Med students pimping one another in front of attendings

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Leonidis I

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anyone else seen this happen? 2 of my classmates have been pimping one another on obscure stuff in front of attendings on this rotation. i think it's pre-planned because they always get eachother's pimp questions correct and go back and forth on related stuff as if they practiced it beforehand. also they never do this when the attendings aren't around.

i found it comical at first but now i got to wondering....will they be evaluated favorably for appearing to know a lot of stuff by doing this? and should i somehow try and get in on this "secret pimp question trade system" that they're employing?
 
Leonidis I said:
i found it comical at first but now i got to wondering....will they be evaluated favorably for appearing to know a lot of stuff by doing this? and should i somehow try and get in on this "secret pimp question trade system" that they're employing?
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Please don't. At some point the attending is going to ask the residents "what's up with these two?" and the residents will let the attending know that this isn't happening any other time... and then it just looks kiss-assish.

I see a lot of medical students toss out related or unrelated tidbits of medical knowledge in order to look smart on rounds. Fine, you've read a book. Now turn that into good bedside care. And if you can't do that (after drawing a lot of attention to yourself by acting the part of the "big brain") it's going to hurt you.

Plus if you prepare some pre-determined questions to give each other, I'm going to assume you've done a lot of reading on this topic and I'll start interjecting my own questions and if you don't ace all of those questions as adroitly as the ones you've tossed back and forth at each other then it's not going to look very good.
 
Automatic evaluation points deduction for being a DB. That goes for whether you are pimping your fellow student with or without their advanced knowledge.

Seriously. If I wanted to see a scripted play I'd hit the theater.

This is nearly the stupidest thing I've ever heard of students doing.
 
Winged Scapula said:
Automatic evaluation points deduction for being a DB. That goes for whether you are pimping your fellow student with or without their advanced knowledge.

Seriously. If I wanted to see a scripted play I'd hit the theater.

This is nearly the stupidest thing I've ever heard of students doing.
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Uh, what IS the stupidest thing you've heard of students doing?
 
Simple rules of "gunning":

1. Work Hard
2. Don't be a DB
3. Don't throw other students under the bus

We, as residents, know which students know their ****, work hard, ect. It's not hard figuring that out. If you fail to follow #1-3, you won't get an interview at our program. I'd rather have the 100/200 class rank with 50% board scores who works hard and pulls their weight than the Top 1% with 290 who thinks they are entitled to a spot.
 
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ChiDO said:
Simple rules of "gunning":

1. Work Hard
2. Don't be a DB
3. Don't throw other students under the bus

We, as residents, know which students know their ****, work hard, ect. It's not hard figuring that out. If you fail to follow #1-3, you won't get an interview at our program. I'd rather have the 100/200 class rank with 50% board scores who works hard and pulls their weight than the Top 1% with 290 who thinks they are entitled to a spot.
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lol the 290 wouldn't waste their time interviewing at your scrub scut filled program
 
There's a 4th year auditioning/away rotation where I am and once in a while they will pimp me on stuff (I'm a 3rd year), however they never do it in front of the attending, and although it can be a little irritating, they seem to have good intentions and are genuinely trying to help. If they were doing it blatantly to make me look stupid, I'd be pissed too but I highly doubt it as I'm not exactly their competition. If I was in your position I would be understandably be mad too. Don't ever make someone look bad. Attendings I'm sure notice that sort of crap. And residents still remember what it's like to be in that sort of position and will notice as well, and it will almost definitely come up with the attending in private.
 
somekindof said:
There's a 4th year auditioning/away rotation where I am and once in a while they will pimp me on stuff (I'm a 3rd year), however they never do it in front of the attending, and although it can be a little irritating, they seem to have good intentions and are genuinely trying to help. If they were doing it blatantly to make me look stupid, I'd be pissed too but I highly doubt it as I'm not exactly their competition. If I was in your position I would be understandably be mad too. Don't ever make someone look bad. Attendings I'm sure notice that sort of crap. And residents still remember what it's like to be in that sort of position and will notice as well, and it will almost definitely come up with the attending in private.
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A 4th year shouldn't be pimping you, regardless. They should be helping you. Save the socratic method for an actual student-physician relationship. When I was on my sub-I I'd help the 3rd years with their plans but I'd never start pimping them on it. I'm using the term pimping in the sense of, "Hey give me the hereditary deficiency in angioedema" or "name Beck's triad." Not of course, well what did the patient's urine look like?
 
