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Thanks for clearing my own thoughts up lol. Yes I just feel like there isn't time for me to study for these exams and I always end up just slightly below honoring which makes me sad 🙁 I'm just not smart enough I guess lol.
Same thing happened here. Auditioning M4 would pimp M3s, steal all the cases (go to the ones you were supposed to go to early and either tell everyone you went home or say 'i thought you went home' when you showed up, and the attending would be angry that two students had to scrub and blame it on you), steal all the presentations (start talking on other studens' patients on rounds), etc.
The saddest part was that the attending ate this up and adored having his med student attached to his hip 24/7. The other auditioning student who was courteous and quiet didn't do these things and was made to look very bad (but not as bad as us M3s). And as I'm typing this up, I looked up the match results from last year... yep this guy matched to the single categorical slot at our program.
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That's one of the more frustrating things about this. Attendings (particularly course directors) spray this message that essentially states that gunning is not only not a good idea but will hurt you and yet there are very clearly a not insignificant number of faculty that not only support that kind of behavior but reward it. Maybe they're just clueless and don't realize that some students are complete dicks, but it's utterly infuriating.
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they have to say that because it is the politically correct answer, but if it happens they will ignore it and actually favor the gunner in grades and rotations
attendings and course directors have way more experience with students and rotations than us. they aren't clueless.
when i'm an attending, i'm going to give every gunner a pass. gonna do my part to keep gunners out of the most competitive specialties haha.
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I've been doing it all wrong
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Residents who were students but 1 or 2 years ago but seem to completely forget what it was like being a student. Having us do pointless things/ignoring us but not letting us leave when they should know that much more is gained by independent study as a student. We have shelf exams to study for and they know it. Something must happen when you get that MD that gives you amnesia about your student experience.
I think the right answer is that is drastically depends on the attending. People like to mentor people who remind them of themselves when they were younger. If the attending is an egotistical maniacal workaholic who hazes residents and worships himself, then he will probably like the uber-gunner. If the attending is sane and well balanced, then the guy I described probably would have gotten called out on what he was doing because it would have been obvious.
Moral of the story is, if you're going to be a gunner, realize what it's going to get you... a residency where you will be expected to continue brown-nosing 100 hours a week for 7 years where you will then continue the tradition of hazing.
If you want to chill out and 'only' perform a 230 on step 1 (failing by this webforum's standards) and have a couple of B's, you'll probably get a chill-out residency and probably still be a good doctor.
I always found the cute thing was that the kiss-ups at my school were the ones that typically honored.
I would have rather had the standardization through shelf exams that most schools have...
Guess it's really not that much like a job in the "real world," eh? What's it feel like to jump off of that horse?
A significant number of us that were complaining at this point last year had also worked "real jobs," but could also realize that what we were going through was completely antiquated and asinine.
With that said, fourth year is effing awesome. You'll love it.
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I've had some terrible, terrible jobs in my life. I've hung off of sky scrapers and cleaned windows, I've dug ditches in the south east texas heat and mud clay, I've worked security at major concerts (had both negs and positives), I've been a janitor, etc etc. I've also worked some great jobs, owned my own businesses, worked in the NOC for mutli-billion dollar communications company, etc etc. The one thing I agree with NickNaylor on is that most of the complaining about 3rd year is basic, "I'm in the real world now" type issues. However, in none of my many careers have I ever done more meaningless, time sucking, pointless junk. Never have I sat around watching people type, following people to the bathroom because they can't say, "Hey I'm gonna go #2". The utter pointlessness is what got to me. There were rotations where I was a valued member of a team and actually did something that mattered (slightly) but that was few and FAR between. The clinical medical education in this country is as bloated and ineffective as our government these days. It needs serious attention.
Completely agree!! It almost makes 3rd year worth it.
Completely agree!! It almost makes 3rd year worth it.
