True true true x1000. I've worked for several years after college too, and establishing relationships in the workplace is hugely important. ESPECIALLY if the job is in a hospital setting, I have found. I've worked in different settings- corporate setting, hospital setting, home setting (providing personal care in the client's home).
Out of all the environments, the hospital setting was THE worst, in terms of difficult personalities (I'm talking coworkers, not patients
🙄), social politics, hierarchical hazing, scut work, etc. etc. So I definitely don't think it's just about having work experience or not having work experience... the hospital is a special kind of place-- oftentimes, it's high pressure, fast paced work, an overflow of patients combined with under staffing. To give just one example of how hospitals are different, it's not enough to just do one's own work well and efficiently. If you don't spent at least as much time shooting the breeze with others, kissing up to your immediate superior, etc., you're gonna have people talk crap about you & basically lie about you on evaluations, saying you don't do work (wtf?) or whatever. Otoh, there are people who really DON'T do any work, spend practically all their time talking/socializing, and they get great evaluations. It wasn't about the quality of your work; it was about "fitting in" with the old-timers.
There was also the thing of, if you're seen as too capable at your job, sometimes people higher up on the hierarchy get jealous or for whatever reason, want to "put you in your place" by assigning you all kinds of unnecessary scut work. Not everyone was like this of course. But there were definitely a significant number of insecure folks who would do this. I guess doctors dump on them quite a bit too, and it just kind of trickles downward, where they want to establish their authority.
It was definitely a bit of a hazing experience, but by the end of my tenure there, I finally learned how to hold my own a little bit. Reading about what people go through 3rd year, I can definitely see why many people seem kind of scarred by the experience
The things I realized were especially important about the hospital:
1) Respect the hierarchy at all costs
Even if your immediate supervisor is a douche. Especially if your immediate supervisor is a douche. Just pretend you're in the army. "Yes, sir/ma'am!"
2) Be a teamplayer
From my experiences doing home care for clients, I had developed the bad habit of working pretty independently. I felt like my main focus should be the patients and taking care of their needs. But, no. If your sup wants you to go do something while you're in the middle of helping a patient, do NOT try to explain you're helping the patient; drop everything and do what your sup wants you to do. It kind of goes hand in hand with # 1, respect the hierarchy. This seriously took some time for me to process and figure out. Even tho' I had previous work experience in a corporate setting, this was so different. People would often be exceedingly unprofessional too. For whatever reason, get used to seeing unprofessional, outrageous behavior at the hospital.
3) Don't neglect socializing
Do this however you want to-- whether it's through just asking Qs, or volunteering to do things/help with something, or simply taking the time to chat on a more personal level. Your eval really IS about these fluffy thing as much as it is about your actual knowledge/work. Unfortunately or fortunately, that appears to be how things work.
Any thoughts med students? Those were just some things I figured out for myself after my experiences there... of course being a MSIII in a hospital is bound to be different than working at the hospital at the bottom of the totem pole. But I think there's probably going to be some significant similarities there too. I've worked in many different settings, but out of all of them, nothing compares to working at the hospital. It seems to bring out the best & worst in people.