Bacchus said:
A 4th year shouldn't be pimping you, regardless. They should be helping you. Save the socratic method for an actual student-physician relationship. When I was on my sub-I I'd help the 3rd years with their plans but I'd never start pimping them on it. I'm using the term pimping in the sense of, "Hey give me the hereditary deficiency in angioedema" or "name Beck's triad." Not of course, well what did the patient's urine look like?
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I agree that a fourth year shouldn't be making a 3rd year look bad infront of a resident or attending however there is plenty to learn from those more senior to you at every level and the learning curve is insanely steep at the beginning so there is a lot that a fourth year can teach a third year, particularly at the beginning of the year. "Pimping" (the Socratic method) is a great way to teach in the clinical setting and i think it's perfectly acceptable for a fourth year to employ it when teaching a third year as long as it is not done in a way that publicly (or privately for that matter) humiliates the third year. During my 4th yr i had a rotation with 3rd years and my fellow 4th years and i would teach the third years during down time and yes sometimes it involved "pimping".
 
Even as a resident and now a fellow, I never pimp anyone "lower" than me in front of the attending
I do ask them Qs about their patients that I know (or think) the attending is going to ask them which gives them chance to think about it w/o being "under the gun", then go home & read about it for the next day

As for students pimping students - F*** that !!! That's one of the biggest DB move I have seen
 
I'd probably think poorly of those students, and they would not gain any extra points on their evals, just an attending biased against them
 
Microshaft said:
whats pimping
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well. you have to put on realllllllllllllllllly long fur coats and fuzzy hats. get your best oversize clock and strap a chain on that bad boy. how else you going to wear it around ur neck dawg? then you take equal parts rockstar energy drink, vodka, and robitussin dm and mix it together in a huge foam cup.

once you have all the needed components you can head down to the parking lot of the Circle K where we can yell out the passenger side window of your hoopdie at b***** about how their weaves look fake and they ain't got no class.
 
Pimping in front of attending to make each other look good is incredibly douchey.

On the other hand, I see no problem pimping a 3rd year (as a 4th) or someone else on your level in private, if you're asking medically relevant questions. I did this with classmates for step, for shelfs, for everything. It's a great way to learn, if you can set aside your neurotic pre-med desire to always be correct.
 
I think our egos are too fragile. I've found myself asking questions on rounds by saying, "I'm asking because I don't know..." to avoid everyone thinking I'm pimping a resident or fellow student.
 
sonofva said:
well. you have to put on realllllllllllllllllly long fur coats and fuzzy hats. get your best oversize clock and strap a chain on that bad boy. how else you going to wear it around ur neck dawg? then you take equal parts rockstar energy drink, vodka, and robitussin dm and mix it together in a huge foam cup.

once you have all the needed components you can head down to the parking lot of the Circle K where we can yell out the passenger side window of your hoopdie at b***** about how their weaves look fake and they ain't got no class.
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no love for this? geeze.... well i thought it was funny. haha
 
ijn said:
lol the 290 wouldn't waste their time interviewing at your scrub scut filled program
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dont make any of our students do scut work....nice try tho

Only "pimping" I do is ask high yield questions that the seniors/attendings will ask to make them look good when they scrub in or present fractures. If they don't know the answer, I teach them. This way they have a smooth delivery to the important people.
 
tiedyeddog said:
Lol, what did he hope to gain from that? Autohonors for a 260?
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Presumably thought he'd imrpess us.

He was one of the worst students I've seen. Really gunned hard and did some stuff I've never seen since (pre-rounded on his co M3's patients and then would try to correct their presentation). We all hated him. He had to have a nice sit down with the clerkship director about playing well in the sandbox.
 
southernIM said:
Presumably thought he'd imrpess us.

He was one of the worst students I've seen. Really gunned hard and did some stuff I've never seen since (pre-rounded on his co M3's patients and then would try to correct their presentation). We all hated him. He had to have a nice sit down with the clerkship director about playing well in the sandbox.
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LOL what the hell
how do people like this get into medical school
 
southernIM said:
Presumably thought he'd imrpess us.

He was one of the worst students I've seen. Really gunned hard and did some stuff I've never seen since (pre-rounded on his co M3's patients and then would try to correct their presentation). We all hated him. He had to have a nice sit down with the clerkship director about playing well in the sandbox.
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We had a guy do this too. What a *****. Got called in to the dean's office for his behavior and ended up with terrible evals.
 
southernIM said:
Presumably thought he'd imrpess us.

