Its the type A personalities complexed with the long hours and the often immaturity of people in medicine (its actually in the literature; medical students and resident physicians are seen as less emotionally mature and comfortable in social situations than others of their age in non-medical fields).
Many medical students and residents have never worked in the "real world" and learned crisis management or simply how to deal with other people when things are stressful. I was appalled when I first started working with residents (before medical school); now that I understand it, that's enough for me.
KC, you have hit the nail dead center in the head and split it down the middle.
I rounded with a complete jackass who, in another life would have been a schoolyard bully, and most likely was in grade school, judging by his behavior. Before I rounded with him I watched his abuse with each successive team. Then it was my turn. That hospital was one of those that not only thought the "rules are optional, the needs of the hospital are above the rules," but publically stated it.
On one of the two days I had off that month, a good friend of mine invited me to his cabin on the lake and after work, we went while I slept. Unforecast thunderstorms delayed my return for several hours (I planned to leave at 3:30 for the hour trip) and I arrived at the hospital at 6:30. I had my buddy call the hospital at 6 to let the donkey's backside know I was going to be late.
Common courtesy, I thought. Instead I got the browbeating of a lifetime. I found out later that on this service with this attending, that the normal signout time was 7:30 on Sundays, instead of 6 as is the case during the week, so I was, in fact, an hour early for rounding, and not late at all.
If I hadn't had my buddy call the dick, nothing would have transpired. So, sleep in good buddy, since even if you come in early with one of the above described personalities personality disorders masquerading as a senior resident you are screwed.
So, in the same vein as KC wrote: never call in late, they might not notice, courtesy as an intern will only get you screwed, screw your fellow intern before they screw you and play dumb when you can get away with it.
And remember that you will eventually leave Lucifer's Palace and the myriad of personality disorders in authority.
PB, you are 100% correct. When you wanna get a brew with me?
As for getting up early in the AM, two alarms help, but the cerebellum will eventually reroute auditory pathways to bypass the cortex and directly connect to the brainstem which will cause you to get up, find the annoying noisemakers and silence them and return to bed while still in REM sleep. I think the reprogramming of the neural pathways may occur more quickly with acetylcholine depletion of chronic and acute on chronic sleep deprivation. Alternatively, alarm clocks and pagers have been reported to have been found several miles from the bedroom window without apparent explanation.
So, I use a very bright quartz halogen lamp on a timer to simulate sunrise. I have two. One lights up at 15 minutes before the three alarms go off, the second at 1 minute before. Visual light stimulation is harder to ignore than sound. Personally I think it is less annoying than irritating alarm clocks.
