Medicine at its worst

[71263]

Hey all. I am about to start medical school and aspiring to be a surgeon. Well anyway, I just read this, a friend sent it too me. He says hes seen similar things when watching actual doctors in practice.

Reading this is seriously depressing. Please please please please please tell me this is not how it actually is, please.

http://www.upalumni.org/medschool/surgery.html

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[njbmd]

Hi there,
I was a General Surgery intern before the 80-hour work week. I was busy but I enjoyed all of the learning. I was not sick, depressed or anything other than busy. There were lots of cases to do in OR, people to take care of on the floor and conferences.

If you are not prepared to work hard, then choose something other than surgery. Do realize that no matter how wonderful your residency, you still have to get the work done. There is nothing horrible about this. I would rather do a 10-hour case in the OR than stand around in rounds for 2 hours like my medicine colleagues.
njbmd

 

[Winged Scapula]

This is a rather infamous, and old document. I recall reading it before I was in medical school (and I'm a PGY 5 now). As njbmd notes, we and the writer experienced surgery before the 80 hr workweek...but regardless of the hours, if you don't like what you're doing, 80 hrs a week will seem painful as well.

 

[doc05]

I don't have the time to go through the whole thing, but the writer strikes me as a typical whiny med student.

 

[MDgonnabe]

I don't have the time to go through the whole thing, but the writer strikes me as a typical whiny med student.

bingo. if you look higher up in the directory you'll note that he bashes every specialty with equal fervor and delusional self-righteousness. but i'm sure he paid back all his student loans with that maudlin tripe disguised as a genuine and fair representation of the medical profession.

 

[Leukocyte]

Hey all. I am about to start medical school and aspiring to be a surgeon. Well anyway, I just read this, a friend sent it too me. He says hes seen similar things when watching actual doctors in practice.

Reading this is seriously depressing. Please please please please please tell me this is not how it actually is, please.

http://www.upalumni.org/medschool/surgery.html

Fried Goat testicles are great! Very yummy, especially with a hint of lemon sauce........SOUNDS good? My friend, you have to try it yourself. You have to experience "surgery" yourself, nothing we say here is really practical. It is just the personal opinon and the bias of the poster. If the poster likes pizza, and you do not like pizza (after having tried a pizza), will that change your views on pizza?

And what do you mean by "surgeon".....General Surgeon? There are many specialities that involve surgery, and their practitioners can also be defined as "surgeons". ENT is very different from General Surgery, with a very different life-style. The same goes for Ortho, Urology, Plastics,...........

Not all "surgeons" are created equal!

Good Luck.

 

[toofache32]

I don't have the time to go through the whole thing, but the writer strikes me as a typical whiny med student.

I was thinking the same thing. These are the people that should have gone to law school instead...where b!tching is the name of the game.

 

[sacrament]

Michael Greger is the world's biggest toolbox, and that craptastic "diary" of his should be flushed down an internet toilet. Hey, I'm the first person to bitch about the pursuit of medicine being an extremely disappointing venture, but Greger takes bitching to a new, whiny, self-indulgent level. He's so full of sh1t, it must be coming out his ears. Don't take his melodramatic garbage seriously.

 

[Apollyon]

This is a rather infamous, and old document. I recall reading it before I was in medical school (and I'm a PGY 5 now). As njbmd notes, we and the writer experienced surgery before the 80 hr workweek...but regardless of the hours, if you don't like what you're doing, 80 hrs a week will seem painful as well.

There are dates from 1998 in it - if you finished med school in 2001, you presumably started in 1997. Could it have been edited?

Moreover, unlike much of what is written on the internet (especially SDN included), it is researched, well-written, and I did not see even one spelling or grammatical error. As far as content, it paralleled my surgical student career; however, my gen surg blocks were in 2-week increments, with 3 of them, and interspersed were uro, ortho, and anesthesia. I have often felt that student experiences in various specialties are what push them towards or away from these specialities - I wonder, along the same lines, what makes a student gung-ho for rad onc or ENT, for example, since exposure is generally minimal to nil as students.

