Just had to get this off my chest, sorry!
The residency program that I went to is an absolute joke.
The culture is toxic and malignant and I wish I had taken a step out of Jonestown to realize that while I was in it.
Imagine being an impressionable resident, full of ideas for education and how to add to the curriculum, engaged in recruitment, volunteering for things and working on projects that were meaningful to me (albeit not the most “academically flaunt-able” for the department). Chief selection comes around at the end of the year and I think I’d make a good candidate and bring something different to the table. Most people weren’t doing fellowship, so I thought I’d add that perspective, and I thought I had developed a good relationship with most of the residents themselves.
During the chief selection process, I was told by a fellow resident that an APD was loudly saying, why would “my name” run for chief, she’s a new stepmom, she’s not gonna have time for that! Nevermind that I have my own ideas and that two of the other people running were new parents.
Other turnoffs include APDs telling me that it doesn’t matter what the academic impact/question of a paper is, as long as you have a publication/its the quantity, not quality that matters most. Actually, I’m just wondering what happened to innate intellectual curiosity? Other toxic cultural aspects include attendings talking about other residents in the doc box and how “slow they are” to their co-residents instead of addressing specifics / delivering constructive feedback about flow to the resident that they were gossiping about.
Let me preface the next grievances by saying that I have not been perfect - the last year of residency was definitely me biting off more than I could chew - I struggled with balancing my marriage to a coresident and being a chief (trying to remain impartial) and I ultimately was exasperated with being the person my coresidents complained to about my husband and constantly being asked to choose between my residency program and my marriage by my husband. I took this out on a cochief midyear and complained to my coresidents about said cochief when my husband and I were scheduled for different vacation weeks and I was at a breaking point of being so deep in this horse**** and so far away from learning (was this the point of residency?). I seriously regret perpetuating the toxic culture in that moment as my cochief was just trying to do his/her job. That was bad behavior on my end. I take full responsibility.
What hurts the most is that after all the work we put into COVID scheduling (and being slapped around by the medicine department because our department has no backbone in our hospital) and being the good figureheads our institution wanted... after the year was over, I was invited to a group chat of “retired chiefs” which basically had an old conversation about me and how multiple people had thought I was unfit to be a chief and in exact words “multiple people in the room [were] saying that there was going to be a certain disaster of a chief and it fell on deaf ears”, by a prior chief and someone I’ve always regarded highly and looked up to with the response of “I SAID THAT ****” by an APD. What “****” are you trying to “say” if you haven’t even taken the time to try and get to know me? Neither of them ever told me this feedback to my face. The APD was the same who assumed that because I was a new stepmom, I would probably be too idle to come up with any ideas or participate like a normal chief. The only person who had the guts to warn me that the chief year would put a strain on my marriage (and boy were we in for a doozy there) and ask me about my plans as a chief was my program director.
It stings to be told by a program that they basically never believed in you in the first place and assumed you would fail. Especially to hear it from prior chiefs you used to look up to and wanted to be. I frankly worked my ass off last year - making your schedules, calling people who didn’t submit their schedule requests in time (because maybe life got in the way) to see if there was anything little thing I could do for their wellness, checking in on people personally. And one of my cochiefs, when we first found out we were chiefs - the first question out of his/her mouth was “do we get a raise?” ... What? That never even crossed my mind. I signed up for this **** because I believed in this program and the mission of the program and I wanted residents voices to be heard. I wanted to believe that what my spidey sense was telling me about this program was false, but it was all confirmed this week.
The academic institution I went to residency at can only ride on the coattails of the affiliated county hospital for so long. I am forever indebted to the patients and experiences taking care of the patients at the county hospital and grateful for my experience, but the program soured it and I’m embarrassed to be “trained” here.
End rant.
PS: Fellowship is awesome and I am learning a ton and remembering what it was like to focus on patients again!
The residency program that I went to is an absolute joke.
The culture is toxic and malignant and I wish I had taken a step out of Jonestown to realize that while I was in it.
Imagine being an impressionable resident, full of ideas for education and how to add to the curriculum, engaged in recruitment, volunteering for things and working on projects that were meaningful to me (albeit not the most “academically flaunt-able” for the department). Chief selection comes around at the end of the year and I think I’d make a good candidate and bring something different to the table. Most people weren’t doing fellowship, so I thought I’d add that perspective, and I thought I had developed a good relationship with most of the residents themselves.
During the chief selection process, I was told by a fellow resident that an APD was loudly saying, why would “my name” run for chief, she’s a new stepmom, she’s not gonna have time for that! Nevermind that I have my own ideas and that two of the other people running were new parents.
Other turnoffs include APDs telling me that it doesn’t matter what the academic impact/question of a paper is, as long as you have a publication/its the quantity, not quality that matters most. Actually, I’m just wondering what happened to innate intellectual curiosity? Other toxic cultural aspects include attendings talking about other residents in the doc box and how “slow they are” to their co-residents instead of addressing specifics / delivering constructive feedback about flow to the resident that they were gossiping about.
Let me preface the next grievances by saying that I have not been perfect - the last year of residency was definitely me biting off more than I could chew - I struggled with balancing my marriage to a coresident and being a chief (trying to remain impartial) and I ultimately was exasperated with being the person my coresidents complained to about my husband and constantly being asked to choose between my residency program and my marriage by my husband. I took this out on a cochief midyear and complained to my coresidents about said cochief when my husband and I were scheduled for different vacation weeks and I was at a breaking point of being so deep in this horse**** and so far away from learning (was this the point of residency?). I seriously regret perpetuating the toxic culture in that moment as my cochief was just trying to do his/her job. That was bad behavior on my end. I take full responsibility.
What hurts the most is that after all the work we put into COVID scheduling (and being slapped around by the medicine department because our department has no backbone in our hospital) and being the good figureheads our institution wanted... after the year was over, I was invited to a group chat of “retired chiefs” which basically had an old conversation about me and how multiple people had thought I was unfit to be a chief and in exact words “multiple people in the room [were] saying that there was going to be a certain disaster of a chief and it fell on deaf ears”, by a prior chief and someone I’ve always regarded highly and looked up to with the response of “I SAID THAT ****” by an APD. What “****” are you trying to “say” if you haven’t even taken the time to try and get to know me? Neither of them ever told me this feedback to my face. The APD was the same who assumed that because I was a new stepmom, I would probably be too idle to come up with any ideas or participate like a normal chief. The only person who had the guts to warn me that the chief year would put a strain on my marriage (and boy were we in for a doozy there) and ask me about my plans as a chief was my program director.
It stings to be told by a program that they basically never believed in you in the first place and assumed you would fail. Especially to hear it from prior chiefs you used to look up to and wanted to be. I frankly worked my ass off last year - making your schedules, calling people who didn’t submit their schedule requests in time (because maybe life got in the way) to see if there was anything little thing I could do for their wellness, checking in on people personally. And one of my cochiefs, when we first found out we were chiefs - the first question out of his/her mouth was “do we get a raise?” ... What? That never even crossed my mind. I signed up for this **** because I believed in this program and the mission of the program and I wanted residents voices to be heard. I wanted to believe that what my spidey sense was telling me about this program was false, but it was all confirmed this week.
The academic institution I went to residency at can only ride on the coattails of the affiliated county hospital for so long. I am forever indebted to the patients and experiences taking care of the patients at the county hospital and grateful for my experience, but the program soured it and I’m embarrassed to be “trained” here.
End rant.
PS: Fellowship is awesome and I am learning a ton and remembering what it was like to focus on patients again!
. And I've learned my lesson to never be in a leadership role again. 