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Eh, I stand by what I said. Third year is highly unfair, which sucks, but beyond the time commitment it's really not that bad. I think the bad aspects of third year - the ****ty attendings, the hours, the "abuse" (and I use that term loosely) - are hyped while the cool aspects are minimized or completely ignored. It's very similar to the ochem phenomenon of undergrad. And the bad stories that I HAVE heard are, frankly, not that bad. Even when dealing with attendings that act like children it's all about being flexible and figuring out a way to get by. I've found that the people who seem to weave this tale of third year being absolutely horrific are either weird (ie, have inflexible personalities) or take themselves and/or third year way too seriously. I imagine that both of those are more common on SDN - where this portrait of third year is especially evident - than in the general med student population.
Sorry, but it's not that bad, and third year is not a woe is me type of tale. If you find that it is, perhaps a reorientation of your perspective is in order. Or you have very, very bad luck.
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Agreed.
Some of you guys sound absolutely miserable. I've worked in both corporate and academic settings and guess how you're judged in those jobs? By how much people like you and how well you play with others. Not so much how good you are at your job. So far, M3 year has been pretty much the same thing. Long hours and dealing with jerks is not something unique to medicine. A lot of you are complaining about how little teaching you're getting -- why don't you read up on something on uptodate or something instead of waiting for a resident or attending to make time to teach you? Why are you sitting around watching others type when you can easily bring a study resource with you and read during downtime? It's time to stop needing to be spoonfed every bit of information. Or ask the nurses of you can place NG tubes, Foleys, IVs, etc if you want procedural experience. Are your residents really demanding you to follow them around so closely that go to the bathroom with them? If your school is doing a really bad job with clinical training, you should warn applicants about it.
You're really good at whining about something, then minimalizing it to make it sound like you're actually not whining.
Your tone has completely changed after two rotations. I can't wait to come back to this thread after you hit block 5 or 6.
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Don't really care what you "support." You'll figure it out as soon as you get there...It only gets worse before it gets better. Then, from what I understand, it gets worse again.
It's funny that you're posting about things you hate in third year (which were the same things I hated), but that you don't share my view? Way to keep with the MO and minimalizing your complaints again.
I remembered your posts from last year because I thought they were extremely naive coming from a second year. Sorry that I have a fantastic memory. Can't really help that.
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No, I don't support your worldview that third year is some kind of hellhole where enjoyment goes to die. The only things I've mentioned sucking with respect to third year is that it is inherently unfair and that the expectations are ridiculous if you actually value work-life balance. That said, I make choices to keep myself happy, frequently to the detriment of my academic performance because that's where my priorities lie. Again, if you find third year to be absolutely miserable, you're either doing it wrong or you yourself are a miserable person. Yes, certain aspects of third year are annoying, stupid, and shouldn't be in place, but they are nonetheless. It's worth complaining about if only for the sake of trying to change and improve the culture for the better, but just because a situation is non-ideal doesn't mean it's terrible and the worst thing ever. That's really my point: in spite of those less than ideal things, I'm still largely enjoying third year and would take it 100 times before the pre-clinical years. Many of my friends and classmates approach third year with a similar perspective and find it very enjoyable.
You call it naive, I call it making the best of the situation that you're given (or, in this case, chose).
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At the end of the day, though, you guys are the ones worried about what some random guy on SDN thinks - you especially given your demonstrated knowledge of my testing history, which is interesting - while I'm the guy that looks at these posts wondering who you are and why you're so concerned about me.
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You're making so many assumptions here, I'm thinking it might be your superpower. I'll call you "Ass. Man." Clearly, "Ass." is short for assumption.
You're such a celebrity. Can I have your autograph?
I can't believe he's actually responding to little old me...
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I think the entirety of 3rd and 4th year could be compressed into 4-5 months of actual education. 2 week rotations in everything. Then you sign up for electives until you decide on a field then you do an intensive medicine heavy intern preparation course.
As it is. The uselessness of being a medical student makes for a poor learning scenario in best case and sport for d!ckheads and bullies in the worst.
