Hi there,
I haven't encoutered the surgery personality stereotype in my residency or while I was in medical school or during my visiting clerkships. Most of my fellow residents are hard-working, funny and going through the same stuff that I am. We laugh together and we suffer together. Internship and residency is a good experience to keep you from taking yourself too seriously.
The difficult personalites find that they create more work for themselves than solve problems. My residency director and he is a great residency director, does not tolerate idiots very well. We have to be professionals and he demands excellence. If you have been a total jerk, you are going to find yourself the "butt" of many jokes at the annual chief's banquet at the end of the year. The interns get to make up skits about the chiefs and the chiefs get to make up skits about us. Like I said, you learn not to take yourself too seriously.
I found in medical school, that once we got to third-year, the edgy personalities tended to be humbled. We ended up being about the business of getting the work done and getting through each rotation. In every class, there is someone who is "God's gift to Medicine or Surgery". I applaud them and I wish there were on some of my rotations this year. I could use a "God's gift" at this point.
Always remember that when someone feels the obligation to "toot their own horn" they are probably trying to compensate for some perceived trait that they lack. Usually they are making fun of the very thing in another person that they lack in themselves. Laugh at them and move on. We are all trying to learn to give the best patient care that we can and as a surgeon, I find that I rely more and more on my medicine and pediatric colleagues for helping me out with complex patients as I move through residency. I return the favors too.
Also remember that none of us were born knowing everything in medicine and how to practice. If that were the case, your boastful colleagues could have skipped medical school and residency. On any given day, I do a "sanity check" for why I entered surgery but in truth, I love what I do and I suspect that my colleagues in medicine, pediatrics feel the same way.
Enjoy!!
njbmd