What is third year really like?

[LuckyBambooGirl]

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I'm an M2 and after reading some of the posts, I'm wondering whether threads like "I hate third year" and "bullying during clerkship" are accurate indications of what third year is really like. So far, the vast majority of interactions I have had with MD's at my school have been good (with maybe two exceptions). I absolutely hate all the political crap that can go on and try to keep myself out of it as much as possible. Has anybody had a generally positive third year experience?

 

[Dr JPH]

My third year was great. The first few months were a bit nerve wracking, but once I got the hang of how the hospital works, writing notes, rounds, being on call...it became much easier.

Everyone will have good and bad experiences. Remember, people tend to only post their bad experiences here rather than go on and on about a good day in the hospital.

Dont worry about it now. Focus on class and doing well on Step I.

Once next year comes remember to do the following (in my opinion):

1. Read at least 30 minutes per night - JAMA, NEJM, something
2. Be prepared for the next day - rounds, OR cases, lectures
3. Dont be late
4. Work hard
5. Enjoy what you are doing

Your learning will grow exponentially through your 3rd year. I suspect that half way through you third year you will have learned more than the first 2 years combined. I certainly did. BUT I made myself visible. I poked my head in on attendings interviewing patients. I asked questions (at appropriate times). I read on things I did not understand. I read them AGAIN after I STILL didnt get it!

You will be fine. Somehow we all manage to complete the journey and move on. You get to a point (or at least I do by now) where you see new third years and you wonder if you were every that inquisitive and naive to the inner workings of the hospital. Of course we all were! 🙂

 

[Paws]

Hey Lucky,

I know I have complained alot on this forum about the transition to third year and as JP says, mostly we tend to air our frustrations here and not so much our joys. There are some joys and I assume as you get used to the workings of things and how to get along with all the politics, etc, that then it does get to feel alot better.

I found the transition hard and maybe I am naive, but it was just a big shift from the relative serentity of classroom work and the occasional positive shadowing experience to the sudden 14 hour days of surgery with no food, no water and no idea what the heck was going on and people rolling their eyes at you for not knowing stuff, etc. Ok, big adjustment. 😱

I think that what I have struggled with most so far is the politics and seeing how far down the food chain we are. I felt like a reasonably intelligent person up til now, and yet I constantly am told off for not knowing things I haven't learned. Stuff like that. Plus seeing how attendings talk to the residents, interns talk to residents and sometimes attendings, and students can sometimes be left out of stuff completely. Sometimes I ask a question and no one will respond to me. So it feels weird to suddenly be this non-entity, who is trying to find their place in a fast paced and confusing environment. I really value my outside life and friends, who are still loving and sane and treat me like they always have. I think that the things people have posted here are spot on and I have valued their accuracy and the reality check they offer. Sometimes I have felt like: it this just me? am I suddenly going crazy? but listening to how others around the country are also feeling the same things, well, it is incredibly reassuring to me to know I am not so unique after all and we are all in this together.

You will be fine as you head into third year, but if you feel unsettled remember the things we wrote about here and see if you can identify as well. Reassurance is a valuable gift!

 

[Medical123]

Third year is really dependent on the personalities of the people that you are working with. At my school, we do our rotations in 8 week blocks, spending 4 weeks at one site and 4 weeks at another site. It is amazing to see how much things can change when you are working with a new group of residents or attendings. I went from an outstanding surgery rotation where I was constantly told that I was doing an excellent job and should consider going into surgery, to one in which we were all about the "dumbest crop of students" that the attending had ever seen. It hurts, but you have to develop a thick skin. Remember, you will soon be moving on to another rotation and hopefully things will get better!

 

[pillowhead]

It's sooooo specialty and team dependent. The only times where I felt like I just wanted out of the whole thing was during my surgery rotation (despite having relatively good teams) and during my ob/gyn rotation. It probably didn't help that they were my first and last rotations, respectively. I had one rough internal medicine month, but the other two were fine. Psychiatry was positively enjoyable as was family medicine. There were times in Peds I wanted to pull my hair out but that was totally team dependent and I otherwise loved peds.

It's a tough year. In retrospect, I can't imagine doing it again. But you'll get through. The good thing is that no one really expects you to know much at all. You're clinical grades (the subjective part) will be 45% how you get along with others, 45% how hard you work, and 10% knowledge/skills based. You have a surprising amount of control over the first 90% even if you barely passed step I and were mediocore in the first two years.

