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- Nov 9, 2005
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I interviewed recently at a school where I asked my interviewer how third and fourth year students were protected from scutwork (I think I actually got that question from reading SDN). I further clarified my definition of scutwork by saying any "menial" jobs that would not be worthwhile for a med student to do. She came back at me telling me she was surprised at my concern over the amount of scutwork given my previous experiences. She said that whether we were running specimens to a lab (perhaps speeding up the testing) or doing any "dirty" work, it was for the benefit of the patient, so she thought that if we were truly there for the patients, we wouldn't mind doing even the simplest tasks, regardless of our qualifications of lack thereof. I went on for the next minute or so trying to think of an example of scutwork that doesn't really help the patient in any way, but I really couldn't. Can any of you?
Is scutwork really that bad if it's all for the benefit of the patient? Reading the forum, scutwork seems to be evil or a waste of time in the mind of most of the people here. This idea kind of goes back to an earlier post where someone quit their job and told off their supervisor because they thought they were "above" a certain job or duty. Are we really "above" scutwork or should we suck it up and do whatever is asked of us (even if we're paying thousands of dollars and have the training to perform more complex tasks)? At the same time, I think that scutwork probably has limited educational value (besides teaching us humility) and does not help our training as a physician - I should've thought of this at the interview, but only thought of this afterwards. So is there any value (service, social, educational, etc) in scutwork or should we view it with utter disdain as most people seem to do? I'm sure the answer to this question will depend on the situation as well, but feel free to find any situation to make your point - even if it renders this debate kind of pointless.
Is scutwork really that bad if it's all for the benefit of the patient? Reading the forum, scutwork seems to be evil or a waste of time in the mind of most of the people here. This idea kind of goes back to an earlier post where someone quit their job and told off their supervisor because they thought they were "above" a certain job or duty. Are we really "above" scutwork or should we suck it up and do whatever is asked of us (even if we're paying thousands of dollars and have the training to perform more complex tasks)? At the same time, I think that scutwork probably has limited educational value (besides teaching us humility) and does not help our training as a physician - I should've thought of this at the interview, but only thought of this afterwards. So is there any value (service, social, educational, etc) in scutwork or should we view it with utter disdain as most people seem to do? I'm sure the answer to this question will depend on the situation as well, but feel free to find any situation to make your point - even if it renders this debate kind of pointless.