Surprise burn on evaluations

[Vyacheslav Grinko]

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Hello everyone. I'm a US 4th-year (as of a couple weeks ago, I guess) completing a nearly year-long longitudinal program that encompasses several required rotations at one site. While here, I worked primarily with a preceptor who's only worked with students in this program for one year; I'm the preceptor's second longitudinal student.

While here, I spent a handful of days with my preceptor's predecessor, who has worked with students in this program for a number of years but has given it up more recently. Days with this doctor were relatively straightforward: primary care clinic, relatively uncomplicated patients, and days that finished on-time. I never heard any negative feedback or any indication that I was performing sub-par.
Evaluation time rolled around and I found out that I HAD been performing sub-par. This doctor, in particular, had some fairly harsh criticism of me.

Here's the thing: I know now that I had areas that needed significant improvement. I had spoken with my preceptor about this a few weeks ago, and I was given honest, specific, and helpful criticism, as well as precise advice about what I needed to do to improve. I recognized deficiencies in how I budget my time, and my spouse and I had a conversation about expectations in our marriage. The bottom line is that I realized this ONLY because I sought out specific criticism from my preceptor. The other doctor that I worked with offered no criticism to my face, but gave my school a very harsh review of me.
I'm not angry about being criticized; I'm honestly shocked that I worked with this other doctor intermittently for several weeks and was never given any feedback like this in person in spite of me asking, only to find out at evaluation time that I had been under-performing the whole time.

I guess I'm just looking for understanding. Has anyone else had something of an epiphany in 3rd or 4th year about how you're approaching your rotations? Has anyone else been surprised by unexpected feedback from an otherwise friendly attending who gave no indication of deficiency?

 

[DermViser]

So you asked for feedback and he/she gave you no feedback at that time mid-rotation? I'm curious if this is Harvard since you mentioned longitudinal clerkships.

 

[Vyacheslav Grinko]

Nope, not Harvard.
I didn't spend a full rotation with the doctor. It was more of a, "Hey, you should go spend some time with Dr. So-and-so; they used to do this precepting thing a lot and it's probably good for you to get different perspectives from different people." I honestly didn't realize that this doctor would be evaluating me at all. I'm not saying that I gave a poor effort because I thought I wouldn't be evaluated; again, I've made some major corrections throughout my rotations, but this doctor hasn't worked with me since.

 

[ROBINHO]

well in real life -residency attendings who are friendly with you on the floors could end up giving you bad evaluations even though u weren't offered criticism. U she be prepared for that. From what u wrote looks like the preceptor also noted some areas of deficiencies so I think u shouldnt dwell so much on how the other doctor ended up delivering same information to u....u concentrate on how to move on from this point. That includes intermittently seeking feedback from attendings during a rotation...dont even wait till mid rotation or don't wait for attending to offer

 

[Winged Scapula]

Unfortunately many faculty members do not do evaluations well especially if they have negative things to say; it's human nature (for most of us) to avoid confrontation and negative emotions.

All programs should have documented policy on how evaluations are to be done. For example, my end of rotation evaluations are to be done in person and there is a question which specifically states, "did the student approach you half way through the rotation for performance feedback"? Thus it would appear that the onus is on the student to solicit feedback halfway through so as to minimize "surprises". I personally make sure that the student gets feedback all the way through the month.

Therefore if your schools policy states that the supervising physician is to give you feedback halfway through the rotation you may have a case for an appeal.

 

[Nasrudin]

In medicine I think too much is made of an attending's opinion of a medical student. I've gotten both undeservedly negative and positive comments. Although far more of the latter. The truth is somewhere in between and I know where I'm at. What I want is demonstration of how to do what I'm supposed to do. By someone who does it well. Residents, attendings, other medical students, whoever. And there's always plenty of that. The internal drive to move yourself in that direction and recognizing your distance from it is not all related to the interpersonal politics of evaluation.

If anything relying too much on momentary encounters with an attending can disorient your self-assessment capability. I had the luxury of entering a non-competive field and could therefore treat my evals with proper distance but it's an unfortunate reality that not everyone has the luxury. Entering a competitive field means mastering the psychological game being played in the evaluation process.

Which clearly the OP played less than optimally.

What the lesson is depends on what you need out of your education on the one hand and your performance on the other.

 

[Kaustikos]

Unfortunately many faculty members do not do evaluations well especially if they have negative things to say; it's human nature (for most of us) to avoid confrontation and negative emotions.