Everyone gets through it. I don't know anyone who failed out of med school in the clinical years. You, too, will survive. And at the end, the amount of knowledge you will accumulate will be tremendous which is a cool feeling.

 

[Anka]

I agree with the general sentiment expressed so far -- what you see expressed on these forums isn't representative of the experience as a whole. Third year is awesome in that you're finally getting to think about real patients, and make a real difference in their care. That murmur you hear on morning rounds that no one has heard before may be the explanation for a patient's persistant bacteremia -- and you may have gotten him treated that much sooner. The hour you spend with a mother who is a horrible historian may be the difference in getting her child the care most appropriate to her condition. You might pick up a woman with atypical angina in OB clinic because you're the only one with time to do a good review of systems. One of the best experiences in third year was the time when a patient asked where his "real doctor" was during attending rounds, referring to me [I was fetching something]. So rounds stopped until "the real doctor" got back into the room.

On the other hand, the stuff you've heard described does occur. You'll run into people by whom you can do no right (patients, families, and health care providers). You'll be exhausted, post-call and still standing there doing absolutely nothing, learning nothing, and being alternately insulted and ignored, only to have someone turn to you a few hours later and say "what are you still doing here?"

But on balance, it's worth it. At some point during your third year you're going to go home knowing you just helped get someone through one of the most difficult times in their lives.

Best,
Anka

 

[efex101]

I am totally loving third year *but* like others have said a lot of it IS team/facility/rotation dependant. Also, there is a LOT of subjectivity and politics BS involved that you just need to let it roll off your back. This is easier said than done but you need to get a thick skin. I do have to agree that being the lowest person in line is difficult and this is even more so difficult when there is a fourth year doing an elective....all procedures/fun stuff/ etc...usually go to them first and often you are left just observing...

 

[AmoryBlaine]

It's hard, but better for most students than the hamster-wheel grind of M2.

The worst part is that you know so many facts but so little management. Things that made you a star in your first 2 years may get you exactly nowhere as an M3.

My best piece of advice: be methodical and thorough. There are alot of geniuses running around hospitals who are not at being M3s as some of the more mid-level people in the class. Don't skip stuff b/c you think it's not important.

The advice about reading at least 1/2 - 1 hour a day is golden.

 

[jennie 21]

I loved most of my third year, even rotations I didn't expect to like (well, except I really didn't enjoy peds). Like others have said, it's very rotation/location/team dependent. Make every effort to get along with your team. You have to adjust to the specialty and the personality of the people you are working with. ALWAYS be on time. Some people really hate it if you are late, it reflects poorly on your professionalism, and it adds additional stress to the beginning of your day which you don't need.

Try to make yourself an integral part of your team, although this is usually easier at public than private hospitals. Always ask what else you could do to help and then when you finish, ask again. I felt that I was there primarily to work and to help patients, and of course learn whatever I could while I was doing it. I think this attitude was a huge benefit to me and I probably learned a lot more than students who escape to the lounge in the middle of the day to study because I was right there in the thick of it. Along these lines, DON'T disappear during the day without telling people where you are going.

You should know your patients and what is going on with them better than anyone else on the team. Take responsibility for them. You should feel as though you are their doctor. Print a signout every morning and record labs and test results on there; keep it in your whitecoat so when someone wants to know "what is Mrs. Jones' hematocrit" you have the answer right there.

Try to smile a lot. Be nice to the other students and to the nurses. Cutting down other students or subtly sabotaging each other will blow up in your face and besides superiors do notice if you can't get along with others. Don't look eager to get out of the hospital; stay around a little later and see if you can help out; do not ask to be sent home on a regular basis. Read on subjects relevant to your patients both in textbooks and in the current literature; good presentations (with handouts) can go a long way towards a good grade. Be gracious when you are asked to do scut (within reason, you don't have to be abused).

Do all of the above sincerely. If you enjoy being in the hospital, like your patients, and want to hustle and help get stuff done it shows and people appreciate it. You can help out quite a lot even as a med student. Of course, all of this is more true in public hospitals and probably varies somewhat school to school. My school is very clinically-oriented, and being a self-starter who takes initiative and responsibility is valued. Some institutions are probably more academic and/or more private and what I've outlined might not work as well there as they are more interested in your book knowledge.

