Problem in rotation

[Medstudentquest]

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So I have a question I hope someone can help me with. I just got the grade back for a rotation I finished a long time ago. all the evaluations I got were either Advanced or Outstanding. the site director believes everyone is "proficient" and even told me on the first day in so many words that he does not like to give outstandings and so forth. He turned in my grade without taking a look at my evaluations at all. Needless to say, I got a crappy grade. How should I handle this? I talked to the overall director and she told me to talk to the site director, but i doubt he will change anything. What should I do in this case? any advice or situations? Can a site director just give you what they want without looking at evaluations like this?

 

[efex101]

Welcome to third year. I would try to set a meeting with the course director but do not hold your breath...the grade may or may not change.

 

[Medstudentquest]

If the grade is not changed, can I appeal to the dean? the overall course director, who is different from the site director, told me to initially take it to the site director. the site director told me on the first day that he did not like giving outstandings. can they just out of the blue give you any grade just like that?

 

[ChildNeuro]

So I have a question I hope someone can help me with. I just got the grade back for a rotation I finished a long time ago. all the evaluations I got were either Advanced or Outstanding. the site director believes everyone is "proficient" and even told me on the first day in so many words that he does not like to give outstandings and so forth. He turned in my grade without taking a look at my evaluations at all. Needless to say, I got a crappy grade. How should I handle this? I talked to the overall director and she told me to talk to the site director, but i doubt he will change anything. What should I do in this case? any advice or situations? Can a site director just give you what they want without looking at evaluations like this?

It is unethical and unprofessional for a site director to give you a bad evaluation a long time after a rotation without sitting you down and talking about what you can change, typically around the midway point. They do it long after the end of the rotation because obviously you will never intrude into their little world again, and they can basically wreak all the emotional damage that they want in your life. Some site directors believe that they should have the sole power and voice in your evaluation, because they feel that they are basically the boss of all of the residents and students at a site, and so they feel that they can ignore the evaluation of residents because obviously they feel that they are superior to the residents, and feel that they could fire the residents at their whim as well. This works against the educational process of medical school where students are required to learn all of the Ins and Outs of a certain single site directors personality to survive/do well.

Medical school is not like college where hard work and dedication are rewarded, or at least not scoffed at, and caring for a patient's emotional well-being and even overall care takes a second fiddle to making a good impression on an attending. If you thought that you could serve humanity by medicine and avoid the back-stabbing seen in business and for-profit ventures then you have a rude awakening, medicine is one of the most politicized professions. Imagine if for biochem if the whole class had to go over to the professors lab and do lab work, while being harassed, while paying tuition, and then have 70% of your grade based on subjective things your biochem professor has to say about you. An honest site director would look at other evaluations and treat them with a certain degree of weight, the more power hungry site directors feel that they are the first and final word in your evaluation.

I would document all of your meetings in writing, make copies of residents evaluations, and tell someone in the school administration that this site director scoffs at resident evaluations. Hopefully, they will realize that he is a loose canon. Medical school administrators lie constantly about what they do behind your back, during the time you were "waiting" for your grade someone might have contacted the site director to see what happened, and he probably gave an answer that didn't make any sense, and so they decided to wait or take a closer look, maybe. Maybe they waited to see if you would forget about the resident evaluations. . . One thing is for sure, the supervisor of this clerkship site director doesn't really care if he's messing around with students or not. Why would he/she? They already have an M.D., med school is a nasty memory, they are *not* going to spend their vacation and faculty buffet time to help a student who did "poorly" in their eyes.

 

[Medstudentquest]

It is unethical and unprofessional for a site director to give you a bad evaluation a long time after a rotation without sitting you down and talking about what you can change, typically around the midway point. They do it at the end of the rotation because obviously you will never intrude into their little world again, and they can basically wreak all the emotional damage that they want in your life. Some site directors believe that they should have the sole power and voice in your evaluation, because they feel that they are basically the boss of all of the residents and students at a site, and so they feel that they can ignore the evaluation of residents because obviously they feel that they are superior to the residents, and feel that they could fire the residents at their whim as well. This works against the educational process of medical school where students are required to learn all of the Ins and Outs of a certain site directors personality to survive/do well.