All programs should have documented policy on how evaluations are to be done. For example, my end of rotation evaluations are to be done in person and there is a question which specifically states, "did the student approach you half way through the rotation for performance feedback"? Thus it would appear that the onus is on the student to solicit feedback halfway through so as to minimize "surprises". I personally make sure that the student gets feedback all the way through the month.

Therefore if your schools policy states that the supervising physician is to give you feedback halfway through the rotation you may have a case for an appeal.

Yeah,
I realized early the subjective bias people follow in evaluations from residents/attendings and med students. It's an unfortunate reality, like you said, that people will not be up front with you and instead write scathing evaluations without telling you they don't like you/think you're doing a good job. If anything; I've experienced the failures from these evaluations and unwarranted criticisms and it's left a horrible taste in my mouth of people and the field of medicine. Being outright criticized for professionalism because I dedicated my time/effort to the patients/team instead of class (which the syllabus actually explicitly states is the most important thing) made me realize that you can't please everyone in this game 100% of the time.
I've sent out emails to underclassmen and talked to them to make sure they're prepared for this. Your confidence can come off as arrogant. Your jokes can come across as offensive or inappropriate. Your decisions can be brutally misconstrued as wrong/hurtful/unprofessional despite your intentions. Appealing it rarely helps even with strong evidence arguing otherwise. Being a fourth year, I actually have not only brushed these things off but feel comfortable in mocking these claims as outlandish just by how my team/patients feel about me.

Also - Administration is a bitch.

 

[DermViser]

What I want is demonstration of how to do what I'm supposed to do. By someone who does it well. Residents, attendings, other medical students, whoever. And there's always plenty of that. The internal drive to move yourself in that direction and recognizing your distance from it is not all related to the interpersonal politics of evaluation.

Good luck with that, in medicine you'll be labeled as wanting to be spoon-fed (wrongfully I might add).

 

[DermViser]

Yeah,
I realized early the subjective bias people follow in evaluations from residents/attendings and med students. It's an unfortunate reality, like you said, that people will not be up front with you and instead write scathing evaluations without telling you they don't like you/think you're doing a good job. If anything; I've experienced the failures from these evaluations and unwarranted criticisms and it's left a horrible taste in my mouth of people and the field of medicine. Being outright criticized for professionalism because I dedicated my time/effort to the patients/team instead of class (which the syllabus actually explicitly states is the most important thing) made me realize that you can't please everyone in this game 100% of the time.
I've sent out emails to underclassmen and talked to them to make sure they're prepared for this. Your confidence can come off as arrogant. Your jokes can come across as offensive or inappropriate. Your decisions can be brutally misconstrued as wrong/hurtful/unprofessional despite your intentions. Appealing it rarely helps even with strong evidence arguing otherwise. Being a fourth year, I actually have not only brushed these things off but feel comfortable in mocking these claims as outlandish just by how my team/patients feel about me.

Also - Administration is a bitch.

I agree. You intent is absolutely irrelevant. What is important is how your action is interpreted, which can vary depending on the type of resident/attending you encounter (i.e. an OB-Gyn resident). All the more reason documentation is so important so you can't be accused of --- being late to things, not seeing patients, etc.

And if you argue back or try to take it up the ladder, administrators will be more than happy to accuse you of being "unprofessional". This is something I think that most medical students coming from MS-1/MS-2 who truly loved learning during those years, don't understand when they hit MS-3. The medical school administration will always take the side of teaching faculty over you, bc they can afford to lose you, but not afford to lose their faculty.

Your teacher is no longer the PhD professor who will treat you well and respect your thoughts in the safety of a classroom. It's now residents and attendings who are in the middle of doing their jobs.

 

[Nasrudin]

Good luck with that, in medicine you'll be labeled as wanting to be spoon-fed (wrongfully I might add).

You misinterpret what I mean by demonstrate. For example, the resident presents his/her plan to the attending and the team. Their discussion is a demonstration of clinical reasoning. Demonstrations are everywhere. Learning clinical skill is a gestalt modality.

Holding students accountable to brief moments of stage time as a measure of performance, in my opinion, erodes the right sort of motivation and detracts from learning to do the work well.

Everybody knows colleagues who ace the process of evaluation but yet are ****ty to work with and would not be someone you want on your team. What we practice becomes what we will be. These people perhaps will be the attendings who are supremely confident in divining your nature and status along the Way by sensing your aura in passing regard.

