Most annoying things your colleagues do

[IM Substance P]

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I'm working on a project, and I'm trying to create a list of the most annoying things that your colleagues do on service.

Most annoying thing to me:

The guy who brings in an article that has nothing to do with his patients just for the sake of bringing in an article.

What exactly are you trying to prove? That you can use a search engine? That you know that medical journals exist?

I can't imagine that any attending appreciates this waste of time.

 

[stankem]

I'm working on a project, and I'm trying to create a list of the most annoying things that your colleagues do on service.

Most annoying thing to me:

The guy who brings in an article that has nothing to do with his patients just for the sake of bringing in an article.

What exactly are you trying to prove? That you can use a search engine? That you know that medical journals exist?

I can't imagine that any attending appreciates this waste of time.

calling interns who are a year or two older Dr. so and so. awkward.

 

[J1515]

calling interns who are a year or two older Dr. so and so. awkward.

In surgery you call any resident/intern "Dr. _______" until they tell you to call them by their first name.

 

[Substance]

Where did this strange practice of bringing in random articles come from? How is that a positive thing? It gives the residents one more thing to read, and wastes paper. We don't do this in Canada.

 

[Deferoxamine]

Journal article, eh?

Earlier this year, an attending told me and another student to look something up and "present" the topic to them later that morning. I look it up, try to understand it, and then paraphrase it into my own words. Student B prints out one of them loser journal review articles and reads it goddaamnnn verbatim when the attending asks us to present. Not only do I get cut off by Student B when attempting to explain it IN MY OWN WORDS without assistance of a printout RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME, I then get shot down by Student B who points at a statistic in the article and tells me how wrong I am in front of the attending.

I laughed on the inside to myself, knowing that Student B was making himself look far worse than me.

 

[NAGNAM]

Journal article, eh?

Earlier this year, an attending told me and another student to look something up and "present" the topic to them later that morning. I look it up, try to understand it, and then paraphrase it into my own words. Student B prints out one of them loser journal review articles and reads it goddaamnnn verbatim when the attending asks us to present. Not only do I get cut off by Student B when attempting to explain it IN MY OWN WORDS without assistance of a printout RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME, I then get shot down by Student B who points at a statistic in the article and tells me how wrong I am in front of the attending.

I laughed on the inside to myself, knowing that Student B was making himself look far worse than me.

Christ, that's awful.

Along similar lines, I get annoyed when other students disagree with me. Not sure that reflects on them the way I want it to though.

 

[Momentum70]

I had a classmate that kept asking the attending to give us assignments to read and present each day. She told him how it really helped her to learn. Basically screwing us all over. F-ing brown noser's inability to study on her own made us all research a lot of crap that didnt matter and we didnt care about

 

[Jwax]

Cutting off interns/residents/attendings to try and interject something. I did this a few times (just because it is hard to keep my dang trap shut sometimes) back at the start of 3rd year, realized how shady it was and stopped. Now I get super annoyed when other 3rd years try and act like they know so much more.

I also get highly annoyed when other students try pick up as many new patients as possible making the rest of us look like slackers if we don't have as many. 🙄

I also learned that I absolutely HATE watching other students try and do an H&P. Not like I'm all that rocking at it, but I'm just so dang inpatient and it is super frustrating.

Ever have another student get info on a patient when it was your day off and they choose not share it until the talk to the attending about it on rounds? Yeah...

Obviously I get annoyed a lot. I love most of my classmates, but they can be irritating sometimes. I'm sure I have annoyed my fair share as well.

 

[Deferoxamine]

Obviously I get annoyed a lot. I love most of my classmates, but they can be irritating sometimes. I'm sure I have annoyed my fair share as well.

THIS.

For this reason, I try to give most of them the benefit of the doubt. I'm so Type A and about the details that it probably drives some of my classmates up the wall.

 

[kdburton]

In surgery you call any resident/intern "Dr. _______" until they tell you to call them by their first name.

When I was on surgery the only time I ever called anyone other than the attendings "Dr. So-and-so" was when I was working with a 2nd year fellow who had been an attending in another country before he came to the US and was again in his 7th year of training. It could be because they'd all introduced themselves as [insert first name here] right off the bat, but I don't really remember

 

[ucsfstudents]

It's good practice to try to give at least one presentation (on a topic related to your patient, or on a question brought up during rounds, etc) during each of your 3rd year rotations.

