So I agree and disagree with a lot posted in this thread.
I'm doing an ICU rotation now in the same time/same place as I did it last year. The crew of med students I had 1 year ago were superb - highly motivated, knowledgeable, helpful, and all around awesome.
This year, to put it bluntly, the med student crop sucks balls. They don't give a rip, show up late, write ****ty notes, present the patients in such a half-assed way that I look like an idiot (despite me coaching them repeatedly), act like myself and the interns are idiots (they're all doing surgery and we're medicine, so apparently we must be dumb), try to pimp *me* in front of the attending (this doesn't end well for them when I answer every question easily) and don't even remotely approach the standard set by last year's students. There is one neurosurgery dude who seems to have his head on straight, but the rest are out to lunch.
There is at least one of the four who I'd fail if I could do it without having to attend multiple meetings etc to defend it. (I may be reaching for the dreaded 'low pass' instead.)
I was preparing to grind my teeth when I read the essay, but instead I agree with almost all of it. When I was a med student (in the apparently far simpler era circa 2011-2013), you showed up and busted your balls. I went out of my way to help residents, look good in front of attendings, and kick ass. I have had many crops of med students since then who cannot be bothered to do this. In fact, the # med students sucking >> # med students kicking ass on the floor teams I've either led or been a part of, and my co-residents agree too. (It makes it easier for good students to stand out now - they really sparkle among the slackers.)
“Why get to work early and learn about my patient when my test score and a review of ‘high yield’ facts from a review book will further my career more effectively than learning how to do a good physical exam?” “What is the point of having a well-prepared presentation for rounds when I will get the same score as my colleague who spent the morning going through review questions?” “What is the point of impressing my attendings when all that really matters is my grade and class rank?”
Admittedly, I can't argue with this reasoning when some of my medical students' rotations count the shelf for 80% of the final grade, OSCE for 10%, and the actual clinical for 10%. Whoever came up with such a grading scheme has his/her head entirely up their ass.
Well, they all show us who will be good medical students and who can be good doctors, but they don't demonstrate good job ethics, nor do they give us any hints of the entitlement attitude that is befouling your generation. I should mosey over to the Psychology school and ask them if they can come up with an assessment that can screen for the latter. The work issues med schools can fix by favoring people who have had to actually work for a living.
BTW, I remember my pre-med classmates of 40+ years ago doing the common ECs, shadowing, AND working. Plus getting good grades.
What triggered this venom all of a sudden???? You've never gone into loose cannon land before.
Enough with the nontrad cheerleading already. As a resident, I've had good nontrad students/interns...and I've had really ****ty nontrad students/interns too.
In my med school class, some of the people who whined the loudest about the workload were nontrads. "There's no job out there that would treat you like this! We'd just get up and leave!' Etc etc etc ad nauseam. There were a handful of nontrads who were doing very well academically, but there were also more than a few nontrads at the bottom of the curve who were repeating classes etc.
The whole 'nontrads are better' argument is another item of SDN conventional wisdom that simply hasn't panned out in my experience (right up there with the 'FMGs are so much smarter and better than AMGs' trope).
Oh the lack of[people skills we screen out at interviews. My students are great...just that some apparently are unfamiliar with the concept of, say, not asking for vacation when you're only one week into a job, or stuff like those pointed out in the OP's link. But they do have a high sense of entitlement, not ego. Luckily The two latest classes have been much better in these regards.
On a completely different note, I have to crow somewhere...my Class of 16 matched well. VERY well.
I don't disagree here.
There is a 3rd year away rotator (not sure how this happened, but ya) on our ICU service right now. Kid seems smart enough but is just a total awkward weirdo:
- He spends much of his time in the team room doing review questions, even when we're busy.
- He's always stepping on my feet and is somehow in my way whenever I'm trying to demonstrate or do anything (including procedures).
- As a group, we were looking at a CT the other day and he had somehow parked his head within inches of mine so that when I turned to ask an intern something I smashed my face into his
- He has no sense of the appropriate flow of conversation...always butting in with weird, off topic questions during case presentations and other discussions
- Just talks about weird stuff at length, like the precise composition of the lethal injection cocktails used in various states
- He interrupted me when I was presenting a pt just to show me some obscure bit of tangentially related medical information on his phone
- Shows up absolutely stinking of cologne every day...the smell fills our whole team room
And so on. I think the kid is sincere and means well, but he just annoys the daylights out of me (and much of the rest of the team) and doesn't even seem to realize he's doing it. I guess he qualifies as 'aspie' etc, but I have some of these traits too and I've gone a long way to attenuate them and be appropriately social. His bedside manner can't possibly be good...as I told our PD, this is the type of goofy would-be doctor who's going to get dragged before the board someday for making inappropriate comments to pts, and I hope our residency's name isn't in his credentials.