 

[Lavan]

I had many of my former peers get evaluations thrown out. Typically, the more bad and more overblown the eval, the easier it was for them. Especially if most of other evals are "good," the bad ones can be tossed as anomalies. Honestly, I've seen some pretty accurate neg evals deleted.

 

[calvnandhobbs68]

Unfortunately many faculty members do not do evaluations well especially if they have negative things to say; it's human nature (for most of us) to avoid confrontation and negative emotions.

All programs should have documented policy on how evaluations are to be done. For example, my end of rotation evaluations are to be done in person and there is a question which specifically states, "did the student approach you half way through the rotation for performance feedback"? Thus it would appear that the onus is on the student to solicit feedback halfway through so as to minimize "surprises". I personally make sure that the student gets feedback all the way through the month.

Therefore if your schools policy states that the supervising physician is to give you feedback halfway through the rotation you may have a case for an appeal.

Only problem with this is that most of us have also had the attending who tells us "you're doing great, don't change anything", even when we specifically ask what we could work on, during "mid-rotation feedback" and then burns us on evals. Thus why I usually stopped soliciting mid-rotation feedback halfway through the year unless the rotation specifically required it.

You can always get screwed.

 

[Nasrudin]

Only problem with this is that most of us have also had the attending who tells us "you're doing great, don't change anything", even when we specifically ask what we could work on, during "mid-rotation feedback" and then burns us on evals. Thus why I usually stopped soliciting mid-rotation feedback halfway through the year unless the rotation specifically required it.

You can always get screwed.

I agree completely. Additionally I feel like why am I gonna ask someone who I make couple 5 minute pitches to during rounds how I am doing. I ask the lead resident how I'm doing. The person I work with all day long. The person who will actually remember which eval sheet with my name on it is me.

Otherwise accurate self-evaluation is orders of magnitude more important than the time honored nonsense of being evaluated by people who were medical students in a remotely different era. Who ask...what is this Shelf Exam you speak of padawan?

I'll put more stock in their opinion as a resident. Because I will be an extension of their license. I feel like that's where the nonsense begins to recede and the real clinical evaluation begins. They will have a greater appreciation about how I function--poorly or effectively in total--on their service rather than how I appear when it's me putting their ass on the line.

 

[Winged Scapula]

Only problem with this is that most of us have also had the attending who tells us "you're doing great, don't change anything", even when we specifically ask what we could work on, during "mid-rotation feedback" and then burns us on evals. Thus why I usually stopped soliciting mid-rotation feedback halfway through the year unless the rotation specifically required it.

You can always get screwed.

Oh I understand that; was on the receiving end myself a few times during residency. Our students are required to ask but I fail to see a downside to asking - yes they might not be truthful (because they are too immature to discuss these things with the student ) but they might actually have something valuable to say which could change the course of your grade.

 

[Vyacheslav Grinko]

well in real life -residency attendings who are friendly with you on the floors could end up giving you bad evaluations even though u weren't offered criticism.

Unfortunately many faculty members do not do evaluations well especially if they have negative things to say; it's human nature (for most of us) to avoid confrontation and negative emotions.

Only problem with this is that most of us have also had the attending who tells us "you're doing great, don't change anything", even when we specifically ask what we could work on, during "mid-rotation feedback" and then burns us on evals.

This, this, a thousand times this. I requested feedback regularly, and was never given any negative feedback or even specific areas to improve. I guess the bigger lesson moving ahead into 4th year is that this can happen with any attending. Additionally, play cards closer to chest.

The truth is somewhere in between and I know where I'm at.

While I sort of knew that I wasn't putting in quite enough time, I didn't realize it was significant enough to garner a failing evaluation. This is where yes, it's good to know thyself, but it's even more helpful to solicit honest feedback from someone who will say it straight. On this longitudinal rotation, I am one of at most three med students in the clinic, so it's difficult to stratify my experience compared to my peers. This makes honest feedback from the attending even more crucial.

What the lesson is depends on what you need out of your education on the one hand and your performance on the other.

I've gotten several excellent lessons out of this. 1) I have a much clearer idea of the expectations of a student at my level. 2) I've learned that it's totally conceivable to have an attending say encouraging things to my face and then burn me on evals. 3) I've learned to play things a little closer to the chest, because we say can easily be misinterpreted.

What we practice becomes what we will be.

Which, again, makes me glad that I got better feedback from my primary preceptor, because I want to be a good clinician, and I wasn't on the track to do that before.