Definitely do one in internal medicine, and don't worry so much about doing it on your surgery rotation.

That said, try not to step on any of your classmates' toes -- don't give a presentation on their patient, for example. Now that would be annoying.

 

[LadyWolverine]

What I can't stand are the d-bags who take themselves sooooo seriously, to the point that they feel the need to boast about themselves in front of their colleagues. If you're pretty much at the same level of training as I am, I'm not going to be impressed. Save it for your mom.

For instance, I was talking to a classmate earlier this year (we were both on surgical sub-Is at the same time) who was trying to convince me that he was carrying his team's entire service. And that, when he took call, he was carrying three entire services. Certainly, sub-Is can be valuable (writing the morning notes, helping out on the floor/ICU, following up on consults/labs/imaging, etc.), and there were definitely times where I was called to do a lot of extra work (our team was horribly understaffed to begin with, given our patient volume, and then we lost an R3 a third of the way into the month), but I would never claim to carry an entire service. Besides, that's not what you're there for as a student - you're there to learn, not to be the scutmonkey. Yet some students feel the need to embellish upon their actual role, despite the fact that others know that it's BS - maybe it's a defense mechanism. idk.

When people start bragging about themselves or overestimating their importance, I get a very visceral gut reaction. Unfortunately there's a lot of people in medical school and in the medical field who lack humility. Case in point - I was talking to a PGY-2 in radiology tonight who had had prior training as a physical therapist. He started telling me how he chose radiology instead of PM&R because he already knew everything a PM&R doc knows, and it would be too much like his prior practice - despite the fact that he never really practiced after PT school aside from a 1-year residency. Then he went on to brag about how patients "come in to [his] office with chronic back pain, and then leave pain-free." I was a bit fed up with his blowhardedness at that point that I told him if that was true, he should give up radiology and just open a practice outside of the ED. Then maybe he'd magically cure all those chronic back pain patients who come in all the time, and no doubt make a fortune.

Why does medical school seem to attract people who lack a basic sense of humility?

 

[RxnMan]

...Why does medical school seem to attract people who lack a basic sense of humility?

You only notice the lack of humility if you're not God's gift to medicine.



There are some total social *****s in med school. One day on OB, we had more procedures scheduled than rotators, and between cases, an attending asked my classmate why a student wasn't assisting him. She told the attending that I was supposed to be assisting him (I was seeing a different operation in a different OR at the time).

I was pissed. Instead of saying "I don't know", she lied to the attending and made me look bad. So I told her as much in private, asking her not to do that again and let it be. She then took it upon herself to hunt down the attending and tell him she was mistaken and "clear everything up". 😱

This same person later fainted in the OR and took the day off to recover. 🙄

 

[cpants]

Personally, I get annoyed by 4th years acting condescendingly and taking that "Acting Intern" title a little to seriously. I've seen 4th years ask students to present patients to them, try to addend and sign off on third year notes, pimp students in front of residents and attendings, try to assign presentation topics (not requested by resident or attending), dictate which cases which students can scrub in on, and evaluate (aka criticize) students verbally in public. Thank god, most of the 4th years were cool.

 

[rachmoninov3]

Not a single one of my classmates has been difficult to work with. Yeah, there were a few who "floated" a few clerkships and started late, but hey we were all there once. WHAT DRIVES ME INSANE IS THE LACK OF HONESTY INVOLVED IN 3RD YEAR.

Student A hates the OR, never wants to be there for the rest of his life. I kinda like the OR. I'm no surgeon, but I'll scrub if given the chance. We'd talked before and agreed that I could scrub on anything I really wanted. Well I'd already scrubbed on a case that day, and was willing to again but offered it to student A. Student A originally refused as per our previous talk at the beginning of the rotation. Right before we're ready to go back, Student A says "I should go 'cuz I haven't been in on one yet today." Fair enough. Despite my longwindedness, I'm not incrediably bitter. But I know student A did this just to look like he wasn't slacking...all for a grade. It all comes down to all for a grade.
I can understand doing these sort of things because we are being graded. No need to tell me that grades are important. I just hate that you can't be honest half the time if you want a good grade. Of course student A does get better grades. Afterall, I'm an online recluse who is often too honest--which my HP average can attest to.

 

[Deferoxamine]

This thread is becoming a goldmine (because so much of it is true). Keep the stories coming.