I was not a stellar student my first two years but I managed to get all A's (equivalent of honors at my school) third year except for psychiatry. Some of it was probably luck but a lot of it is work ethic and knowing how to get along with people. I'm not saying there weren't a few people I couldn't stand and couldn't get along with no matter how much I tried, but it's worth it to try to get along. It will make your experience more pleasant too. I'm also not saying there weren't days where I hated being at the hospital and wanted to be anywhere else, but basically most of the time I enjoyed being there and I think it showed. I think that and having a good work ethic are the keys to success as a third year.

 

[caffeinefree08]

Now that I am 3 months into third year, I can agree with a few things people saying. Your happiness being dependent on your team versus specialty is true to a degree. My current rotation is not very team oriented and I don't like the OB very much. I'm not miserable, but I'm not exactly happy. It is a little rougher because you can't tell your team you don't like the specialty. People can get a little defensive about their life choice.

I think the hardest part was saying 'goodbye' to a large chunk of my personal life. You are working so hard, you just don't have time for all of the other stuff. And if your friends are also Med3's, it is very difficult to see them. Finding time to cook and exercise after studying doesn't happen alot of times. It's hard to feel really good when you spent a day at the bottom of the totem pole and then didn't get any time to take care of yourself.

(I once locked myself out of my apartment while on call and realized that if the police broke down my door, they might think I had been kidnapped a few weeks back based on the condition of my fridge)

Eventually though, no matter what service you are on, it is alot like Med 2. You might be learning alot, but you are still counting the days till you don't have to read about Cardio/pulmonary every day.

 

[PowderHound]

I am three months into third year, and honestly it has been kind of a let-down. I think dreaming about finally seeing patients is what gets you through the drudgery of M1 and M2, and so you're expecting to waltz onto the floors and have it just be glorious, and that's not how it works. The politics, the personality conflicts, the hurry-up-and-wait, the residents not knowing really what to do with you, having no time to study but really needing to study, being exhausted, having a patient die, feeling like the most useless person on the team, stressing about not knowing what you want to do, worrying you'll never discover what you want to do, and occasionally finding yourself kinda bored....these are all things that at least I was never prepared to deal with. I expected to be a lot more competent than I am. Granted, I have had some great attendings and plenty of fun days, but I can't say it's the dream-come-true I was hoping for.

I think part of it is also that you're smack-dab in the middle of medical school, and you've lost all that great M1 momentum you started with, but you still have so much further to go. This is the first time in my life that I feel like I've really wrapped my head around how LONG it takes to become a doctor. I feel like I should be somewhere already, when actually, I'm not enough half-way through the process (if you count residency). I think there's a sort of mourning process that goes along with that....realizing what you've already sacrificed and knowing what you will have to sacrifice in the future to do what we do. For me, all that smacked me in the face about my 5th week of third year and I became acutely aware of how little lateral movement you have during the physician training process, and I was suddenly extremely frustrated.

But you adjust. And time marches on, and before long, you'll be a fourth year, which I hear is awesome. And then you'll be in an intern, which I hear sucks 🙂 But one day, you and me and everyone will be REAL doctors, and hopefully have forgotten all about the painful process!

 

[DebDynamite]

PowderHound sums it up nicely. The thing you have to do third year to make the adjustment smoother is accept that your role is to appear interested at best and to just show up at the least. Any of the "jobs" you will be given will inevitably be re-done by the residents. The one "useful" thing you CAN do is pay exta attention to your patients, ie bring them reading materials, videos, talk with them, etc.. If your team is competent, you definately feel as if there is nothing you can do to be a critical part of the team- even if they involve you, teach you, and treat you well. Because the intern checks your work, the rez checks the intern, attending checks rez, nurse checks everyone.

Now, the above is a good scenario. A bad scenario is an incompetent intern (or worse yet, resident, but I have not run accross too many of those yet) who micromanages you into doing their work, cannot teach you jack because alas it is obvious they do not yet know much more, but rides you to death to do their job. Or, they just want you to hold their hand. This is really sucky, because you have to appear to be interested in order to get a good eval from the team. It's kind of uncool for the residents too though, because what are they supposed to do with an uninterested med student? My latest philosophy is that all rotations should be three weeks long, and then the med student has the option to continue for another 3-5 weeks there. That way the residents get interested med students, and the uninterested med students move on. We are all adults, after all. I can tell after a few days if I want to learn more about a particular field.