Medical school is not like college where hard work and dedication are rewarded, or at least not scoffed at. Imagine if for biochem if the whole class had to go over to the professors lab and do lab work, while being harassed, while paying tuition, and then have 70% of your grade based on subjective things your biochem professor has to say about you. An honest site director would look at other evaluations and treat them with a certain degree of weight, the more power hungry site directors feel that they are the first and final word in your evaluation. I would document all of your meetings in writing later words, and tell someone in the school administration that this site director scoffs at resident evaluations. Hopefully, they will realize that he is a loose canon. Medical school administrators lie constantly about what they do behind your back, during the time you were "waiting" for your grade someone might have contacted the site director to see what happened, and he probably gave an answer that didn't make any sense, and so they decided to wait or take a closer look, maybe. Maybe they waited to see if you would forget about the resident evaluations. . . One thing is for sure, the supervisor of this clerkship site director doesn't really care if he's messing around with students or not. Why would they? They already have an M.D., med school is a nasty memory, they are *not* going to spend their vacation and faculty buffet time to help a student who did "poorly" in their eyes.

Right, and what I don't understand is, what could possibly be the rationale behind giving someone a proficient when in a ton of evals received, from SENIOR residents and attendings, there is not a single proficient on the evaluation form? the lowest grade is an advanced!!! furthermore, about 1/3 of the evaluation is not even filled out! there are 6 categories, 2 of those are completely BLANK!!!! the overall director told me to talk to this person, but he is not going to change the grade, i know it. i am not willing to settle for a proficient when the LEAST i deserve is an advanced. i doubt that all the residents and attendings who evaluated me were somehow delusional and gave me awsome evals merely bc they were crazy. and that's what really angers me too! some of the evals were from ATTENDINGS!!!!! if overall director doesn't help me, should i take it to the dean? do you or anyone else know what recourse a student has? i could understand if i had vast interaction with the site director or if i had gotten crappy resident/attending evals. that would have been reasonable. but how is it possible to deduct a proficient from advanced/outstandings?!

What can i do here!

 

[ChildNeuro]

Right, and what I don't understand is, what could possibly be the rationale behind giving someone a proficient when in a ton of evals received, from SENIOR residents and attendings, there is not a single proficient on the evaluation form? the lowest grade is an advanced!!! furthermore, about 1/3 of the evaluation is not even filled out! there are 6 categories, 2 of those are completely BLANK!!!! the overall director told me to talk to this person, but he is not going to change the grade, i know it. i am not willing to settle for a proficient when the LEAST i deserve is an advanced. i doubt that all the residents and attendings who evaluated me were somehow delusional and gave me awsome evals merely bc they were crazy. and that's what really angers me too! some of the evals were from ATTENDINGS!!!!! if overall director doesn't help me, should i take it to the dean? do you or anyone else know what recourse a student has? i could understand if i had vast interaction with the site director or if i had gotten crappy resident/attending evals. that would have been reasonable. but how is it possible to deduct a proficient from advanced/outstandings?!

What can i do here!

I still don't have enough info, was your grade lower than everybody's else's grade or the average grade? Most schools have P, HP, and Honors. Look, it sounds like this site director did some pre-emptive staging, i.e. telling some students that they will get a "proficient" ahead of time, so when it comes time to get your grade you won't complain, but that doesn't make it right. We had a professor who said that he would "make our hearts heavy" or abuse us in different bizarre emotional days, how did he get to do this so long? Because he said he would, same case with you, if you complain to the dean then they will say it is his right to give grades based on what he thinks regardless of what others think because he states this ahead of time. It is ALWAYS a big red flag to have an attending to tell students how they go outside of the norm when it comes to being an attending, it means that they have a wood block on their shoulder and are getting complaints. Even if you are right, you might not "prevail" whatever that means for you, be a grade change or an apology or making it better for future students. Clership directors and site director often develop a feeling of total accuraccy of their students evaluations, which couldn't be further from the truth in alot of cases. Remember, a site or clerkship director states they want to control students grades, which is why they applied for the job, the power, and other attendings let 'em do what they want, they really don't care about the students.

