Totally rude attendings-what is the point?

[siempre595]

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So I'm on ER right now, and this attending last nite totally goes off on me for "signing up" for more than 2 patients. Ironically, I had just gotten there and was not signed up for anyone yet, and the med student on the prior shift was who was actually signed up. When I explained that to him, it just made him more pissed. Then when I asked how he preferred me to work (which is what we are told to ask every new attending we have, as we have a new one on almost every shift), he was like, "just go do what you usually do, what do you usually do!!"...and rolled his eyes and threw his arms up in the air. I was thinking, "well, usually the attending gives us a new set of directions on each shift but since you're a total jerk maybe i'll just go home and eat brownies!".....but since that was clearly not gonna happen, I just walked off and found the med student from the prior shift and talked to him about some patients and stayed out of the way.
I'm sorry, but what is the point of rude attendings? if they don't want to teach or be around residents and students, go work somewhere else, or just say so up front and i'll leave them alone. It's just plain rude.
what was even weirder, was like 3 hours later he got totally nice and started offering the residents and me candy and asking about our personal lives....i think he has a split personality or something.....
seriously, can't wait for ER to end, this new attending for every shift thing is killing me

 

[DrBowtie]

Stress can make people that are normally nice go bonkers. I am sure there will be a time when you just don't want to deal with something and come off as rude. I say just shrug it off.

 

[imtiaz]

dont let it get to you, when people are stressed out they can get pretty weird. he probably felt bad about going off on you earlier. at least he made an effort, some attendings dont even do that. youll get used to dealing with things like this as you rotate on different clerkships. just roll with it and dont let it drag you down.

 

[realmdo]

i am currently in ER rotation, on the 1st day, the attending i worked with was very nice at beginning, getting irritable at the middle of the shift, and yelled at me at the end of the shift. i think 12 hours shift plus overwhelming workload make even nicest person crazy. try to switch a different attending next time.

 

[raspberry swirl]

although i agree that even nice people become a-holes after long shifts and its just one of those things you have to brush off, knowing that one day you may do the same, i still think that there are a lot of doctors at teaching hospitals that need to switch jobs. there are plenty of non teaching hospitals out there. there are even non teaching sections within teaching hospitals. if you dont like dealing with students or intern/residents, there is no reason to work with them. get a job at another hospital, or simply ask to be non teaching! the hospital i am at has teaching and non teaching patients on the same floor. that way the doctors that dont want to teach dont have to.

 

[dynx]

So I'm on ER right now, and this attending last nite totally goes off on me for "signing up" for more than 2 patients. Ironically, I had just gotten there and was not signed up for anyone yet, and the med student on the prior shift was who was actually signed up. When I explained that to him, it just made him more pissed. Then when I asked how he preferred me to work (which is what we are told to ask every new attending we have, as we have a new one on almost every shift), he was like, "just go do what you usually do, what do you usually do!!"...and rolled his eyes and threw his arms up in the air. I was thinking, "well, usually the attending gives us a new set of directions on each shift but since you're a total jerk maybe i'll just go home and eat brownies!".....but since that was clearly not gonna happen, I just walked off and found the med student from the prior shift and talked to him about some patients and stayed out of the way.
I'm sorry, but what is the point of rude attendings? if they don't want to teach or be around residents and students, go work somewhere else, or just say so up front and i'll leave them alone. It's just plain rude.
what was even weirder, was like 3 hours later he got totally nice and started offering the residents and me candy and asking about our personal lives....i think he has a split personality or something.....
seriously, can't wait for ER to end, this new attending for every shift thing is killing me

You've never been stressed out and snapped at an innocent person? Let it go man. The guy may be an dingus, but give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he was just having a bad day...the only person you're sticking it to by returning the attitude is yourself.

 

[Jinyaoysiu]

The attending went off on the OP because he could. No matter how stressed or tired he was, he would not be rude to people that he did not want to be rude to. People do have that much self-control and let's not get used to thinking or using stress as an excuse because it would only make ourselves lazy when we need to uphold our own self-control.

I bet that rude attending would at least excercise some self-control if he was dealing with his spouse, child, the chairman of the hospital, or the lifeguard that saved his life at a swimming pool the week before. Those are the people that he did not want to be rude to, and he should have regarded students the same way. Like the OP said, there is really no point to be rude to students.

 

[siempre595]

Actually I don't really even think stress or lack of sleep is applicable here. He'd just come on the shift like 2 minutes earlier, how much stress had he gathered from sitting on a chair behind a desk for two minutes?? And if he has personal stress or something like that, that's even less my problem. The incident was completely unprovoked. It'd be another story if I'd actually done SOMETHING to annoy him, other than just being present.

And sorry to those who think this is just an okay way for attendings to act, I don't think it's acceptable behavior. If we all just sit around and say, "oh, he's stressed" every time someone is totally irrational about such things, then basically we are all giving each other permission to be unprofessional physicians whenever we feel like it.
I have higher standards than that and don't really personally wish to perpetuate the myth that medicine is full of jerks who yell at each other all day.
Oh, and no, I don't really tend to go off on totally innocent bystanders just cause I happened to be having a bad day. I actually really can't recall doing a similar thing ever. It's called self-control

 

[realmdo]

Actually I don't really even think stress or lack of sleep is applicable here. He'd just come on the shift like 2 minutes earlier, how much stress had he gathered from sitting on a chair behind a desk for two minutes?? And if he has personal stress or something like that, that's even less my problem. The incident was completely unprovoked. It'd be another story if I'd actually done SOMETHING to annoy him, other than just being present.

And sorry to those who think this is just an okay way for attendings to act, I don't think it's acceptable behavior. If we all just sit around and say, "oh, he's stressed" every time someone is totally irrational about such things, then basically we are all giving each other permission to be unprofessional physicians whenever we feel like it.
I have higher standards than that and don't really personally wish to perpetuate the myth that medicine is full of jerks who yell at each other all day.
Oh, and no, I don't really tend to go off on totally innocent bystanders just cause I happened to be having a bad day. I actually really can't recall doing a similar thing ever. It's called self-control

maybe he just fought with his wife before came to work. you'll see different people during rotation. it's better to see them early than later.

 

[Ice-1]

There is no point to rudeness except as a display of self uncontrol.