 

[dynx]

Sometimes I ask a question and no one will respond to me. So it feels weird to suddenly be this non-entity

This does happen quite a bit to students, people will ignore you, look down on you and abuse/take advantage of your work if you let them, and most 3rd years let them. I think the most...MOST...important thing you can have heading into third year is confidence. If you ask a question in a mouse voice directed at no-one in particular it may go unanswered making you feel small. If you always speak in a clear and audible voice and direct your question or statement at a person in particular, it becomes akward for them to ignore you. I've seen countless students who's voices trail off at the end of sentences or who whisper out "Ummmm...excuse me" only to be not heard and "ignored". Speak up, if you answer wrong, answer wrong with authority...if you dont know...say "I think..." and try to answer with a reasonable response...let them know you are thinking, if they dont like that then at least you know its thier problem and not yours.
I had an attending in OB/GYN clinic roll her eyes at me during one of my presentations ("then say...dont worry that was fine"), I went back to her for every presentation after that, even if other attendings were available, even if they offered to hear about the patient. F*ck her, she can roll her eyes at all my presentations untill she tells me how to improve them, she ended up giving me a great eval even though she was a known "straight 5's" middle of the road kinda person.
So there it is, confidence begets confidence and will make 3rd year SO much easier.
Rant over.

 

[dynx]

You should know your patients and what is going on with them better than anyone else on the team.

And...this statement is BS. An attending once told me "if you know your patients better than the intern then you have the sh*ttiest intern in the world"

This quote, as anyone who has gone through third year knows, is the bottom line truth. As a student, no one calls you with questions and news about what happened...they call the intern.
you dont write unsigned orders...the intern does.
You dont get sign out...or at least the real version of it...the intern does. Anyone who tells you "know your patient better than anyone else" is selling you generic, feel-good BS advice.

 

[DHMO]

And...this statement is BS. An attending once told me "if you know your patients better than the intern then you have the sh*ttiest intern in the world"

This quote, as anyone who has gone through third year knows, is the bottom line truth. As a student, no one calls you with questions and news about what happened...they call the intern.
you dont write unsigned orders...the intern does.
You dont get sign out...or at least the real version of it...the intern does. Anyone who tells you "know your patient better than anyone else" is selling you generic, feel-good BS advice.

Absolutely right! You will hear that line about "knowing your patients better than anyone esle" so many times during 3rd year it will make you want to puke. But like Dynx said, it's quite hard to stay in the loop. If you are extremely aggressive about bugging the intern/resident about what is happening with your patients, you might know them as well as the intern/resident (but not better). Plus, you will annoy the hell out of your senior.

 

[HoodyHoo]

Third year is really dependent on the personalities of the people that you are working with. At my school, we do our rotations in 8 week blocks, spending 4 weeks at one site and 4 weeks at another site. It is amazing to see how much things can change when you are working with a new group of residents or attendings. I went from an outstanding surgery rotation where I was constantly told that I was doing an excellent job and should consider going into surgery, to one in which we were all about the "dumbest crop of students" that the attending had ever seen. It hurts, but you have to develop a thick skin. Remember, you will soon be moving on to another rotation and hopefully things will get better!

for sure.........I lose motivation probably 10 times a day. It's hard to stay motivated during rotations like that. One day I will feel like i know my stuff and the next I will feel like the world's biggest idiot and feel like I don't belong there. It's a rollercoaster...for me anyway.

 

[tr]

Absolutely right! You will hear that line about "knowing your patients better than anyone else" so many times during 3rd year it will make you want to puke. But like Dynx said, it's quite hard to stay in the loop. If you are extremely aggressive about bugging the intern/resident about what is happening with your patients, you might know them as well as the intern/resident (but not better).

I don't think this is necessarily true. E.g., on medicine I mostly found that the intern and I usually had some nonoverlapping information. The intern knew more in the sense that he got paged for emergencies, etc.; but I knew more in the sense that I was less busy and therefore more likely to have seen the patient myself recently, and also more likely to have checked on the latest test results, run into the family at the bedside, or read up on any management/prognosis questions.