You really need to think more about why your dean wants you to go talk to this person. They are thinking, "I need to get my nails done this afternoon, I am sooo tired of this little pretentious student, I will send this student back to talk to the site director who will make this student understand that we have the power to assign grades, not them. Was this student treated unfairly? I don't know, and don't care to find out, so take it out of my office." You can talk to more deans and professors, it may help future students, but in the end there is not much you can do. Third year is made to make you feel humiliated, harassed and powerless. Being a med student is different from being a college student, for some reason attendings will treat you worse than a dog, march you around like a toddler, and believe that med students should be seen not heard. If you complain they spin it and say you only care about your "career" when really you might want to fix a broken system which produces cold-hearted doctors. You will see what I mean in half a year when you are burnt-out addressing this issue and when it has taken a real emotional toll. You could be a worse situation, like really being harassed and then failed on a rotation, thank your stars that it did't go there.

 

[Medstudentquest]

I still don't have enough info, was your grade lower than everybody's else's grade or the average grade? Most schools have P, HP, and Honors. Look, it sounds like this site director did some pre-emptive staging, i.e. telling some students that they will get a "proficient" ahead of time, so when it comes time to get your grade you won't complain, but that doesn't make it right. We had a professor who said that he would "make our hearts heavy" or abuse us in different bizarre emotional days, how did he get to do this so long? Because he said he would, same case with you, if you complain to the dean then they will say it is his right to give grades based on what he thinks regardless of what others think because he states this ahead of time. It is ALWAYS a big red flag to have an attending to tell students how they go outside of the norm when it comes to being an attending, it means that they have a wood block on their shoulder and are getting complaints. Even if you are right, you might not "prevail" whatever that means for you, be a grade change or an apology or making it better for future students. Clership directors and site director often develop a feeling of total accuraccy of their students evaluations, which couldn't be further from the truth in alot of cases. Remember, a site or clerkship director states they want to control students grades, which is why they applied for the job, the power, and other attendings let 'em do what they want, they really don't care about the students.

So this is the case:
On about the second day of the clerkship, the SITE (not overall) director met with me and I, as I always do, asked about evaluations. He said he gives final one and in so many words said he does not give outstandings, etc. He believes most people are proficient. I gathered multiple evaluations, both from senior residents and attendings, and they all gave me stellar remarks. Even the head of the department at another site where I did part of the rotation told me how great my histories were and wrote "Excellent" on it. All the evaluations were marked "Advanced" or "HP" or "Outstanding" or "H" as your school defines it. In other words, there are multiple categories on the evaluation form, and all were marked as I stated.

You know how sometimes it takes a while to gather all evaluations from residents and attendings, so I turned everything in (along with some H&P's which are required to be turned by our school) a few days later. The site director submitted my grade even before the rotation was over. He did not look at ANY of the evaluations OR the HP's that I turned in. Furthermore, on the final evaluation form that got sent to me, of the 6 categories, 2 of the are not even filled out!! So I contacted the overall director and very politely stated that I did not feel my grade reflected my work or my evaluations. For if the evaluations are not going to count and the director will grade you based on knowing nothing about you, then I might as well not gone in and picked my nose at home for 6 weeks.

I got a P overall, which I think is ridiculous, considered there wasn't even one P marked on any category on any of the multiple evals I turned in. The director did not even look at them!! And that really makes me upset. Why would he do this? It does not make sense! And now this person won't be back until a few months from now. i can't wait that long to get this taken care of!!

I really feel like talking to the dean and showing the dean my proof. Is that wise?