I fail to see a downside to asking - yes they might not be truthful (because they are too immature to discuss these things with the student ) but they might actually have something valuable to say which could change the course of your grade.

I agree that it doesn't hurt to ask; I just wish that this attending had been willing to be honest instead of being friendly and encouraging to my face and then telling the school something completely opposite.

Update: I spoke with school administration and I'm not at risk of failing. They've contacted my primary preceptor, who's contacted the other attending, who said that it was not intended that I fail the rotation, but just that I get honest (and, frankly, scary) feedback so that I can readjust my methods and restructure my time.

The bottom line is that I'll be fine regarding this rotation.

This brings up a couple of other interesting discussions. First of all, my spouse, who is trained in secondary education, has consistently been mortified at how poorly assessment is done in medical school. From multiple choice questions that are so blatantly obvious that 95% of the class gets them right (a consistent trend with one of our genetics PhDs) to instructors who threw a handful of resources at us, said "Here, I'm not going to lecture, so just read this" and then threw questions at us that <30% of the class got right, the test design has ranged from fair to abysmal. My spouse's complaint is that most of these instructors never really receive any significant training in how to teach. They get their PhDs and then they're considered good to go. This results in teaching quality that varies widely from instructor to instructor.

The other point that's interesting to me is that it took me basically until the end of 3rd year to be told, "Hey, you're not stepping up and you need to change that." Honestly, of the ten attendings I've worked with on this longitudinal program, only two of them have ever been anything less than enthusiastically positive regarding my performance. These two were a) a general surgeon who's had major interpersonal problems with past students, who's not going to precept anymore after this year, and whose father died during the first week of my rotation and b) an OB/GYN D.O. who is new to practice and still vehemently angry and bitter towards the world and life in general. The general surgeon honestly gave me good feedback that I was able to work with that helped me to improve. The OB doc was just angry at everybody and bitched at me for not pulling my own gloves in the OR (where the scrubs pulled everything for me anyway because they knew I was coming before I could ever get to the room).

Anyway, thank you all for the opinions, advice, and encouragement. The upside to this is that I've learned a lot about myself, how I learn, and how to optimize my learning methods. At least I'm coming out of this wiser than I started.

 

[Prncssbuttercup]

I am involved with my state medical society, and this is one of the things that came up at a meeting. In medicine, more than any other field, people see you approaching the 'professionalism' line, and while they have the power to say 'stop, you're about to cross this line' they refuse to do so. Whether that means jokes, stories, comments, etc or it means time spent, patient interactions, etc depends on the person. What the reasons are behind this mentality, I cannot say, I can say it exists, and it is pervasive. The even better part is, they'll let you dance back and forth across the line, while saying nothing, until they decide they can screw you or that you've annoyed them, or whatever the reason is and they finally write you up. This of course leaves the student with the 'WTFFFFF just happened' feeling because 'I've asked for feedback and received none'. Of course not, that would not be part of the hazing/mind games. There are things that most normal people consider normal behavior, but in the world of medicine it is looked upon like spitting on someone's face. You are not the only person to have had these things happen, and you won't be the last, but remember this if you take on students in the future. The only way to change the culture is to start with yourself. Remember that when you were a student/resident you didn't like having these issues, and if you see it someone because you passed them in the hall, try not to take the 'oh well not my problem' approach.

 

[Kaustikos]

I've gotten several excellent lessons out of this. 1) I have a much clearer idea of the expectations of a student at my level. 2) I've learned that it's totally conceivable to have an attending say encouraging things to my face and then burn me on evals. 3) I've learned to play things a little closer to the chest, because we say can easily be misinterpreted.

Update: I spoke with school administration and I'm not at risk of failing. They've contacted my primary preceptor, who's contacted the other attending, who said that it was not intended that I fail the rotation, but just that I get honest (and, frankly, scary) feedback so that I can readjust my methods and restructure my time.

The bottom line is that I'll be fine regarding this rotation.

This brings up a couple of other interesting discussions. First of all, my spouse, who is trained in secondary education, has consistently been mortified at how poorly assessment is done in medical school. From multiple choice questions that are so blatantly obvious that 95% of the class gets them right (a consistent trend with one of our genetics PhDs) to instructors who threw a handful of resources at us, said "Here, I'm not going to lecture, so just read this" and then threw questions at us that <30% of the class got right, the test design has ranged from fair to abysmal. My spouse's complaint is that most of these instructors never really receive any significant training in how to teach. They get their PhDs and then they're considered good to go. This results in teaching quality that varies widely from instructor to instructor.