 

[71263]

Thanks alot for your insight. Although Im not sure i was completely clear to alot of you. It isnt the work or hours that Im really complaining about, I knew those would be there from the beginning. Im much more disappointed/depressed reading stories about how doctors acted so inhumane and insensitive to patients , residents, and fellow classmates. I feel alot better about it now that Ive had time to think it over, but I really hope I dont encounter things like that when i start residency.

 

[Celiac Plexus]

Thanks alot for your insight. Although Im not sure i was completely clear to alot of you. It isnt the work or hours that Im really complaining about, I knew those would be there from the beginning. Im much more disappointed/depressed reading stories about how doctors acted so inhumane and insensitive to patients , residents, and fellow classmates. I feel alot better about it now that Ive had time to think it over, but I really hope I dont encounter things like that when i start residency.

i remember reading this too way back in '99 when i was a first year med student. this guy is pretty wack i think. it doesn't seem like he likes any specialty. as far as his experiences... well they're pretty hard to believe based on my own experiences. i'm in my 3rd year of gs residency now, and i've not experienced anything like he describes. in fact, at least at my program, that kind of behavior will get you some hard core chair time.

 

[Dire Straits]

whatever happened to the author, is he practicing medicine?

 

[Blade28]

I'm also curious to know what residency he ended up pursuing.

 

[Apollyon]

i remember reading this too way back in '99 when i was a first year med student. this guy is pretty wack i think. it doesn't seem like he likes any specialty. as far as his experiences... well they're pretty hard to believe based on my own experiences. i'm in my 3rd year of gs residency now, and i've not experienced anything like he describes. in fact, at least at my program, that kind of behavior will get you some hard core chair time.

My experience was with SUNY Brooklyn at a satellite hospital (not University) in 2000/2001 - ergo, away from the watchful eye. There were a husband and wife team that fought all the time, where the wife would send her blood under a patient's name for serum HCG's (since they wouldn't spring for a home test). They referred to the other chief as "sawed off" in front of the students. The wife continually (intentionally) mispronounced my name, and, when an attending did the same, I told him the correct pronunciation, and he started laughing, and the chief became livid. The same chief, the same attending, and I were in on a lap chole. Within one minute (truly - camera in, and she didn't like it), the chief did not like the way I was driving the camera, and took control (ie, literally pulled the camera out of my hand) - I stood back and crossed my arms, and asked, "would you like me to scrub out?", and the same attending started laughing AGAIN, and I smiled under the mask, as I thought the chief was going to stroke out. She proceeded to do the entire case herself, with two other people standing there.

Experiences like that made me think, "Is that what I want my life to be like?", and the answer was a resounding "no".

 

[Winged Scapula]

There are dates from 1998 in it - if you finished med school in 2001, you presumably started in 1997. Could it have been edited?

It could have been...or perhaps I just recalled my dates incorrectly! At any rate, it is old and infamous.

 

[Justin4563]

I dont know guys.. there are aspects to my training.. actually many incidences that I would rather forget..

 

[sacrament]

whatever happened to the author, is he practicing medicine?

His focus now is on dietary medicine. He goes around the country giving talks about eating vegetable-based diets or something. I'm not even kidding.

 

[Spiff]

I remember taking a look at this stuff a while back. This guy strikes me as some sort of uber-moonbat who sees life (and medicine) through those lenses. Definitely on the fringe. I hope he has found something he enjoys because he sounds pretty miserable in medicine.

My experiences so far (as one of the new "beaten down interns") is a far cry from what he describes. Sure the work is hard, there is a lot of crap to deal with, and I am definitely on the low end of the hike up the learning curve, but I am more excited about medicine than I have ever been to date. Today I saw my first ER patient that needed to go to the OR "RIGHT NOW". It was a little nerve racking, but it was a great thing to have my chief tell me I made a good call to mobilize the team, and a patient who later thanked me for taking him seriously. I am sure there is bad stuff that happens from time to time in any specialty, but the degree this guy describes is excessive and some of it just doesn't make any sense. So, take it for what it is worth, but make your own decision.