As it is. The uselessness of being a medical student makes for a poor learning scenario in best case and sport for d!ckheads and bullies in the worst.
i was just thinking this today. Honestly it doesn't take much of rotating through a specialty to know that you hate it and we should definitely have more time to rotate through specialties that we felt that we may enjoy.
I have been through IM and anesthesia so far and everyone has been extremely nice to me. They have gone out of their way to teach me and have me included on cases. That being said, I still think third year sucks. For one, I have to agree with the fact that we put so little into one day of work, and are expected to come home after 10-12 hours of doing emotionally draining work and study for a shelf. Another thing that I hated was the lack of a definitive role that the MS3 has; where do we fit in?
Lastly, I think we have to appreciate that everyone has diverse interests and personalities. Personally, I found that internal medicine was not right for me from the getgo. In all honesty the way in which it functions made me frustrated and conflicted with my personality type; and having to do something I loathed for 10-12 hours a day for 8 weeks took a toll on my psyche.
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Agreed. There is a fundamental problem with objectives and purposes. The hospital doesn't function to educate medical students. Nor do any of the people it pays. Our tuition is peanuts to the scale of operating costs. So we need a real job to do or it's pointless. If it's been reduced to medical tourism by our medical legal environmental then let's do a bloody good job of seeing the sites and moving the f@ck on with our lives. Half day didactics half day clinical look-see. Oh look, gross, a c-section. Shelf modules after the weekends. Which we should have off.
A month of prep course for the step 2's. Done.
Electives where you are a functioning intern's or resident's assistant. Paid a small stipend. And expected to make your interns life easier such that they have to teach you the basic moves if they want to lighten their load.
When you're done with that study for step 3 as your interviewing. Take it. Vacation. Boom ready for work.
That's how it would be if it wasn't at cross purposes in how to manage a flock of penguins on PCP while trying to do actual clinical work.
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The underlying idea of your post is that the primary point of rotations is to figure out what you want to do for the rest of your life. I think that's point 1b. The primary purpose of rotations is to develop a general knowledge base of medicine, and I think that's hard to do when you do a 2 week rotation in each specialty. "Diverse interests and personalities"? Are you kidding me? Suck up medicine and surgery for 8 weeks. You'll have the rest of your life to be a special snowflake.
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well step 1 is pretty important so i was curious about what people were doing
if you're going to spend all of second year giving advice about step 1 and spend the entire year talking about how you're focusing on that instead of your classes, well that's pretty memorable
i have no idea what the upper years are going to be like so yeah im going to be concerned with what some random medical student on sdn thinks because they've been through it
it's probably better than pretending that they have no life experience so their opinions are invalid
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meh. 4 weeks of medicine and i was done; i don't really think the extra 4 weeks did anything for me. i honestly think people exaggerate how much you learn/retain during rotations, especially considering the post-shelf purge. as for surgery, i can't say because i haven't rotated through it, although 8 weeks of getting pwned isn't something i'm looking forward to.
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I think some people find third year hell because they falsely believe they need to study 8+ hours for their shelf and go through the rotation. Or they get on edge because they fear every action might prevent them from not getting honors, which causes them stress. Evals are subjective, but if you work hard, act like a normal person, and put in effort, people will notice and you'll be fine. Even if you get a "high pass", it isn't something to go haywire over. If your residents/attendings have noticed you have worked hard, they will write that in the comments which goes in the Dean's Letter that gets read by PDs.
Also, the study time dramatically goes down after Step 1 which is awesome. 30-60 mins of reading once going home isn't bad whatsoever...there was ample amount of free time on EVERY rotation save for surgery(*shudders*). For shelves, if you need 6-8+ hrs to "read", you are going way too overboard. Besides, being on the rotation IS shelf studying. You don't need to only read a book or do questions to learn clinical medicine(unless your residents/attendings are against teaching....in a teaching hospital).