I often had enough time to check in on my more interesting patients a couple of times a day; so, e.g., if the patient had started puking during the day, I would be able to relay that info to the team when we met up in the afternoon.

 

[Barry Otter]

3rd yr wasn't so bad for me. There was not a whole lot of abuse overall. It sounds like my institution's probably more benign than a lot of other schools out there. I actually had a pretty good experience during surgery. The residents were all decent people - competent, often funny, and never demeaning. The same probably holds true for all but a handful of the faculty I came across. There was very little scutting out. Doesn't sound like it's the case at other schools, so I guess I lucked out.

Being the absolute lowest on the totem pole can suck, but I realized a few months into the year that MS3s are also the most protected people in the hospital. Accordingly, I started to take advantage of this every chance I got- asking radiologists to show me what they meant by this or that, pathologists to look over a specimen, nurses to show me how to do this, check for that. Most of them were very nice about it.

 

[werd]

have you ever seen the opening scene to peewee's playhouse? 3rd year of med school is just like that 🙂.

 

[Llenroc]

It's been pretty rough for me. There are some subjects that I really don't give a flying **** about like OB/GYN, and Surgery, and I just have a hard time feigning enthusiasm for them. I envy people that think throwing suture knots and watching mind numbing laparoscopic surgeries is "exciting". But I don't like it, and God knows I've tried to like it.

In general I'm not someone whose good at pretending to like other people/subjects. And I strongly value my free time.

Also the hours suck. I'll be happier when I'm doing rotations that I might actually want to go into, and the hours are more reasonable.

Like someone told me recently, your 3rd and 4th years are basically an exercise in patients. Medical students don't really do anything, and everyone knows that. Your on the wards to be "learning", but most of the time you don't learn jack **** holding a retractor for 10 hours a day. The real learning (to pass the exams at least) comes from the books, which you have very little time for. It's a struggle.

 

[Caffeinated]

You definitely learn a lot during 3rd year. But it will also be a year of being ignored, being in the way, and having your time wasted. And don't bother brining your dignity with you--otherwise you run the risk of having someone try to take it away from you.

 

[PowderHound]

You definitely learn a lot during 3rd year. But it will also be a year of being ignored, being in the way, and having your time wasted. And don't bother brining your dignity with you--otherwise you run the risk of having someone try to take it away from you.

Agreed. I have learned a lot so far in third year, but I also feel like I have had TONS of my time wasted. It's tough to stay motivated to hang in there for those clinical pearls or those cool patients or great residents that take the time to explain things to you and let you come up with managment plans, etc. I have decided that third year is to be survived, not necessarily 100% enjoyed.

 

[ermonty]

I'm a fourth year now so I can attest that there is a light at the end of the tunnel of third year .. or as I like to call .. hell. Seriously 4th year is awesome, and is in large part your choice as to what you do (at least at my school). Its like some magical event happens when you pass into 4th year -everyone treats you differently.

As for third year.. Looking back on things I've come to the realization that medical school is so tough because it is actually a REVERSAL of the natural maturatioin process. The first two years of medical school felt alot like High Shcool in social dynamic and all-day curriculum. But at least professors would show interest in students who put forth the effort. Not ideal, but tolerable. Third year felt like Elementary School and being a young child all over again. You are expected to be seen and not heard, be present at all times, act interested and smile alot, while having absolutely no responsibility what so ever for "your patients", and to do your best to stay out of the way of the 'adults' (residents/attendings) or else if they might get angry, verbally belittle you and 'spank' you with a bad performance evaluation.

The best thing during third year is to try to rise above it all. Sort of like an out-of-body experience; go through the motions, but imagine you are watching it all like a bad episode of a medical-TV-drama. One thing I thought was cool, after having done my Psych clerkship, was diagnosing the Psychopathology in all the nurses/residents/attendings and then watching the diagnoses interact on a daily basis.. quite comical actually

Peace and best of luck to all who must pass through third year. Good times lie beyond, keep your head up. 👍

E-Mo

 

[CaptKirk]

Wow, I'm so glad to finally hear realistic non-savior types discussing third year. I'm so sick of hearing about what an "invaluable" member of the team I should be, knowing more about the patient anyone, being the first to see new labs. And of course there's that student who FOUND THE MURMUR!!! I swear to God it's like the holy friggin' grail of third year to actually find a real live murmur. I've found a ton of murmurs and no one is ever concerned about them. It's always just "yeah well that's to be expected in such and such person." I have not once had anyone make even a peep about a murmur. Finally I realized that what everyone is saying here is the real truth. As a third year, I am completely and utterly dispensable. There is really nothing I contribute and in my opinion that's a good thing. Sorry to vent and rant but I just get so sick and tired of the people on here who act like they're out saving the world as a third year medical student. Bull crap.