 

[Richspiders07]

I like when we have scheduled lectures [non mandatory] every day during the lunch hour.... and then sometimes afterwards with our teaching resident at 1pm.

This monday, the students on service with me didn't go to the non mandatory lecture. We were to meet back for a resident lecture at 1pm. I went to the hospital caf and ate lunch, and was up on the wards by 12:55. My cohorts went off campus to eat, and got back to the wards for our 1pm lecture at 1:30. THANKS FOR GIVING ME A HEADS UP. The resxident didnt say a word....

The next day....

I went to the lunch hour lecture, they didn't. Lunch lecture runs over 5 minutes, so I hustle back to the wards for our 1pm lecture. I get a page from the resident "reminding me" of the lecture that started at 1pm. Turns out the rest of students had gotten back on time today and the lecture had begun. So basically I looked bad for showing up late because I went to the other lecture too. UUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH

 

[Jolie South]

I like when we have scheduled lectures [non mandatory] every day during the lunch hour.... and then sometimes afterwards with our teaching resident at 1pm.

This monday, the students on service with me didn't go to the non mandatory lecture. We were to meet back for a resident lecture at 1pm. I went to the hospital caf and ate lunch, and was up on the wards by 12:55. My cohorts went off campus to eat, and got back to the wards for our 1pm lecture at 1:30. THANKS FOR GIVING ME A HEADS UP. The resxident didnt say a word....

The next day....

I went to the lunch hour lecture, they didn't. Lunch lecture runs over 5 minutes, so I hustle back to the wards for our 1pm lecture. I get a page from the resident "reminding me" of the lecture that started at 1pm. Turns out the rest of students had gotten back on time today and the lecture had begun. So basically I looked bad for showing up late because I went to the other lecture too. UUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH

Yea, it doesn't matter if you go or not. You just have to be on the same page as the other student to avoid throwing each other under the bus.

 

[RxnMan]

My last rotation was Peds. By this time everyone was tired and nobody had the energy to be perky and gunnerish and so on. We started with a week of PICU. Our attending told us we would have mandatory daily teaching rounds with her, but since she was otherwise off-service, we didn't have to come in for morning rounds. My group decided then and there that we wouldn't attend AM rounds. Thus, we got away with waltzing in at 10 for an hour of class every day for the rest of the rotation.

Our slackerdom was legendary.

 

[RandomKai]

Personally, I get annoyed by 4th years acting condescendingly and taking that "Acting Intern" title a little to seriously. I've seen 4th years ask students to present patients to them, try to addend and sign off on third year notes, pimp students in front of residents and attendings, try to assign presentation topics (not requested by resident or attending), dictate which cases which students can scrub in on, and evaluate (aka criticize) students verbally in public. Thank god, most of the 4th years were cool.

I shouldn't laugh but I've done that. Honestly when I was Surgery AI I took first preference on anything that walked in. I hated surgery, but we had to scrub, so I always took the short cases or the cases with nice residents who would let me cut/suture instead of retract for eternity. Also never took a diabetic foot/hemorrhoid/anal fistula/colon ca patient the entire month, but had every thyroid case (because it felt like medicine) and most of the gallbladders. I'm not sure if people noticed that I was stacking the deck though. Apart from that I usually ignored the 3rd years. Looking back I'm pretty sure they hated me but I didn't care cause I didn't want to do surgery AI anyway.

The most annoying things my med school colleagues did were:

1. Not being team players. The usual crap like arranging classes with the attending and telling nobody about it even though he told you to tell the entire group. Or keeping info about interesting patients/procedures silent.

2. Not pulling their weight. I hated when we'd divide the ward and one person didn't clerk their patients for rounds. It just pisses off the attending and then the entire group gets to hear about it.

3. Talking out of turn. If the attending asks student A a question, why is student B answering? And does anybody need to hear student C's opinion of the accuracy of Student A's answer? Also maybe Student D could leave the corrections and follow up questions to the dude with a board certification, don't you think?

 

[MSmentor018]

during a cards rotation last yr there was some "psudo gunner" student that was spreading false info during lunches/lectures. my favorite one was "DO's can't sign up for the usmle b/c that's only for the MD students so don't worry about it". what a douche......hope the "a" key gets stuck while taking his boards so he'll have to take it again

 

[motoo]

others will not agree with me, but I get annoyed when med students call each other "colleagues"

 

[Pembleton]

I have this one girl on my team who asks questions that I know she has the answer for. I know she studies constantly and knows the answer to what she is about to ask.

