I have heard the term used and gather it has a negative connotation...but what is it? How do med students/residents deal with pimping? I'd like to know...
The doctor I lived with when I was an undergrad describe pimping as being asked a question on a certain diagnosis to the point where you're talking about the inner most biochemistry and then ..... you get stumpped!!!
Just being asked a question related to the patient being presnted when you're half-awake on morning rounds and half-asleep when on evening rounds. I unfortunately won't experience the joys of being pimped until August 6th.
Ummm, my experience with pimping is a bit harsher than what you described. Pimping is when an attending (or resident) starts asking you questions during rounds, in the OR, at the bedside, etc about a certain topic of interest -- if you get the question right, then they ask you another, then another, then another, until you get one wrong. Even after you get it wrong they might still keep asking you questions. Oftentimes the questions are "guess what I'm thinking" questions. Pimping can be very nervewracking, especially if you're not too comfortable with the topic you're discussing. Another style is called a pimping session, usually occurring during attending teaching rounds. This is a slightly different take on the same concept -- the attending asks a question aimed at the most junior person in the room, usually the med student. If they can't answer it, it goes to the intern, then it goes to the senior resident, and so on, until someone gets it right. Then the attending keeps asking harder and harder questions always aimed first at the med student, so eventually the med student is saying "i don't know" to almost every question. Pimping is an interesting experience, and it varies widely based on an attending's style. At first, to new clinical students, it seems incredibly harsh, and most students get really upset with themselves for not knowing the answers. Then everyone just develops really thick skins so that it no longer bothers them as much to feel incredibly stupid in front of everyone they're working with! (Just remember -- no other student would know the question you're being askied!) PS -- my most memorable pimping experience was being pimped almost every day during CCU rounds with about 20-25 attendings/fellows/residents consistently present (including 4-5 attendings at once)!! Not a typical scenario, by the way.
I dont know if this is *quite* the same as what y'all are talking about, but in gross lab etc, profs and tutors will come by and just start grilling you - and if you answer wrong (depending on the question), they either ask someone else, explain it to you in small words, or inform you that you have just killed a patient. I *think* its supposed to toughen you up emotionally as well as test your knowledge, I know a bunch of people got rather upset when they "killed" a patient. Effective way of learning, though. For example, I'll NEVER forget where to insert a chest tube! Star
Pimping huh?!?! There is just one thing I'm curious about, why would this be a nerve-wracking experience? Do they humiliate you if you do not know the answer?
Sheon, did you not get a neuro conference with Dr. Anziska this year? In my year he had a patient in the lecture hall, called one of my classmates to stand before the class and began pronating/supinating the patient's right arm. "Quickly," he began, "what am I doing? Pronating or supinating?" It may sound like a simple question, but you really only have a 50% chance of getting it right. The student said answered "Pronating." "NO! No, no, no! You've got to learn this -- I'm supinating." Clairvoyance should be a prerequisite for med school admissions. The other description of pimping is entirely more accurate than mine. I'm just too lazy to write that much. Pimping can be a horrendous experience at first, but I've heard it gets better because you develop an "I'm not gonna know it anyway" attitude.
One of the reasons that pimping can be such a horrible experience at first is because when you're singled out and put on the spot in front of a bunch of people who know a lot more than you do, your mind can shut off, so even the simplest questions can be impossible to answer! It is very common to be told that you've "just killed your patient." And when being asked what you would do in a certain situation, you can't use the easy answer "I would call my resident/fellow", although they might get a good laugh out of it. Of course, you do get used to it. It definitely makes you learn the stuff quite well! I think it's also a sick sort of way of helping students to learn to think and be calm under pressure. Believe it or not, it is quite effective.
Some do, some don't. There is also the fear that if you continually display a poor fund of knowledge that it will appear on your evaluations and potentially your letters of recommendation. The pressure is particularly on when you're rotating on a service in your field of interest. I majorly suck at being pimped most of the time. Ask me a question and expect a written answer, I'm often golden. Oral exams - my gastric butterflies start a swirling and I'm down for the count.
I'm with Kim. I could know a topic inside and out, but as soon as a superior asks me the most basic question, everything shuts down and I am doing the "uh, uh, uh..." routine, sounding almost like Beavis and Butthead. I agree that finally you get to the point that you just do your best and not worry how you are looking to everyone. Though I never liked coming across as unknowlegeable in my field of interest (emer med). Billie
Billie - don't you LOVE how all your fellow classmates get the EASY questions? The ones you could answer at the drop of a hat?!