The other point that's interesting to me is that it took me basically until the end of 3rd year to be told, "Hey, you're not stepping up and you need to change that." Honestly, of the ten attendings I've worked with on this longitudinal program, only two of them have ever been anything less than enthusiastically positive regarding my performance. These two were a) a general surgeon who's had major interpersonal problems with past students, who's not going to precept anymore after this year, and whose father died during the first week of my rotation and b) an OB/GYN D.O. who is new to practice and still vehemently angry and bitter towards the world and life in general. The general surgeon honestly gave me good feedback that I was able to work with that helped me to improve. The OB doc was just angry at everybody and bitched at me for not pulling my own gloves in the OR (where the scrubs pulled everything for me anyway because they knew I was coming before I could ever get to the room).

Anyway, thank you all for the opinions, advice, and encouragement. The upside to this is that I've learned a lot about myself, how I learn, and how to optimize my learning methods. At least I'm coming out of this wiser than I started.

Assessments are bad in Med School because we're thrown into a professional program where we don't teach how you're supposed to evaluate your peers/students/etc. When you go into a work environment, you learn very well how evaluations and assessments are supposed to be done. Having the fortune (or misfortunate...I dunno) of working before school, I took that approach when evaluating people. I gave my peers good evaluations not because I didn't care but it dealt with knowing that unless these people cheated/killed someone/etc, I'm not going to try and screw them over during school. I learned the reality when peers who didn't like me because I was candid, sarcastic or facetious in public and took that to heart and gave me failed evaluations saying "I wouldn't trust this person as a doctor EVER". No big deal since they're students, but I saw it again with residents who just because they didn't like the way I dressed would make it their own agenda to write a failed evaluation. Again, no big deal since my evaluations depend on the attending/faculty, but it does worry me that these people will never learn how evaluations work.
The flip side is this attending I had in medicine who would always give 9/9 for evaluations to the students unless they were just horrible. Come to find out he tells myself and two students with him that he can't give 9/9 because one student found out and told on him. He was punished for doing that and told him it was "unprofessional" to do that. He tried to do a good thing and it cost him... go figure.

I am involved with my state medical society, and this is one of the things that came up at a meeting. In medicine, more than any other field, people see you approaching the 'professionalism' line, and while they have the power to say 'stop, you're about to cross this line' they refuse to do so. Whether that means jokes, stories, comments, etc or it means time spent, patient interactions, etc depends on the person. What the reasons are behind this mentality, I cannot say, I can say it exists, and it is pervasive. The even better part is, they'll let you dance back and forth across the line, while saying nothing, until they decide they can screw you or that you've annoyed them, or whatever the reason is and they finally write you up. This of course leaves the student with the 'WTFFFFF just happened' feeling because 'I've asked for feedback and received none'. Of course not, that would not be part of the hazing/mind games. There are things that most normal people consider normal behavior, but in the world of medicine it is looked upon like spitting on someone's face. You are not the only person to have had these things happen, and you won't be the last, but remember this if you take on students in the future. The only way to change the culture is to start with yourself. Remember that when you were a student/resident you didn't like having these issues, and if you see it someone because you passed them in the hall, try not to take the 'oh well not my problem' approach.

Because people can't handle confrontation and don't want to deal with it. They would rather lie to the student/etc and then "safely" rip them apart without possible ramifications. I mean, I HAVE heard stories of students going crazy when a resident/staff tried to critique them. The immaturity of not being able to evaluate someone properly is not as bad as the immaturity of not being able to receive criticism well. When my preceptor on Psych showed me an email from a student whom she "evaluated" in person (the name was omitted) with open threats and comments about knowing where she worked/lived, I saw why some people don't want to evaluate students.

 

[operaman]

Our clerkship directors definitely toss out aberrant evaluations regardless of whether they were written by an attending or resident or whoever. There are a couple of attendings who apparently hate everybody and their comments always disappear and aren't considered in the grade or on the MSPE. Usually this happens before we even see them, but if one gets through that seems way out of line with all the others, I would definitely bring it up with the clerkship director. Sometimes mistakes get made. I received some comments on one rotation that were obviously and comically not about me at all, but it was quickly fixed. I would always approach things first with the attitude of, "I hate to bother you about this but this evaluation seems drastically different from all of my others and I just wanted to make sure there wasn't an error. Can you look into this for me?" That's a nice PC way to set the ball in motion without stepping on any toes; most clerkship directors will talk with the evaluator and look at your other evals and will probably drop an outlier eval unless there was some extenuating circumstance.