 

[caffeinefree08]

Sorry to vent and rant but I just get so sick and tired of the people on here who act like they're out saving the world as a third year medical student. Bull crap.

Damn right I'm saving the world at Med3. Otherwise, how else would I be able to tell my family/friends I am at the hospital 12-16 hours a day and can't visit or call them? (Mom, Dad, I'll be home for Christmas. Yes. I know its only 3 months away and you haven't seen me since July) You justify 20 minutes of actual presentation time you did to your 6am-6pm day on Medicine or the 3 hours you spent holding that retractor in surgery, which even a trained scrubbed in monkey could do.

True, I'm superflous to the team, except compared to the rest of the population, we are saving the world. I delivered a baby yesterday. The resident could have done it, but they let me do it. On surgery, they let you sew up people who are alive and just had their organs outside of their bodies. Any one else who isn't a med student or doctor allowed to do that?

I'm tired, hungry, overworked, underpaid, and often bored out of my mind. On the other hand, my average crappy day is the best day a whole bunch of people wish they could have.

 

[ermonty]

Caffeine,

I'm glad you have that enthusiasm (or maybe its just the caffeine), it certainly helps you through times like these.

I remember having that positive outlook in the fall semester of third year as well. But its only a matter of time. Some people hold that positive outlook for a year, some for 20 years.. but eventually the harsh nature of medicine wears on even the strongest of us.

I'm not saying I'd change a thing. I love what I am doing. I guess what I am saying is that third year is good for one very important thing: Perspective!

Having come through third year I appreciate the little things in life so much more. Life is meant to be lived, not worked away until the end of our days.
Third year is good for perspective and to give you the clarity you need to be able to choose a specialty you can live with over the course of a career.

Choose carefully and 🙂 Its all good (can you tell I'm a 4th year?)

E-Mo

 

[Dunce]

I am a third year medical student. I am the donkey in the well.

 

[Paws]

Third year felt like Elementary School and being a young child all over again. You are expected to be seen and not heard, be present at all times, act interested and smile alot, while having absolutely no responsibility what so ever for "your patients", and to do your best to stay out of the way of the 'adults' (residents/attendings) or else if they might get angry, verbally belittle you and 'spank' you with a bad performance evaluation.

The best thing during third year is to try to rise above it all. Sort of like an out-of-body experience; go through the motions, but imagine you are watching it all like a bad episode of a medical-TV-drama.

E-Mo

I am worn out and it is only October. I keep thinking it is September but that's because I am exhausted. I have had an assortment of rotations now, some really really terrific! I didn't want to leave I loved it so much. But then I have also had a resident who insisted I was incompetent and nothing I did could change his opinion. That is a horrible feeling to work with someone like that. It is all so variable. I have made alot of friends in the hospital and love the staff and nurses. So it's weird to go from a friendly conversation with an attending in another department, and then be scolded by your resident for another pointless thing. I think overall I am coming out ahead in the + relationships vs - relationships race, but it is still hard to find yourself constantly switching people/teams and going from a supportive group to one where you might be ignored or whatever. I also struggle with "why doesn't everyone like me?" kind of stuff.

I know it's stupid, but then when your evaluation (=grade) depends on these people it becomes really crucial. Also, when people who don't even know you really are telling you "we think you are XYZ," and you can't even recognize the person they are describing. I often think, hmm, how come no one else has ever said that to me? Is this a new character defect? Oy vey, very hard ... 😳

 

[Arsenic]

I am a third year medical student. I am the donkey in the well.

hello fellow donkey

 

[MeowMix]

Third year is like being a dog without a home.

You show up wagging your tail and trying hard to please everyone so you can get a nice treat. Sometimes people get mad at you and you don't even know why. Then sometimes they praise you and you also don't understand why. They speak a language you don't understand. They have had so many dogs that they don't even remember your name. They are too busy to have any time to train you so you can know how to do things right, and they never want to hang out or play with you.