 

[Medstudentquest]

I still don't have enough info, was your grade lower than everybody's else's grade or the average grade? Most schools have P, HP, and Honors. Look, it sounds like this site director did some pre-emptive staging, i.e. telling some students that they will get a "proficient" ahead of time, so when it comes time to get your grade you won't complain, but that doesn't make it right. We had a professor who said that he would "make our hearts heavy" or abuse us in different bizarre emotional days, how did he get to do this so long? Because he said he would, same case with you, if you complain to the dean then they will say it is his right to give grades based on what he thinks regardless of what others think because he states this ahead of time. It is ALWAYS a big red flag to have an attending to tell students how they go outside of the norm when it comes to being an attending, it means that they have a wood block on their shoulder and are getting complaints. Even if you are right, you might not "prevail" whatever that means for you, be a grade change or an apology or making it better for future students. Clership directors and site director often develop a feeling of total accuraccy of their students evaluations, which couldn't be further from the truth in alot of cases. Remember, a site or clerkship director states they want to control students grades, which is why they applied for the job, the power, and other attendings let 'em do what they want, they really don't care about the students.

You really need to think more about why your dean wants you to go talk to this person. They are thinking, "I need to get my nails done this afternoon, I am sooo tired of this little pretentious student, I will send this student back to talk to the site director who will make this student understand that we have the power to assign grades, not them. Was this student treated unfairly? I don't know, and don't care to find out, so take it out of my office." You can talk to more deans and professors, it may help future students, but in the end there is not much you can do. Third year is made to make you feel humiliated, harassed and powerless. Being a med student is different from being a college student, for some reason attendings will treat you worse than a dog, march you around like a toddler, and believe that med students should be seen not heard. If you complain they spin it and say you only care about your "career" when really you might want to fix a broken system which produces cold-hearted doctors. You will see what I mean in half a year when you are burnt-out addressing this issue and when it has taken a real emotional toll. You could be a worse situation, like really being harassed and then failed on a rotation, thank your stars that it did't go there.

Oh and no, it wasn't the dean who made me talk to site director, it was overall director who said this. I have not yet talked to dean. I love our dean though!! Has been immensely helpful to me in the past.

 

[Medstudentquest]

So I posted before about an unfair grade I received in a rotation because the site director did not take a look at any of my evals. I come to find out that a classmate doing the same rotation at same time at same place also got awsome resident evals and got a mediocre overall clinical grade as well. Should we take this to higher spheres: i.e.: dean? i would appreciate suggestions on this issue. thanks.

 

[arthrodisiac]

i suggest you start another 3 topics asking the same question

 

[Medstudentquest]

i suggest you start another 3 topics asking the same question

🙁 How rude.

 

[ChildNeuro]

Oh and no, it wasn't the dean who made me talk to site director, it was overall director who said this. I have not yet talked to dean. I love our dean though!! Has been immensely helpful to me in the past.

I wouldn't expend too much energy trying to figure out this site director. I don't think that your clerkship director was very helpful, and is actually trying to discourage you. Think about it. The clerkship director tells you to go talk to someone who has already made up his mind that he wants to give a sufficient or pass grade. Your clerkship director *knows* that the site director won't change his mind. The clerkship director wants you to go to the site director because he hopes that the site director will better explain to you your unfair treatment. Remember *think*, medical school is very political, the clerkship director supports the site director, duh, otherwise they would not approve of their grading. There are worse situations you could have landed in, i.e. abusive site director, shady grading, forced humiliation and made to repeat clerkship in an abusive environment. Be grateful, other med students have been through more difficult situations than a pass versus honors. I hate to say this, but they are palying you like a fool making you go back and forth to site director then clerkship director. Perhaps this should be addressed if students who are getting excellent evals don't get credit for their work. Believe me, only by talking to the dean, and remember, strenght in numbers will have a chance to prevail, and your attempts to change things may be doomed, and you probably 75% chance won't get to change anything or get justice for yourself, but at least you can say you did what you could to help other students.

 

[Medstudentquest]

I wouldn't expend too much energy trying to figure out this site director. I don't think that your clerkship director was very helpful, and is actually trying to discourage you. Think about it. The clerkship director tells you to go talk to someone who has already made up his mind that he wants to give a sufficient or pass grade. Your clerkship director *knows* that the site director won't change his mind. The clerkship director wants you to go to the site director because he hopes that the site director will better explain to you your unfair treatment. Remember *think*, medical school is very political, the clerkship director supports the site director, duh, otherwise they would not approve of their grading. There are worse situations you could have landed in, i.e. abusive site director, shady grading, forced humiliation and made to repeat clerkship in an abusive environment. Be grateful, other med students have been through more difficult situations than a pass versus honors. I hate to say this, but they are palying you like a fool making you go back and forth to site director then clerkship director. Perhaps this should be addressed if students who are getting excellent evals don't get credit for their work. Believe me, only by talking to the dean, and remember, strenght in numbers will have a chance to prevail, and your attempts to change things may be doomed, and you probably 75% chance won't get to change anything or get justice for yourself, but at least you can say you did what you could to help other students.

