Hello out there my fellow colleagues. I wish to post this up on this forum as a gentle guide to anyone who is considering the Nuclear Medicine route. I had a very extreme circumstance that for me worked out well but in the meanwhile created an incredible level of stress for me, my family, and close friends. As we all know, Nuclear Medicine is a field not very well characterized by the medical resident community. There is no match and it is never really talked about much during medical school. I completed my intern year in Internal Medicine and did this training at a community hospital with a university affiliation. Wishing to increase my chances for obtaining a competitive fellowship, a university hospital would be the best way to go. After calling several GME offices, my alma mater institution called me back saying they only had a PGY-2 level opening but it was in Nuclear Medicine. After having an extensive discussion with the PD about my career goals I was told that if I came to his program that I would be able to double board certify in IM/NM and pointed to the ABIM website that outlined how this was done. I came to the program thinking that NM was the "admission ticket" to a big well recognized university hospital.
When I got there my schedule did not reflect our agreement and the director began to "promote" the 3-year version of the program. I told the director that this was not our original agreement. I then found out that the chair of Medicine had never even heard of my name. So what this program director did was lie to me and pulled a "bait and switch". His interest was to get a resident for 3 years and did this without any regard for what my professional aspirations. I was stuck in a field I knew nothing about and this person had essentially divorced me from my speciality. By the 2nd week he actually told me verbatim "Well it looks like you're kinda screwed then!" and told me he would not be a positive reference for me if I was to look for another program.
During July of 2007 by that second week I started using up almost every single morning to look for and call for senior Internal Medicine spots and would spend my nights and free time at the fax machine at Kinkos sending my CV, USMLE's, certificate of completion/passing of my PGY-1 Internal Medicine year, etc. My prior program director was absolutely shocked that I was lied to. I had finally landed a senior position at a very nice Internal Medicine program out in the east coast with a very presitigous university affiliation, a definite upgrade. The only catch was that this program was to start the following summer. I figured I may as well learn something and spend the rest of the year in Nuclear Medicine, and in fact now I really WOULD be able to double board should I decide to. (The training requirement now would only be 2 years since by the time I would decide to go back to NM, I would be board certified/elligible in IM).
Sounds like a wonderful way to resolve the situation, right? Wrong! When the program director found out I had signed a contract for July of 2008 in IM, he threatened to terminate me from the program! I was never put on probation and had no disciplinary actions ever taken on me. My only "sin" was missing several morning conferences during the first 2 weeks of July in order to search for an IM position. Since the director had no basis to terminate me this was not a viable option for him. However, the several months that proceeded were absolute hell. He began harassing me..keeping me late past hours to verbally attack/abuse me and would not mentor me on anything. It all became ego and mind games. Talk about a harsh work environment! He also told me not to record or document any of the studies I would do such as Nuclear Cardiology, thyroid therapies, and lymphoscintigraphies.
By mid-year I had decided to resign. The hospital even offered me a severence package which I had to turn down since he was not willing to sign that we BOTH could not bad mouth each other. What does this mean? He wanted a restriction that he could bad mouth me but that I could not defend myself. He had full plans to contact my new director to make life difficult for me. My file when I left was stuffed full of lies, exaggerations, and spin-doctoring. He essentially tried to destroy my medical career because I didn't go along with his lies. I denied this package and when I applied for a few months of unemployment benefits the department went out of there way to get me denied for that.
So where am I now? I'm a senior IM resident and am having an amazing time. My evaluations and clinical performance are very high and in the "excellent" category. When I was team leader for the wards and did it well I honestly felt joy to the point of tears. I am doing what resonates perfectly with my heart and soul I have my self respect back and I am around a completely different calibar of people who are in medicine for the right reasons. Life has continued and I am happy that I was able to get out of the clutches of this horrible angry person.
What is happening with this gentleman? The ACGME knows everything that happened and the program is under investigation for several counts of professional misconduct.
Nuclear Medicine honestly....is an extremely interesting field and is best done when conducted with people who are kind and progressive and are attentive to the core principles of what being a physician really means. Honestly, integrity, colleagiality, and a commitment to lifelong learning and healing towards others it the real reason we all entered the field of medicine regardless of the subspecialty. I wish not to even mention which program this is and who the director was...badmouthing has no role here.
The story however holds a great deal of value and I wish that any of you who want to pursue this field to make sure to know who and what you are getting involved with. It would break my heart to think this would happen to anyone else.
My suggestion to you all is get a primary care speciality done FIRST. This way you are are more marketable, have definite job security, shorten your training time by an entire year, and have something to fall back on which would prevent a situation like this from ever occurring. It would even make you improved at Nuclear Medicine as you would know and appreciate the full clinical context of the imaging modality.
Best of luck to all of you and g-d bless.