 

[Khanal007]

others will not agree with me, but I get annoyed when med students call each other "colleagues"

hahah, i agree, because it makes us sound like we're professionals already, when really we're at the earliest stages of the game in terms of learning clinical medicine. basically we just get in the way and pretend we contribute to something, lets be honest, colleagues.

 

[monkeybutt]

I had one particularly talkative classmate who would try to carry on conversations at 2:00 AM in the call room after the lights were already off.

 

[RisingSun]

My favorite is a third year who on surgery would cut out on clinic or afternoon activities and troll the ORs looking for random surgeries to observe. Another time, there was a knife to the heart trauma who somehow made it to the OR, and like 15 people in the OR were watching breathlessly as the cardiac surgeon started to repair the laceration with the heart still beating. You could hear a pin drop in the room. This student shouts out, "God I love my job!"

Good times.

 

[LadyWolverine]

My favorite is a third year who on surgery would cut out on clinic or afternoon activities and troll the ORs looking for random surgeries to observe. Another time, there was a knife to the heart trauma who somehow made it to the OR, and like 15 people in the OR were watching breathlessly as the cardiac surgeon started to repair the laceration with the heart still beating. You could hear a pin drop in the room. This student shouts out, "God I love my job!"

Good times.

👍👍👍

OMG, I WISH I had been present for that. Please tell me you circulated this story around your entire medical school. Then again, I'd assume just from this outburst that said student probably has a track record of putting himself in such positions. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Droopy Snoopy]

My favorite is a third year who on surgery would cut out on clinic or afternoon activities and troll the ORs looking for random surgeries to observe. Another time, there was a knife to the heart trauma who somehow made it to the OR, and like 15 people in the OR were watching breathlessly as the cardiac surgeon started to repair the laceration with the heart still beating. You could hear a pin drop in the room. This student shouts out, "God I love my job!"

Good times.

This reminds me of one of my classmates, who had absolutely no common sense or brain/mouth filter. He wasn't exactly gunnerish, just goofy but at times dangerous. During our M3 Psych rotation he managed to accompany a patient to a competency hearing. Either the court clerk made a mistake or more likely he purposefully misrepresented himself as the guy's doctor. When the team got back the court filings they were filled with testimony by DR. MEDSTUD. He didn't graduate with me, although I have no idea if this incident played a role.

 

[Jolie South]

This reminds me of one of my classmates, who had absolutely no common sense or brain/mouth filter. He wasn't exactly gunnerish, just goofy but at times dangerous. During our M3 Psych rotation he managed to accompany a patient to a competency hearing. Either the court clerk made a mistake or more likely he purposefully misrepresented himself as the guy's doctor. When the team got back the court filings they were filled with testimony by DR. MEDSTUD. He didn't graduate with me, although I have no idea if this incident played a role.

OMFG! Seriously?! 😱

 

[MSmentor018]

This reminds me of one of my classmates, who had absolutely no common sense or brain/mouth filter. He wasn't exactly gunnerish, just goofy but at times dangerous.

definitely not gunner....just reckless!

 

[Aphasic]

I hate when students ask useless questions to long-winded attendings right before it's time to go home, and I somehow end up with a couple reading assignments and presentations.

I once worked with a student who constantly disappeared, and never covered any of our team's cases in the OR b/c she was too busy trolling for (insert surg subspecialty here) cases. This same student always stole my (and residents') pens. Oh, and she lied about when rounds were starting the next day so I would be late!!

 

[RisingSun]

👍👍👍

OMG, I WISH I had been present for that. Please tell me you circulated this story around your entire medical school. Then again, I'd assume just from this outburst that said student probably has a track record of putting himself in such positions. Thanks for sharing.

I personally like said student, but he certainly has a track record of saying crap that makes you wanna go😱

During our psych rotation we went to the state children's psych hospital. We were asked to introduce ourselves and say what field we wanted to go into and why. Said student says, "trauma surgery, because I love blood and guts, shootings, stabbings, trauma." The room went quiet and all of us were like 😱 One of the hospitalized kids then asks him, "Are you a vampire?"