He was one of the worst students I've seen. Really gunned hard and did some stuff I've never seen since (pre-rounded on his co M3's patients and then would try to correct their presentation). We all hated him. He had to have a nice sit down with the clerkship director about playing well in the sandbox.
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Wordead said:
We had a guy do this too. What a *****. Got called in to the dean's office for his behavior and ended up with terrible evals.
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We had an MS4 on a sub-I do that to us. It went on for a while, but she gunned the wrong classmate and got called out in front of the senior resident. I was all:

VQLGJOL.gif
.

It was glorious. She ended up being a pretty nice person with good intentions; she just didn't communicate with the rest of the team and that led to a lot of misunderstandings.
 
ChiDO said:
Telling the senior resident they are wrong about something, then not knowing the "correct" answer, but telling them "I KNOW THAT'S NOT RIGHT"
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lol being wrong sucks.
 
thefritz said:
I have seen a student pimp a resident before in front of attendings.
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I saw a rad tech pimp a 4th year med student in front of residents, on the topic of some medication totally unrelated to X-rays. And the rad tech was wrong.

Yeah, thanks guy.
 
I think that a student pimping another student automatically qualifies for immediate and permanent ostracization
 
Eh, I dunno. I usually see it as the sub-I trying to be pretentious and maybe having a "power-trip". It's like "Dude, you're still only a med student. A 1st grader compared to a Kindergarten kid" At least ask them questions in a study session where people will never see you.
 
tiedyeddog said:
Eh, most people will agree that a sub-I pimping an MS3 is fine if the sub-I is doing it for learning purposes.
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Disagree. This:
KnuxNole said:
Eh, I dunno. I usually see it as the sub-I trying to be pretentious and maybe having a "power-trip". It's like "Dude, you're still only a med student. A 1st grader compared to a Kindergarten kid" At least ask them questions in a study session where people will never see you.
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"Have you heard of X?" If no, explain. If yes, stop. Not around residents. That's as far as you can go without being toolish.
 
D elegans said:
I think that a student pimping another student automatically qualifies for immediate and permanent ostracization
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JJMrK said:
Yes. Including MS4 pimping MS3. Get over yourself.
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KnuxNole said:
Eh, I dunno. I usually see it as the sub-I trying to be pretentious and maybe having a "power-trip". It's like "Dude, you're still only a med student. A 1st grader compared to a Kindergarten kid" At least ask them questions in a study session where people will never see you.
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JJMrK said:
Disagree. This:


"Have you heard of X?" If no, explain. If yes, stop. Not around residents. That's as far as you can go without being toolish.
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if this is how you feel then i think you are missing the point of third year. you're there to learn so take it as it comes no matter who is teaching as long as they know what they're talking about. get over the premed mentality of "omg i can never be wrong!" or "i must make everyone think i know everything". you know next to nothing and no one expects you to know anything. what is expected is that you are eager to learn and show progress. When/if i see a fourth year talking to a third year about something medicine-related i typically think to myself "that fourth year would make a good resident" ...the third year is inconsequential.

again i will reiterate that this should not happen in a public forum and definitely not on rounds...if there is someone more senior around the fourth yr should usually defer to them.
 
A 4th year can teach a 3rd year. Pimping should be done behind closed doors. Like JJMRK said, if a 4th year wants to "teach" a 3rd year, teach them, don't pimp them. Leave that for the doctors if they choose to use that method. This is of course assuming the 4th year knows what they are talking about, which is highly variable.

It's like a newly minted intern grilling a 3rd year, when they are clueless themselves. I've never even begun to think about pimping any students, because....well it'll be douchey for someone fresh out of med school to do that. Hell, someone fresh out of Step 1 would have blown me out of the water in a trivia match in July! I like to teach and explain things, however, I know that for pimping purposes, that'll be done by the attending and seniors. Maybe in the second half of intern year I might feel comfortable friendly pimping when I don't feel like I'm being hit by a hurricane + twister + hailstorm
 
KnuxNole said:
A 4th year can teach a 3rd year. Pimping should be done behind closed doors. Like JJMRK said, if a 4th year wants to "teach" a 3rd year, teach them, don't pimp them. Leave that for the doctors if they choose to use that method. This is of course assuming the 4th year knows what they are talking about, which is highly variable.