Also, the study time dramatically goes down after Step 1 which is awesome. 30-60 mins of reading once going home isn't bad whatsoever...there was ample amount of free time on EVERY rotation save for surgery(*shudders*). For shelves, if you need 6-8+ hrs to "read", you are going way too overboard. Besides, being on the rotation IS shelf studying. You don't need to only read a book or do questions to learn clinical medicine(unless your residents/attendings are against teaching....in a teaching hospital).
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You're delusional if you think watching residents type notes and enter orders is going to prepare you for the shelf.
Clinical medicine in practice and clinical medicine as tested on shelf exams are VERY different beasts.
I honored everything because I found ways to not waste hours in the hospital doing nothing. Get home ASAP.
Clinical medicine in practice and clinical medicine as tested on shelf exams are VERY different beasts.
I honored everything because I found ways to not waste hours in the hospital doing nothing. Get home ASAP.
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If you are watching residents and shadowing, you are doing it wrong or your residents need to learn how to handle med. student. Besides, studying for a dinky little shelf shouldn't take that long...there is downtime in every rotation + 30-60 mins at home. It's not like you need hours of time.
The shelf is an adjunct. If you read a little every day and are extremely active in the wards/clinic, it's nothing to stress about. Yes, they ask basic science stuff that isn't practical. If you read and do questions, these supplement learning. I think some tend to believe you need to spend 6+ hours to honor, which is silly. If you need that much time, something isn't clicking.
Remember, every med student should be able to carry stuff to read Every day! The iPhone is an amazing tool. You can knock out practice questions left and right + have access to PDFs, making time to read in the hospital a joke to accomplish. Most of the time, I never needed to read at home since I would get 1-2 hours or reading/questions in the hospital.
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The above post was the assumption you wish to honor shelves(which is a great goal!)
If you want to simply pass a shelf...you don't need to study. If you simply show up to rotations, you can get a minimum passing score with no effort.
If you want to simply pass a shelf...you don't need to study. If you simply show up to rotations, you can get a minimum passing score with no effort.
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I wouldn't recommend this to any incoming MS3. Shelf exams are difficult for the knowledge level of a MS3 and since they're not scored like MS1/MS2 exams (where 70% raw is passing regardless of how everyone else does) I would recommend all students, even those who are only looking to pass a shelf, to put in significant time studying.
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Oh I agree, I didn't intend on supporting people skate by without putting any outside effort! :O
I suppose I was trying to get across that the difficulty tends to be overrated. The exception is, like you mentioned, someone taking their first shelf...or even their second depending on the service. Don't get me wrong, there are difficult questions and material that requires you to sit down and understand it. However, in the given time frame, it's manageable to accomplish and should be routine for the med student who is already used to being studious for the past two years. At the same time, I'd imagine at most if not all MD schools, they are giving topics for students to read and present frequently...thus by default third years are doing something reading wise.
I suppose I was trying to get across that the difficulty tends to be overrated. The exception is, like you mentioned, someone taking their first shelf...or even their second depending on the service. Don't get me wrong, there are difficult questions and material that requires you to sit down and understand it. However, in the given time frame, it's manageable to accomplish and should be routine for the med student who is already used to being studious for the past two years. At the same time, I'd imagine at most if not all MD schools, they are giving topics for students to read and present frequently...thus by default third years are doing something reading wise.
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There's too much variability in abilities and in your points above about your particular experiences with attendings who for non-systemic reasons chose personally to educate you with care. I met a handful of those. And considered myself fortunate. Mostly I think being clerk is a useless role.
You could say its swell. Or somewhere in between. But I don't have the disposition to relate to being useless or the experience that would indicate it was otherwise, whether I was educated or not. And when I was extemporaneously educated I still think it could have been done in a minute fraction of the time I spent following a dude around who is actually doing a job.
I don't dispute the need for a generalized knowledge base as a physician. But I do think they could prepare us for being interns in a much more efficient manner. I tend to think there's not enough incentive for them unless you're dead weight on their pay roll. And also there's the fact that you learn when you have responsibility and ownership over something, however small.