I found 2 additional students who had the exact same thing happen to them. One of them was junior AOA. I have gotten pretty much all Outstandings thus far in my other rotations. I am thinking I will be contacting dean. Thanks!

 

[ChildNeuro]

I found 2 additional students who had the exact same thing happen to them. One of them was junior AOA. I have gotten pretty much all Outstandings thus far in my other rotations. I am thinking I will be contacting dean. Thanks!

Before you contact the dean, mind your Ps and Qs, i.e. talk to the site director with a smile on your face, talk to clerkship director with a smile on your face, they may (<0.01% chance) do something slightly helpful. Then when you go to the dean you can say that you truly exhausted all of your avenues. Remember, although what you are doing is correct as it seems you are an excellent student, there is a perception that you are just whinning about a grade, so, elevate it a step higher, do it for future and other students as well. Alot of poor grades given by attendings are secondary to resentment that the attendings had as students, or their need to feel superior to their students, and maybe unconcious, so don't expect the site director to say, "Oh yeah, I guess I have been doing things unfairly towards the students." The site directors comments that all students are proficient, but that he does't give high grades borders on a mental illness as I am sure the dean recommends a certain percentag get honors. He may also be giving lower grades to students he doesn't personally like, probably because he feels threatened by smart students. Medical students should have a right to be fairly evaluated, right now, many students feel that third year is more subjective than objective. I would *highly* recommend scheduling a group meeting with the dean with you and two other students at the same time, that way they can get the perspective of three students and can't easily then start attacking you, and there *is* strength in numbers.

 

[QuinnB]

s*** or get off the pot. Don't waste your time dancing on the fence and just decide that you're going to pursue this or you're not. It is that simple. I think you have already made up your mind and you just want people to make you feel you are in the right just in case.

 

[Medstudentquest]

Before you contact the dean, mind your Ps and Qs, i.e. talk to the site director with a smile on your face, talk to clerkship director with a smile on your face, they may (<0.01% chance) do something slightly helpful. Then when you go to the dean you can say that you truly exhausted all of your avenues. Remember, although what you are doing is correct as it seems you are an excellent student, there is a perception that you are just whinning about a grade, so, elevate it a step higher, do it for future and other students as well. Alot of poor grades given by attendings are secondary to resentment that the attendings had as students, or their need to feel superior to their students, and maybe unconcious, so don't expect the site director to say, "Oh yeah, I guess I have been doing things unfairly towards the students." Medical students should have a right to be fairly evaluated, right now, many students feel that third year is more subjective than objective.

I wrote an immensely polite and nice email to site director who agreed that he would look at my evals. However he won't be back for over a month! I cannot wait for over a month. In that time, all hope will be extinguished. Furthermore, another of the students told me already that the overall director was not receptive when he contacted her. Therefore, it seems that no help will be coming from there. This site director I find it interesting that he told me he was an "average student", and he evaluated residents as "average" when some of them were fantastic and highly regarded at other hospitals. One of the things I hate is when ppl in "power" positions abuse others. And apparently this person has been doing for a while. I am not merely whining, as I am a great student and several other very good students are getting the same grade. I will exhaust my possibilities with these 2 directors and if no go, I will contact dean. Thank you for your help.

 

[Arsenic]

I wrote an immensely polite and nice email to site director...

i've combined your "problem in rotation continued" thread with this one since its the same topic. in the future please only start 1 copy of a thread for any particular topic. good luck figuring out what to do about your situation.