 

[DermViser]

Our clerkship directors definitely toss out aberrant evaluations regardless of whether they were written by an attending or resident or whoever. There are a couple of attendings who apparently hate everybody and their comments always disappear and aren't considered in the grade or on the MSPE. Usually this happens before we even see them, but if one gets through that seems way out of line with all the others, I would definitely bring it up with the clerkship director. Sometimes mistakes get made. I received some comments on one rotation that were obviously and comically not about me at all, but it was quickly fixed. I would always approach things first with the attitude of, "I hate to bother you about this but this evaluation seems drastically different from all of my others and I just wanted to make sure there wasn't an error. Can you look into this for me?" That's a nice PC way to set the ball in motion without stepping on any toes; most clerkship directors will talk with the evaluator and look at your other evals and will probably drop an outlier eval unless there was some extenuating circumstance.

You must have a real nice school. Most med schools have policies and rules against this.

 

[operaman]

Well, I'm sure no school has policies against correcting outright errors. As to outlier comments, I'm not sure what the official policy is, but the practice is some minor adjustment if it's warranted. Now, if the clerkship director talks to the attending or resident and they have some solid reasoning behind their evals, then it may stand. But some departments in every institution have a couple of bad apples that think they alone are the only ones qualified to be physicians and that all med students suck. The comments from these people may never even make it to the student, much less the dean's office.

 

[tdram]

I had a clerkship where I had several excellent evals and one scathing eval... The clerkship director called me in to talk about the bad eval and even though I pointed out it was a clear outlier, she wouldn't discount it, and actually put far more emphasis on it because, as she told me, it happened to be written by a close friend of hers, whom she trusted far more than the 6 or 7 other attendings who gave me great, detailed comments.

 

[DermViser]

I had a clerkship where I had several excellent evals and one scathing eval... The clerkship director called me in to talk about the bad eval and even though I pointed out it was a clear outlier, she wouldn't discount it, and actually put far more emphasis on it because, as she told me, it happened to be written by a close friend of hers, whom she trusted far more than the 6 or 7 other attendings who gave me great, detailed comments.

That is terrible. DEFINITELY talk to your Dean of Student Affairs about this.

 

[tdram]

That is terrible. DEFINITELY talk to your Dean of Student Affairs about this.

I did talk to the dean. He talked to the clerkship director, we went back and forth for a bit, in the end they told me that the negative comments would not appear in my dean's letter, but my grade would not be recalculated. I guess that's better than nothing, but it's still unfair.

 

[DermViser]

I did talk to the dean. He talked to the clerkship director, we went back and forth for a bit, in the end they told me that the negative comments would not appear in my dean's letter, but my grade would not be recalculated. I guess that's better than nothing, but it's still unfair.

That's real weird. Usually when they throw out the evaluation, it's obviously thrown out of the calculation. Talk about unprofessionalism on the clerkship director's part. That's why there are school policies on "capricious grading" to stop things like that from happening, although they can be quite vague. And now you know why former alumni don't donate back to their school.

 

[Top Gun]

That's real weird. Usually when they throw out the evaluation, it's obviously thrown out of the calculation. Talk about unprofessionalism on the clerkship director's part. That's why there are school policies on "capricious grading" to stop things like that from happening, although they can be quite vague. And now you know why former alumni don't donate back to their school.

Yes, and not to mention clear nepotism on the part of the clerkship director. Unfortunately, this sort of thing does happen sometimes in medical education. Its a sad fact that attendings close to those in positions of power often get their way.

 

[tdram]

Yes, and not to mention clear nepotism on the part of the clerkship director. Unfortunately, this sort of thing does happen sometimes in medical education. Its a sad fact that attendings close to those in positions of power often get their way.

Yes, it was clear nepotism, no doubt. What bothered me the most was that she blamed me for over-reacting. She told me that my response to the comments displayed a lack of professional maturity and that I needed to learn how to accept and learn from criticism. I mean... really?

 

[DermViser]

Yes, it was clear nepotism, no doubt. What bothered me the most was that she blamed me for over-reacting. She told me that my response to the comments displayed a lack of professional maturity and that I needed to learn how to accept and learn from criticism. I mean... really?

I knew the professionalism card would get thrown at you. It's the go-to card. Once you graduate and match, you should make it clear why you'll never be donating to them.