This last thing is probably what accounts for the greatest variability in clerkship experience. If you're notes are not actual medical records and write no orders to be cosigned and don't carry your own patients where your presentations actually represent the information gathering for that patient overnight then the whole thing is useless.
And I don't dig that. I don't get excited by just playing dress up as a doc and making believe while the adults take care of patients. I had more of a purpose when I actually worked in health care.
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context: i'm an MS4 who took a year off for research, and i loved third year but i also had a rough time during parts of it, especially the final third.
having actually been through 3rd and 4th year myself (now on 4th year part two), i have to say i am really upset by some of the comments posted here by students which seem to be designed to shame people who are having a rough time with their third year. things like "just study 30-60 min a day its not that hard" or "suck it up, it's not that bad, what are you whining about?" or even to the level of "maybe medicine isn't for you if you can't handle it."
i think we should all agree to recognize a couple of truths here:
1. third year has good parts, and it also has AWFUL parts.
2. the ratio of good to awful varies an incredible amount, not only between institutions, but even from student to student, month to month, in the same institution. a lot of the time it is luck of the draw whether you get a great team of residents and an awesome attending, or some malignant/neglectful people.
3. everyone's experience is different. if you are having an awesome year, that is great for you, but it doesn't mean that someone else isn't having a much worse time. these are not mutually exclusive, and your personal experience is not universal.
4. some stuff about third year, like what the OP listed, is actually pretty annoying. even if you just let it slide, it is still annoying and frustrating, and it is ok to vent about it even if you recognize that it's not the end of the world.
5. YOU ARE NOT A BAD OR A WEAK PERSON IF YOU ARE HAVING TROUBLE ON THIRD YEAR.
6. you are going to be okay, i promise.
don't let SDN gunners tells you differently. you are adjusting to a wildly new lifestyle, and you don't yet know what your priorities SHOULD be, or what you should actually stress out about, or how you should be studying, etc, so sometimes you may find yourself stressing out about everything. it's also stressful to find yourself in a position where people expect you to be "everyone's bitch" or like you don't know what your role is, other than being the bottom of the totem pole.
in hindsight, would third year be easier for me now, knowing what i know now? of course! but i didn't know it then obviously so i found it at times amazing and at times so demoralizing that i had to talk myself into getting out of bed. i think my best advice mirrors some other people's that i found it easier once i let go of my pride and sort of leaned into it, didn't take things personally, just sort of developed a "thank you sir may i have another?" attitude and tried to move on once i got home. but it still added up emotionally by the end.
the important thing here is that if you are having a rough time, you aren't alone, and you aren't a big baby. if you're having an okay time, but some stuff about the year is really grinding your gears and you just feel like bitching about it, that's also fine, and that also doesn't make you a baby.
i have to say i find it extremely distasteful that an OP came here looking to vent and find support from fellow students about issues that many people are also going through, and a bunch of you decided to pipe up and tell the OP how wrong they were for feeling that way and to just "get over it."
also, if you just started third year, trust me you have no idea how awful you may or may not be feeling mere months from now, especially if you have the bad luck to get a couple malignant rotations in a row. you don't even know what you're talking about yet, believe me.
having actually been through 3rd and 4th year myself (now on 4th year part two), i have to say i am really upset by some of the comments posted here by students which seem to be designed to shame people who are having a rough time with their third year. things like "just study 30-60 min a day its not that hard" or "suck it up, it's not that bad, what are you whining about?" or even to the level of "maybe medicine isn't for you if you can't handle it."
i think we should all agree to recognize a couple of truths here:
1. third year has good parts, and it also has AWFUL parts.
2. the ratio of good to awful varies an incredible amount, not only between institutions, but even from student to student, month to month, in the same institution. a lot of the time it is luck of the draw whether you get a great team of residents and an awesome attending, or some malignant/neglectful people.