 

[Medstudentquest]

i've combined your "problem in rotation continued" thread with this one since its the same topic. in the future please only start 1 copy of a thread for any particular topic. good luck figuring out what to do about your situation.

sorry, i apologize if i didn't follow protocol or if i angered over caffeinated, sleep deprived, post call med students. 🙂

 

[AmoryBlaine]

I found 2 additional students who had the exact same thing happen to them. One of them was junior AOA. I have gotten pretty much all Outstandings thus far in my other rotations. I am thinking I will be contacting dean. Thanks!

Give 'em hell. Seriously I was reading through all the chatter here and you got royally hosed. This is your career you are talking about here, clinical grades are important. Who gives a whoop if one or two attendings think you whined about your grade?

Keep going higher though. Definitely continue to try to involve the Dean. Documentation is important so I like your ideas of bringing copies of all the forms to show the discrepancy.

One of my friends was on a rotation with a particularly stingy doc. This guy worked himself almost into the ground on a rotation in his desired field. The doc rewarded him with a 3/5 and the student basically refused to sign the grade evaluation right there in front of him until he changed it.

So I'm sure the doc was a littled miffed for a few minutes, but the student ended up with an "H" instead of a "P."

 

[Medstudentquest]

Give 'em hell. Seriously I was reading through all the chatter here and you got royally hosed. This is your career you are talking about here, clinical grades are important. Who gives a whoop if one or two attendings think you whined about your grade?

Keep going higher though. Definitely continue to try to involve the Dean. Documentation is important so I like your ideas of bringing copies of all the forms to show the discrepancy.

One of my friends was on a rotation with a particularly stingy doc. This guy worked himself almost into the ground on a rotation in his desired field. The doc rewarded him with a 3/5 and the student basically refused to sign the grade evaluation right there in front of him until he changed it.

So I'm sure the doc was a littled miffed for a few minutes, but the student ended up with an "H" instead of a "P."

Yep, I found an additional 3 other students who did the same rotation at the same place with same site director and everyone got a P! Mind you, some of these students are AOA, and everyone in general is fabulous. All of our evals had HP/H on it and we all get proficient. I also found it very discouraging that the overall director did not help with this. One of the students I asked said he too tried to talk to the clerkship director and she did not help him. He also said he asked the site director if he had looked at the resident evals and site director said yes, but still gave the guy a proficient! It's like we are in twighlight zone. I thought about dropping it, but I am so angered at the utter injustice of this! It also upsets me that I'd have to wait over a month for this to get resolved since the site director is on leave. And can you believe that my own eval was not even completed in its entirety? 2 of the categories are not even filled out!! Ahh! This is nuts.

I emailed site director again asking if I could send her my evals or if someone else could compile them and I'm waiting for that answer. If I get the run around, then I will try to incorporate these other students into a group meeting with the guy. If that doesn't work, then I'll be going to see the dean with whom I have a really good relationship with and is really helpful and fair to students. The way it should be! This is my furture darn it! Why should I be screwed over?

I will also, considering that this is a repetitive pattern that he does to most students, suggest that this site be dropped from the participating hospital sites because it is unfair. Had I known this, I would have gone elsewhere. Wish me luck!

 

[randomlogik]

Do you know if anyone at the site got a grade higher than Pass? It seems kind of silly to show up with like 10 people and expect all 10 of them to get their grades raised. At my school, there was a bell curve that was used, so it was impossible for everyone to get honors. As frustrating as it is, perhaps that is what your site director was trying to do? Also you never mentioned exams. Did you not take a shelf exam?

 

[Medstudentquest]

Do you know if anyone at the site got a grade higher than Pass? It seems kind of silly to show up with like 10 people and expect all 10 of them to get their grades raised. At my school, there was a bell curve that was used, so it was impossible for everyone to get honors. As frustrating as it is, perhaps that is what your site director was trying to do? Also you never mentioned exams. Did you not take a shelf exam?

I don't believe anyone has gotten grades higher than a pass. I think grades should be derived from the evaluations given by the people who work with you. What's the point of getting evaluations then if they are not going to count? There is no bell curve I believe at my school. No, the site director is someone who is unliked by just about everyone, including residents and attendings at the site, and who is condescending and tries to put people down. Even the senior residents complained of how he talked to them like they were children.