Every few hours or every few days, you have a new owner and they expect something different than the last owner. Some of them expect you to guess what to do without ever giving you a clear command. Every month or two, you change homes. You try to make them happy by doing what worked with your last owner, but you still don't get the dog treat. Once in a while you get to stay in a great home for a few weeks; you wish you could live there forever, but then you have to leave.

The worst part is that you used to get up whenever you liked and run around in the yard between naps. Suddenly you are stuck in a kennel all day with other dogs barking around you all the time. You have to get up at 5 a.m. and don't sleep for 12 hours a day like you used to; you don't chase squirrels. Rolling in horse poop is just a happy memory.

 

[boston]

Third year is like being a dog without a home.

You show up wagging your tail and trying hard to please everyone so you can get a nice treat. Sometimes people get mad at you and you don't even know why. Then sometimes they praise you and you also don't understand why. They speak a language you don't understand. They have had so many dogs that they don't even remember your name. They are too busy to have any time to train you so you can know how to do things right, and they never want to hang out or play with you.

Every few hours or every few days, you have a new owner and they expect something different than the last owner. Some of them expect you to guess what to do without ever giving you a clear command. Every month or two, you change homes. You try to make them happy by doing what worked with your last owner, but you still don't get the dog treat. Once in a while you get to stay in a great home for a few weeks; you wish you could live there forever, but then you have to leave.

The worst part is that you used to get up whenever you liked and run around in the yard between naps. Suddenly you are stuck in a kennel all day with other dogs barking around you all the time. You have to get up at 5 a.m. and don't sleep for 12 hours a day like you used to; you don't chase squirrels. Rolling in horse poop is just a happy memory.

Wow -- that's a remarkably good analogy. Man, that really hits home what it's like. 👍 Some really thoughtful posts here... anyways guys, hang in there. Despite what some people pretend to say on the surface, it is the toughest year of med school for most people. Tough in a different manner than internship, not really comparable. When I was a third-year MS, what troubled me most was the subjective nature of the evaluations and how buddying up with your superiors and bull****ting (which I'm bad at) plays such an important role. Most of your peers place nice, but there are always a few backstabbers.

The subjective nature of things doesn't really change into residency. Some attendings love you and others think you suck based on isolated impressions, even though you put in the same effort day in and day out.

Anyway, keep in mind your 2 main jobs as a third year student:
1) learn clinically useful knowledge
2) get good evaluations

As long as you're achieving those 2 goals, you're doing fine. It may require learning how to navigate politics and complex personal interactions. Unfortunately, all the other bull**** you sort of just have to put up with and let roll off your back. Some of these issues third year may still rear their heads in residency, i.e. feeling like the lowest on the totem pole, being verbally abused, having your time wasted, etc. (Heck even as a PGY-3, I've had some cases where I had to retract for hours and couldn't see or learn a damn thing.) (I can only speak from the perspective of a general surgery residency -- maybe other residencies are more benign.)

Hang in there guys. You will get through it... it does get a lot better (and worse in some ways).

 

[Paws]

MeowMix!!

I laughed right out loud, you are so right bloody on with being a dog! Perfect, perfect analogy. 👍

 

[Richie Truxillo]

MeowMix is right on the money! That's a GREAT analogy! Now the real question is...where is the fire hydrant?!?!

My 3rd year has gone very well thus far. My advice to future 3rd years is this: Get used to being comfortable with "being uncomfortable".

You'll be put on the spot daily with pimping, patient communication and new procedures. The faster you master rolling with the punches, the easier life on the wards will get.

I'm still working on that skill 😉 After reading an OB/GYN book cover to cover, I'm still petrified of doing my first delivery early next week

 

[8744]

I'm an M2 and after reading some of the posts, I'm wondering whether threads like "I hate third year" and "bullying during clerkship" are accurate indications of what third year is really like. So far, the vast majority of interactions I have had with MD's at my school have been good (with maybe two exceptions). I absolutely hate all the political crap that can go on and try to keep myself out of it as much as possible. Has anybody had a generally positive third year experience?

All you need to know can be found on my blog.

 

[Llenroc]

All you need to know can be found on my blog.

Hey Panda you kind of look like Kojak.