It's like a newly minted intern grilling a 3rd year, when they are clueless themselves. I've never even begun to think about pimping any students, because....well it'll be douchey for someone fresh out of med school to do that. Hell, someone fresh out of Step 1 would have blown me out of the water in a trivia match in July! I like to teach and explain things, however, I know that for pimping purposes, that'll be done by the attending and seniors. Maybe in the second half of intern year I might feel comfortable friendly pimping when I don't feel like I'm being hit by a hurricane + twister + hailstorm
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if you don't ask questions and engage them then how do you know the third year isn't just smiling and nodding at you? "pimping" is usually not malicious ...it's a good way to gauge what the person knows and to get them thinking. I know i remember something way more if i have to struggle and think about it first rather than someone just lecturing at me and telling me the answer.
 
skinMD said:
if you don't ask questions and engage them then how do you know the third year isn't just smiling and nodding at you? "pimping" is usually not malicious ...it's a good way to gauge what the person knows and to get them thinking. I know i remember something way more if i have to struggle and think about it first rather than someone just lecturing at me and telling me the answer.
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I agree with skin. As a current third year some of my best learning has been from sub-is. Maybe this is just personal preference, but I learn best when I have to think about the answers myself instead of just being spoon fed. Also, all of my sub-is have been genuine in try to help me learn high yield information for the shelves or stuff certain attendings hit the hardest. The sub-is haven't done this infront of the attendings, so it's not a big deal.

Besides, I usually look up the stuff I have been pimped on, regardless of who does the pimping. I have had attendings be wrong a couple times...
 
Microshaft said:
whats pimping
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Bacchus said:
It ain't easy.
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but it's necessary,



On topic - 4th year pimping a 3rd year to help with learning = OK. Doing it in front of the resident/attending to make them look bad = not OK.

MS3s pimping each other during rounds (either planned or unplanned) = dumb as hell. I'm glad the attendings that frequent this forum see through this BS. My fear is that not all attendings country wide will.
 
skinMD said:
if this is how you feel then i think you are missing the point of third year. you're there to learn so take it as it comes no matter who is teaching as long as they know what they're talking about. get over the premed mentality of "omg i can never be wrong!" or "i must make everyone think i know everything". you know next to nothing and no one expects you to know anything. what is expected is that you are eager to learn and show progress. When/if i see a fourth year talking to a third year about something medicine-related i typically think to myself "that fourth year would make a good resident" ...the third year is inconsequential.

again i will reiterate that this should not happen in a public forum and definitely not on rounds...if there is someone more senior around the fourth yr should usually defer to them.
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Not speaking from personal experience as an MS3. As an MS4, I've seen some of my classmates "pimp" third years and they just look ridiculous. We probably have differing opinions on the usefulness of the third year based on your posting language, but I don't actually think we disagree on MS4s pimping MS3s based on the bolded above.
 
sazerac said:
I saw a rad tech pimp a 4th year med student in front of residents, on the topic of some medication totally unrelated to X-rays. And the rad tech was wrong.

Yeah, thanks guy.
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Nobody cares when nurses or allied health does stuff like that, which they do a lot. But it's usually not directed to 4th years. Nurses love to pimp residents. Some are ballsy/crotchety enough to do it to attendings, but they love picking on freshly-minted MDs. They are usually just ignored or get an mmm-hmmm because the resident will own them every single time if they accept their challenge. They get a perfunctory amount of knowledge and think they are experts on the subject matter. The reasoning for why something is done is always because "that's how it's done." With the exception of the overly nice ones, it's rare that a nurse will even acknowledge a med student. There's this one I'm dealing with now who won't even make eye contact with me. She will slam doors in my face, and if an attending asks me to tell her to do something, she will first ignore me, then will mumble some sort of acknowledgement and ignore me further. It's strange to be hated before you even open your mouth, especially considering the effort you go through to be helpful and personable.
 
Hopefully the 4th years who do the pimping actually know their ****.