I understand not everyone can get Honors, but at the same time it makes no sense that everyone is getting proficients. Besides a grade should be a compilation of the evaluations given. How else is the grade to be determined? If not, let's just put P, HP, and H in a hat and let's pick one out of the hat. The shelf exam is separate from the clinical grade. My problem is with the clinical.

 

[ChildNeuro]

I don't believe anyone has gotten grades higher than a pass. I think grades should be derived from the evaluations given by the people who work with you. What's the point of getting evaluations then if they are not going to count? There is no bell curve I believe at my school. No, the site director is someone who is unliked by just about everyone, including residents and attendings at the site, and who is condescending and tries to put people down. Even the senior residents complained of how he talked to them like they were children.

I understand not everyone can get Honors, but at the same time it makes no sense that everyone is getting proficients. Besides a grade should be a compilation of the evaluations given. How else is the grade to be determined? If not, let's just put P, HP, and H in a hat and let's pick one out of the hat. The shelf exam is separate from the clinical grade. My problem is with the clinical.

This sounds like an attending who likes to subordinate everyone around him, by condescending remarks, and would never give a high pass or honors grade because he himself didn't receive that grade, or just feels a need to be better than everyone else. It is a big red flag when you have an attending who treats everyone like a child, this is because they don't care about their effects on others, and probably tries to fail students who stand up to his ways. There is a huge subjective component to third year evaluations, and realize that if you do very well on everything else you will have a good shot at any residency you want. Do what you think you need to do to address this wrong as this professor seems to be doing something weird with grading. Unfortunately, professors like this can do things that will eat away at you, i.e. unfair treatment on the wards or via a back-stabbing out of the blue evaluation. Focus on other things you need to do, he has already taken up to much of your time as a medical student via his cold maltreatment of you. I hope you get a speedy resolution so you can back on track with the rest of your clinical education, I would go to the dean and make a formal complaint with other students if this is not resolved in the next meeting with the overall clerkship director, good changes happen in medicine when students try to resolve situations like these. Can you say what rotation/elective this was?

 

[Medstudentquest]

This sounds like an attending who likes to subordinate everyone around him, by condescending remarks, and would never give a high pass or honors grade because he himself didn't receive that grade, or just feels a need to be better than everyone else. It is a big red flag when you have an attending who treats everyone like a child, this is because they don't care about their effects on others, and probably tries to fail students who stand up to his ways. There is a huge subjective component to third year evaluations, and realize that if you do very well on everything else you will have a good shot at any residency you want. Do what you think you need to do to address this wrong as this professor seems to be doing something weird with grading. Unfortunately, professors like this can do things that will eat away at you, i.e. unfair treatment on the wards or via a back-stabbing out of the blue evaluation. Focus on other things you need to do, he has already taken up to much of your time as a medical student via his cold maltreatment of you. I hope you get a speedy resolution so you can back on track with the rest of your clinical education, I would go to the dean and make a formal complaint with other students if this is not resolved in the next meeting with the overall clerkship director, good changes happen in medicine when students try to resolve situations like these. Can you say what rotation/elective this was?

Thanks. I think you got it exactly right when you said that he won't give high grades because he himself did not get them. This person even said, "I was a very average student." I was thinking to myself, well you might have been, but I'm not. I'm an excellent hard working student. Do you think though that the dean would have any power to do grade changes if this person or the clerkship director did not cooperate? I believe that the clerkship director has received multiple complaints about the grading situation with this site director, but she has not done anything! Like I said, she even told me to go talk to site director first. I can't find the grading dispute proceedings on my school website either. I think also that other students have asked the site director about grade changes and he has said that he did review the resident evals but apparently, did not agree with them or something. I just don't know how they can let someone pick an arbitrary capricious grade out of a hat!!! And the clerkship director told me I would have to wait until the site director gets back from leave to discuss thigns.

When I emailed site director he said he'd look at my evals, but I don't think he'll change something. I am also unsure if other students are willling to put up with all the time and energy it takes to fight this. I wonder if I should still go to the dean if no one else wants to take it this high up?