You are SO right Kim. Especially that one dude William Bohannon. He got all the easy questions all the time. I think they even gave him different tests than I got, as he would get 105's on his biochem while I was barely passing!! You would think he was exceptionally smart or something!! William I think I hear OB calling you... Billie
To everyone, If pimping is such a life altering reality in medical education.... Care to share specific questions or a question that you will never forgot you got when you were pimped? Curious,
I've blocked it all out - like I do most life altering tragic events! But I'll try and remember some, or in the name of research, even gather a few more for you over the next couple of days!
pimping is definitely an experience. it is so uncanny to hear kim, et al. talk about it. it NEVER FAILS that you know the answer to some really obscure question your friend is being asked and then when it is your turn you get something that a fellow would sound like beavis and butthead on. some memorable questions... after getting a few questions correct on a subject, one of my attendings posed the question "what is the average wing speed velocity of a swallow?". luckily, i had seen monty python and could ask him to specify whether he was talking about an african swallow!! the best questions are the easy ones. like how many ccs of fluid does it take in the chest to become evident on a CXR?
LOL -- in surgery, during a Whipple (really long procedure--can take upwards of 8 hours or so), my attending was playing oldies music in the OR. After I actually got a few questions right, he asked me "Who sings this song?" Of course, being absolutely clueless about oldies music, I had no idea! To my surprise he kept asking that same question for each song that came on. Needless to say, I was the butt of a few jokes! (good-natured, of course -- the attending was actually very nice.)
ajm, that's interestingly humorous... Maybe I can use that someday Wow... I guess, repression of pimping is a common reaction.... We should call this syndrome PRS = Pimping Repression Syndrome.... Any others remember or try to remember a question that they were pimped as and has been stuck in your memory banks?
In hand surgery you are always being pimped on nerve distribution and the manifestations of peripheral nerve injuries. "Saturday Night Palsy" and the "waiter's tip injury" are popular ones. Surgeons, like most other physicians like medical history - if you can know something about a particular character it often helps them (of course said without being snotty). During a Dupuytren's procedure, I was able to converse with the attending about Dr. Dupuytren - I can't remember what I said, but it was an interesting little tid bit I picked up in some book about him. If you can't dazzle them with your anatomical knowledge, try some medical history - they seem to really like that (AND asking you the names of long dead singers! Why do they always ask that? Good thing I like oldies!!)
My worst pimping experience: I was a fourth year student during my gen surg elective, at combined GI/gen surg rounds (about 200 people there - I was one of maybe 5 med students, the rest were staff and residents). The attending stood up and asked "where is Miss. __ our clinical clerk?" I identified myself in the back row, and was made to stand up. Then he started pimping. I started out alright, then I screwed up on a question. He didn't let me know that I had screwed up (i incorrectly thought that folate was absorbed in the terminal ileum and not the duodenum), and then he led me down a path of reasoning that was completely wrong and then humiliated me at the end. Everyone was laughing. Afterwards the residents all told me that I did fine and the fact that I didn't cry put me ahead of most med students that were singled out at rounds by this particular staffman. The best way to deal with pimping is to realize that you as a med student really don't know much and aren't expected to know much. You just have to "become one with your ignorance" and then just try to sound as confident as you can and guess. When you get home you read around the questions you were asked, so that if they ask again you'll be ready (most staff ask the same questions to students each time and they don't always realize it). Pimping can be fun!
Smoke This - - have you seen the internal medicine pimp questions on my website? I'm in the process of asking docs on other specialties for others. If any of you others have had notable pimping experiences, it would be great if you could post them on my discussion board. The people in my med school class check in there regularly (although most of them are too chicken to post anything). I'm sure they would love to hear your stories, and maybe they'll gain the courage to post! (We're all just entering our third year of med school.) Thanks! I love this topic!
tussy.... that sounded painful !!! But I'll keep your suggestion in mind.... Although I have get to start my medical school.... I think this topic is great....!!! Keep posting your experiences if you can.... it's a great read.... Later
No, metal, I didn't know that your list of pimp questions existed. Thanks for clueing me in! I'll check that out.
Great! What did you think? (Sorry I keep plugging my website, but it seems like many questions asked here could be answered over there....so I just direct people in that direction. Is that so wronggg?)
Nice site. It looks like it took a lot of time and effort. Your pimp questions were thought-provoking. I can't wait to learn the clinical stuff and be able to answer that.
Cool, thanks! Stay tuned - - a surgeon should be e-mailing some of her most popular pimp questions soon....
I can't remember any questions either, but my anatomy prof had a wonderful one. While he was scrubbing for the first time for an appendectomy, the surgeon asked him the arterial supply for the appendix. He didn't know, and was promptly told to scrub out!
It feels pretty good, although I'm always on alert to being asked even harder questions than the med student. Sometimes I wish I was in his place as his questions are considerably easier! But so far, so good...not much pimping yet.
hey everybody, while im not in the field of medicine, i expierenced 'pimping' questions today in the finance sector- "what is a bond? what are the advantages to buying bonds v. stock? what are convertible bonds?, ect" i did okay, but like other posters said, i think i will brush up on things i learned last semester for future pimping. ah, the joys of being an intern aga