Cause everyone knows just cause you're a 4th year doesn't mean you're automatically an expert or know anything. 😛
 
thefritz said:
Nobody cares when nurses or allied health does stuff like that, which they do a lot. But it's usually not directed to 4th years. Nurses love to pimp residents. Some are ballsy/crotchety enough to do it to attendings, but they love picking on freshly-minted MDs. They are usually just ignored or get an mmm-hmmm because the resident will own them every single time if they accept their challenge. They get a perfunctory amount of knowledge and think they are experts on the subject matter. The reasoning for why something is done is always because "that's how it's done." With the exception of the overly nice ones, it's rare that a nurse will even acknowledge a med student. There's this one I'm dealing with now who won't even make eye contact with me. She will slam doors in my face, and if an attending asks me to tell her to do something, she will first ignore me, then will mumble some sort of acknowledgement and ignore me further. It's strange to be hated before you even open your mouth, especially considering the effort you go through to be helpful and personable.
Click to expand...
I don't know where the transition goes from the bubbly and meek nursing student to nurse Ratchet.
 
thefritz said:
Nobody cares when nurses or allied health does stuff like that, which they do a lot. But it's usually not directed to 4th years. Nurses love to pimp residents. Some are ballsy/crotchety enough to do it to attendings, but they love picking on freshly-minted MDs. They are usually just ignored or get an mmm-hmmm because the resident will own them every single time if they accept their challenge. They get a perfunctory amount of knowledge and think they are experts on the subject matter. The reasoning for why something is done is always because "that's how it's done." With the exception of the overly nice ones, it's rare that a nurse will even acknowledge a med student. There's this one I'm dealing with now who won't even make eye contact with me. She will slam doors in my face, and if an attending asks me to tell her to do something, she will first ignore me, then will mumble some sort of acknowledgement and ignore me further. It's strange to be hated before you even open your mouth, especially considering the effort you go through to be helpful and personable.
Click to expand...

The nurses are pretty nice over here for the most part, but it definitely takes a while for some of them to warm up to us. There was one nurse who was insufferable though. My buddy was telling me how he was supposed to take a thorough H&P on a young cancer patient, but the nurse stayed in the room the entire time talking to the patient's mom. He couldn't really ask her to leave because she's been there for years. The attending came in and chewed him out for taking so long. The nurse didn't say anything in his defense - just walked out and made a smart remark about how medical students never want to talk to patients whenever she's in the room. I get her the next week, and the same sh** happens to me. Lol. I don't know how to feel about people like that. They must be miserable.
 
Bacchus said:
I don't know where the transition goes from the bubbly and meek nursing student to nurse Ratchet.
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Unfortunately, it's usually a reverse transition... When I was in nursing school, the bubbly ones stayed bubbly or flunked out, and the ratchets were either humbled or stayed ratchet. It seems to be a chronic issue. The ratchets tend to get the c-diff patients who are total care and have peg tubes, while the CNA's would help the students who were polite and amicable.

As a male nursing student, it didn't matter how polite i was, I was always getting the bariatric patients with [insert every pathology that requires frequent moving/escorting/lifting], and the same still applies now that I'm an RN.

I have met a few nurses who would suggest things to interns, but I have never seen any of our nurses quiz anyone. Example: "hey doc, did you prescribe a beta blocker and a calcium channel blocker, I'm having trouble reading your writing" It gets tricky with the orders imputed through the computer, but usually pharmacy deals with that.
 
imperturbable said:
The nurses are pretty nice over here for the most part, but it definitely takes a while for some of them to warm up to us. There was one nurse who was insufferable though. My buddy was telling me how he was supposed to take a thorough H&P on a young cancer patient, but the nurse stayed in the room the entire time talking to the patient's mom. He couldn't really ask her to leave because she's been there for years. The attending came in and chewed him out for taking so long. The nurse didn't say anything in his defense - just walked out and made a smart remark about how medical students never want to talk to patients whenever she's in the room. I get her the next week, and the same sh** happens to me. Lol. I don't know how to feel about people like that. They must be miserable.
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I am not understanding what the nurse did to slow the interview down? I ignore the nurse and conduct my interview, nbd.
 
A girl in my class made up a DEA# and signed in with it to go to an attending/resident only journal club. She got pwnd.

I, as an m4, have presented an atypical case or two with some m3s...as if my attending were going over it with me....asked about next steps, imaging, etc. I gave them a disclaimer that I already went through it with an attending, and we had a Lil learning pow wow. I wish that more of my superiors would do that for me, even if it wasn't my patient.
 
tiedyeddog said:
I am not understanding what the nurse did to slow the interview down? I ignore the nurse and conduct my interview, nbd.
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Good luck asking a 5-year-old about her cancer medications while the nurse chats up the mom. The kid should have her dosages and frequency down pat, nbd.
 
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