3. everyone's experience is different. if you are having an awesome year, that is great for you, but it doesn't mean that someone else isn't having a much worse time. these are not mutually exclusive, and your personal experience is not universal.
4. some stuff about third year, like what the OP listed, is actually pretty annoying. even if you just let it slide, it is still annoying and frustrating, and it is ok to vent about it even if you recognize that it's not the end of the world.
5. YOU ARE NOT A BAD OR A WEAK PERSON IF YOU ARE HAVING TROUBLE ON THIRD YEAR.
6. you are going to be okay, i promise.
don't let SDN gunners tells you differently. you are adjusting to a wildly new lifestyle, and you don't yet know what your priorities SHOULD be, or what you should actually stress out about, or how you should be studying, etc, so sometimes you may find yourself stressing out about everything. it's also stressful to find yourself in a position where people expect you to be "everyone's bitch" or like you don't know what your role is, other than being the bottom of the totem pole.
in hindsight, would third year be easier for me now, knowing what i know now? of course! but i didn't know it then obviously so i found it at times amazing and at times so demoralizing that i had to talk myself into getting out of bed. i think my best advice mirrors some other people's that i found it easier once i let go of my pride and sort of leaned into it, didn't take things personally, just sort of developed a "thank you sir may i have another?" attitude and tried to move on once i got home. but it still added up emotionally by the end.
the important thing here is that if you are having a rough time, you aren't alone, and you aren't a big baby. if you're having an okay time, but some stuff about the year is really grinding your gears and you just feel like bitching about it, that's also fine, and that also doesn't make you a baby.
i have to say i find it extremely distasteful that an OP came here looking to vent and find support from fellow students about issues that many people are also going through, and a bunch of you decided to pipe up and tell the OP how wrong they were for feeling that way and to just "get over it."
also, if you just started third year, trust me you have no idea how awful you may or may not be feeling mere months from now, especially if you have the bad luck to get a couple malignant rotations in a row. you don't even know what you're talking about yet, believe me.
bad rotations days are a whole new beast for a med student who were used just to go to class and studied for exams, you need a completely new toolbox to deal with all the bs while being at the bottom of food-chain.
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I do my fair amount of unnecessary bitching (because it's fun) and it's true that a lot if the whining is probably perpetuated by the mentality of third year being some tremendous beast, but having worked jobs and even a full time scut job I can say that everyone who is complaining about much of the pointlessness of much of third year is absolutely correct. Even when I was having a sh*tty day at work, at least I felt like what I was doing had some sort of purpose. So much of third year is filled with literally NOTHING with no option to go do something else. I don't think people are having a hard time adjusting to third year because it's their first encounter with the "real world" because third year certainly isn't.
+1, the job of an MS3 is very unfulfilling and seems to lack a definitive purpose. At the end of the day you get the feeling that you've accomplished nothing and are .001% closer to your goal of being a physician. couple that with the stress of the uncertainty of your future (i.e., if you don't seem to like anything like me); it's not a fun time.
Okay, seriously, what schools do you guys attend? I can understand venting about M3 year, but what you're saying here shows that your school is absolutely giving you guys the shaft in terms of clinical education.
Absolutely, there are some crappy parts to M3 year. But "having no purpose," being only "0.001% closer to your goal of being a physician," stating that you're not allowed to do anything (including bringing your own resources and reading during downtime -- based on "So much of third year is filled with literally NOTHING with no option to do something else."), etc, doesn't sound like just venting. That sounds like there are serious issues with your school that need quick correction. If you literally can't even read material and have to sit there doing nothing, that's a problem. If all you're allowed to do is shadow the residents and sit quietly, watching them type their notes and following them into the bathroom, that's a problem.