 

[chanjurban]

I personally like said student, but he certainly has a track record of saying crap that makes you wanna go😱

During our psych rotation we went to the state children's psych hospital. We were asked to introduce ourselves and say what field we wanted to go into and why. Said student says, "trauma surgery, because I love blood and guts, shootings, stabbings, trauma." The room went quiet and all of us were like 😱 One of the hospitalized kids then asks him, "Are you a vampire?"

BWAHAHAHAHAHA😀

 

[kdburton]

There is a girl in my class who would page people all the time (med students, residents, EVEN ATTENDINGS) to a phone in the hospital that she was at and then she would get up and leave a couple minutes later and leave everyone hanging. Sometime she'd page to her cellular phone which was nice because then I could selectively not call her back.

 

[fantasticdan1]

A few good examples in here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0f2ezJ57-o

 

[cpants]

I hate when students ask useless questions to long-winded attendings right before it's time to go home, and I somehow end up with a couple reading assignments and presentations.

This is def the worst. We'd be on hour 6 of neuro rounds (on a 4 pt. service mind you), and some of the most infuriating questions would come out. "Can you explain the physiology of Huntington's chorea?" Seriously dude, google it. 40 minute explanation would ensue.

 

[MSmentor018]

This is def the worst. We'd be on hour 6 of neuro rounds (on a 4 pt. service mind you), and some of the most infuriating questions would come out. "Can you explain the physiology of Huntington's chorea?" Seriously dude, google it. 40 minute explanation would ensue.

similar situtation except the student knew the answer to the questions she asked and would interject her knowledge about it, cutting the attending off. or the opposite would happen, we'd get pimped and she'd saying everything around the topic but the answer. I wished she'd use the "muffin technique" and not say anything at all

 

[DickyV]

Journal article, eh?

Earlier this year, an attending told me and another student to look something up and "present" the topic to them later that morning. I look it up, try to understand it, and then paraphrase it into my own words. Student B prints out one of them loser journal review articles and reads it goddaamnnn verbatim when the attending asks us to present. Not only do I get cut off by Student B when attempting to explain it IN MY OWN WORDS without assistance of a printout RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME, I then get shot down by Student B who points at a statistic in the article and tells me how wrong I am in front of the attending.

I laughed on the inside to myself, knowing that Student B was making himself look far worse than me.

Unfortunately, that's not always the case. I've been through "presentations" where a student hands out photocopies of, then reads verbatim, the relevant eMedicine article, then the resident/attending says it was a "fantastic" presentation. 🙄

 

[NikoNLS8]

No, you don't.

 

[McGillGrad]

No, you don't.

No, you didn't?

 

[ADeadLois]

unfortunately, that's not always the case. I've been through "presentations" where a student hands out photocopies of, then reads verbatim, the relevant emedicine article, then the resident/attending says it was a "fantastic" presentation. 🙄

qft

 

[cpants]

Unfortunately, that's not always the case. I've been through "presentations" where a student hands out photocopies of, then reads verbatim, the relevant eMedicine article, then the resident/attending says it was a "fantastic" presentation. 🙄

Emedicine is actually pretty good. I don't have a problem with that as a source on a general topic. Reading verbatim is pretty lame.

 

[Aphasic]

Unfortunately, that's not always the case. I've been through "presentations" where a student hands out photocopies of, then reads verbatim, the relevant eMedicine article, then the resident/attending says it was a "fantastic" presentation. 🙄

I've never heard/given a presentation on rounds that was anything other than verbatim reading from a hand out (which were all basically evidence of copy paste skills from up to date). They're basically for the attending anyways.

 

[Aphasic]

I hate when ppl ask stupid questions during lectures. I mean no one wants to be there and your question only delays my going home. Learn on your own time!

Maybe I'm a little over third-year.

 

[C5toC9]

There are lectures in third year?

 

[gulnosh]

a strange thing i noticed from the above posts..is that most of the annoying stuff doers are SHE 😱!!!!

 

[Pontifex Maximus]

There are lectures in third year?

all the time.

 

[Brain]

There are lectures in third year?

Unfortunately, yes. They took attendance for the 3rd year lectures at my school, unlike the 1st two years. I had to go to more lectures during 3rd than the previous two years combined.

 

[Aphasic]

There are lectures in third year?

Third year lectures are often worse than 1st & 2nd year lec b/c it's not necessarily relevant material to the upcoming exam. My school, too, often takes attendance, and sometimes we have lectures daily..

All the more reason to look towards 4th year.