 

[metabolite]

As for third year.. ...be present at all times, act interested and smile alot, while having absolutely no responsibility what so ever for "your patients", and to do your best to stay out of the way of the 'adults' (residents/attendings) or else if they might get angry, verbally belittle you and 'spank' you with a bad performance evaluation...
E-Mo

I've been spanked!!! So I am going to put on a smile (not too bright though, otherwise I maybe abused further like kids with Angleman's) and keep going as best as I can. 10yrs from now I will look back and realize how little this has to do with my life overall...

- feeling a little blue

 

[8744]

Hey Panda you kind of look like Kojak.

I am Greek. But I have all of my hair.

 

[Lgb325]

I am three months into third year, and honestly it has been kind of a let-down. I think dreaming about finally seeing patients is what gets you through the drudgery of M1 and M2, and so you're expecting to waltz onto the floors and have it just be glorious, and that's not how it works. The politics, the personality conflicts, the hurry-up-and-wait, the residents not knowing really what to do with you, having no time to study but really needing to study, being exhausted, having a patient die, feeling like the most useless person on the team, stressing about not knowing what you want to do, worrying you'll never discover what you want to do, and occasionally finding yourself kinda bored....these are all things that at least I was never prepared to deal with. I expected to be a lot more competent than I am. Granted, I have had some great attendings and plenty of fun days, but I can't say it's the dream-come-true I was hoping for.

I think part of it is also that you're smack-dab in the middle of medical school, and you've lost all that great M1 momentum you started with, but you still have so much further to go. This is the first time in my life that I feel like I've really wrapped my head around how LONG it takes to become a doctor. I feel like I should be somewhere already, when actually, I'm not enough half-way through the process (if you count residency). I think there's a sort of mourning process that goes along with that....realizing what you've already sacrificed and knowing what you will have to sacrifice in the future to do what we do. For me, all that smacked me in the face about my 5th week of third year and I became acutely aware of how little lateral movement you have during the physician training process, and I was suddenly extremely frustrated.

But you adjust. And time marches on, and before long, you'll be a fourth year, which I hear is awesome. And then you'll be in an intern, which I hear sucks 🙂 But one day, you and me and everyone will be REAL doctors, and hopefully have forgotten all about the painful process!

I feel like I have said these same words over and over a bunch of times in the last few months!!! It's funny how almost universal the sentiment can be.... there are varying degrees of it but most people seem to go through some confusion/lost feelings third year.

I just feel let down sometimes AND then I feel disappointed in myself, like I have some flaw that keeps me from taking advantage of this "wonderful opportunity" and all that good stuff.

Biggest worry now is finding something I like AND finding time to have a family....😕

 

[ambientbaby]

I am three months into third year, and honestly it has been kind of a let-down. I think dreaming about finally seeing patients is what gets you through the drudgery of M1 and M2, and so you're expecting to waltz onto the floors and have it just be glorious, and that's not how it works. The politics, the personality conflicts, the hurry-up-and-wait, the residents not knowing really what to do with you, having no time to study but really needing to study, being exhausted, having a patient die, feeling like the most useless person on the team, stressing about not knowing what you want to do, worrying you'll never discover what you want to do, and occasionally finding yourself kinda bored....these are all things that at least I was never prepared to deal with. I expected to be a lot more competent than I am. Granted, I have had some great attendings and plenty of fun days, but I can't say it's the dream-come-true I was hoping for.

I think part of it is also that you're smack-dab in the middle of medical school, and you've lost all that great M1 momentum you started with, but you still have so much further to go. This is the first time in my life that I feel like I've really wrapped my head around how LONG it takes to become a doctor. I feel like I should be somewhere already, when actually, I'm not enough half-way through the process (if you count residency). I think there's a sort of mourning process that goes along with that....realizing what you've already sacrificed and knowing what you will have to sacrifice in the future to do what we do. For me, all that smacked me in the face about my 5th week of third year and I became acutely aware of how little lateral movement you have during the physician training process, and I was suddenly extremely frustrated.

But you adjust. And time marches on, and before long, you'll be a fourth year, which I hear is awesome. And then you'll be in an intern, which I hear sucks 🙂 But one day, you and me and everyone will be REAL doctors, and hopefully have forgotten all about the painful process!

This is exactly how I feel. That's amazing. We must go to the same school.

 

[DebDynamite]

Third year is like being a dog without a home.

👍 👍 👍