That's what I'm more stunned about -- I don't know if people are exaggerating that or if their school will literally not let them do/learn anything. I sincerely hope it's the former and not the latter. If it is the latter, I hope you guys are trying to do something about it by bringing it to the attention of the administration because I can't imagine intern year not being brutal if you're clinically behind and playing catch-up because your school's clinical education sucks.
during my inhouse medicine rotation we would round for 5 hours, then have lectures, then we would write our note (if there was a computer available) and try to find our resident who was overwhelmed to see if they needed anything or would let us go home. So in about 10 hours I did 30 minutes of real work. I'm on anesthesia now and theres not much to do in general (plus the place that I'm rotating at has no residents to learn from).
I'm surprised you write your notes after rounds. At least at the sites I've rotated at, we were expected to be done with our notes prior to rounds. Then, are you only presenting your patients and not paying attention to the others'? I don't mean that statement to sound like an attack. I'm only asking because I've learned a ton during rounds just by listening to what's going on with other patients what the plan for them ended up being -- learned a lot about managing pneumonias, DVTs/PEs, fluid/electrolyte imbalances, and straight up everyday stuff just from paying attention on rounds. That alone saved me quite a bit of time since I didn't have to go home and read about those same exact things (which would've taken me longer). Rounds are meant to be educational -- I've certainly learned a lot more there than from lectures.
What do you do the other 5 hours you're there? You mentioned 5 hours of rounds, but is the rest of the day spent on lectures or are you back on the floor after noon conference? Are you following up on your patient's labs (ex. running down to radiology and talking to the radiologist about the CT/MRI/whatever your patient got), going down to see procedures with them, etc? Do you have to work on presentations that you have to give to the team? Or are you forced to sit around and do nothing?
the rest of the day was lecturing (with noon conference and other things could come out to 2-3 hours a day) and getting random other work done that needed to be done. we also had a lot of sick patients at the same time while being at a place where nurses don't do anything and you have to draw labs and run them to the lab. i had a much better experience at the private hospital for IM (though I still didn't love it) because we were able to spend more time focused on treating patients rather than doing ancillary things and there were ample computers to check labs. You also didn't have to chase down the fellow to see if they actually saw the patient because they actually wrote notes in the chart. the unfortunate truth is that being at a state institution, the hospitals have no money so they are poorly run with only IMG residents.
That sucks dude! And I would definitely bring that up to administration if I were in your place. I'm at a state institution myself, but have had the complete opposite experience of what many on here have posted. I change teams on a nearly weekly basis, so I'm having a tough time believing that I'm just getting lucky over and over again -- the reason for my posts in this thread.
I hope the rest of your rotations go better!
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My MS3 today did...
Ultrasound guided IJ central lines x2, first one I did the stick/wire and he did the rest. The second he did completely on his own with me gowned and gloved for moral support.
Paracentesis x1
2 SICU H&Ps
Presented 3 SICU patients including a postop OLT on rounds
Not all MS3s are created equal, but I thought that was a pretty good day for him.
Ultrasound guided IJ central lines x2, first one I did the stick/wire and he did the rest. The second he did completely on his own with me gowned and gloved for moral support.
Paracentesis x1
2 SICU H&Ps
Presented 3 SICU patients including a postop OLT on rounds
Not all MS3s are created equal, but I thought that was a pretty good day for him.
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Yeah....this is why the location of rotations matter! The place where you do ancillary **** and not being an active clinical member of the team is doing people a disservice. I sound like a broken record, but shadowing is never, ever acceptable. It's kinda disgusting that schools/rotations would encourage this behavior and allow it for medical students.
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Keep being awesome your medical students are probably the happiest in the hospital.
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+1
Sorry guys but none of that is normal. If everything you wrote is completely true, you're literally getting screwed over 3rd year.
Sure, at any school there will be periods of downtime with nothing to do or times when you're sitting there watching residents do paperwork etc... But, that should only be a small portion of any rotation. At the same time you should be allowed to study when that happens.
You should be writing notes prior to rounding that are included in the pt's chart, doing procedures, assisting on surgery, seeing pts on your own and presenting to residents/attendings, coming up with a DDx, ordering labs and imaging, and developing treatment plans that are actually implemented.
