report that student/get their eval rescinded?

I would speak with the residents and say that you have been getting a lot of the rotation and would like to take some extra time during the days to study for the shelf. See what they say.