Why are Resident such *****s !!!!

[kornphan]

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I just started my rotation, and my Resident is a completely rude ***** !.. don't they remember that they had to go thru this themself ??. My Resident just ignores me even though I am with her for 14 hours.. doesn't say a word or teach me anything...... is this what I am in for until I graduate ??.. I have heard horror stories from other students that they were called names (racial) abused, told to get coffee / lunch for the residents etc....is this normal behavior for such Professionals ???

1) What can I do to help myself deal with this situation ??
2) How do I deal with her when she ask for me to get her coffee / lunch ??
3) If I see name calling / racial comments of other students, do I just ignore and carry on ??
4) How can I tell her that I have been here for 14 hours and need to go home and get ready for tomorrow , because she won't tell me to go ??

I have come too far and worked too hard for this, so what advise can you give me so I can 'hang in there' for next year ?? and I thought that things got much better in the 3rd year ! 🙁

Thanks.,,,

 

[kinetic]

There are valid points you have, as well as areas where you are acting ******ed.

It is true that some residents are jack-offs. You should not be expected to get lunch/coffee, etc. That's not why you are there. On the other hand, medical school is not supposed to be a cush, 9-to-3 day where people cater to you, either; the goal is to learn what residency is like. So if your resident is there for 14 hours, guess what? You may have to be there for 14 hours! You may hate that, but if they treated you with kid gloves they would be doing you a disservice. Why? Because you might get the idea that Surgery is about breezing in at 12 PM, sitting in on a surgery, and then packing it up at 3 PM. Then, when you get to residency, you're all, "WTF? This blows ass!" Likewise, you are not a scutmonkey who is there to scratch your resident's butt. But they are there to take care of the patients as their primary goal and to teach you secondarily (although I know some people may bristle at this). They have to treat people AND learn at the same time; as a student, your job is to pick up this skill. Medical school is the end of getting information spoon-fed to you lecture-style; you may have to learn on the fly or learn ON YOUR OWN after work.

 

[surg]

While I am sympathetic to your plight, something to keep in mind is what this looks like from a resident perspective at this time of the year. Your resident may be feeling overwhelmed by their work and not have the energy to deal with you yet. Most new interns started this last week or this coming week and thus everyone functionally moves up a spot. Even the chiefs are having to devote a lot more time to service-related stuff (as opposed to educational stuff) to keep people from getting killed as everyone learns their new jobs. Quite frankly, the first time you are a chief/senior resident it can be stressful as you realize that you are in many ways, the last line of defense for the patient. New interns are stressed about how to do EVERYTHING. They are in a new hospital usually and just finding an XRay can be a challenging task if you don't know the system. Finding time to teach the new student about the finer points of diabetes management may not be an option quite yet (unfortunately for you)

1) What can I do to help myself deal with this situation ??
--1st. Realize that most rotations end in a month. "They can hurt you, but they can't stop the clock." Unless it is truly heinous, you will generally make it through unscarred.
--2nd. Think of how you can help to make the team more efficient then do it. This will make everyone love you. If you see that someone needs to have their films brought up to the conference room, go get them before anyone asks you. If someone needed something done right away, double back and make sure it happens right away. Offer to take on extra work. When your intern/resident feels like the day is going well they are more likely to have time to teach you
--3rd. Try to show enthusiasm. While we should strive to treat everyone the same, it is difficult not to be more enthusiastic about teaching someone who shows true interest.

2) How do I deal with her when she ask for me to get her coffee / lunch ??
Do it if you want coffee/lunch also. Pre-empt it by asking when you go to get coffee/lunch, by asking her if she would like any as well. Otherwise, point to some other work that you are doing that makes the service run better and offer to switch with her 😛

3) If I see name calling / racial comments of other students, do I just ignore and carry on ??
Truly unacceptable if it is malicious (as opposed to ignorant). Ignorant can sometimes be dealt with directly. Malicious should probably be dealt with by someone else on the team (e.g. the chief/senior resident on the service)

4) How can I tell her that I have been here for 14 hours and need to go home and get ready for tomorrow , because she won't tell me to go ??
The time tested way is: "All my stuff is done, is there anything else I can do?" This usually results in: a "No, go home." But if they give you something else to do, complete it efficiently then ask again. In general, however, as kinetic says, you should not expect to go home before the non-call residents on your team.

 

[Cassidy61]

just by your description, you sound like someone that i don't like to go out of my way to involve. the medical students that get the most out of being with me are ones that show some interest and at least try to help (although you will only increase the time that it takes me to do something... House Of God rule#?). also, if you already think that you have "worked too hard for this", you are in for a long road. you will have a hearty chuckle when you think back to this post when you are actually a resident. the long and the short of it is... SUCK IT UP!

 

[K-Diddy-MD]

When it is busy/stressed, there is no time for teaching didactic stuff. Read that on your own.

What I expect from the med students on my service, is to
CARRY AS MANY PATIENTS AS THEY CAN.

Students who are into doing this, are the ones that seniors and attendings talk about when they discuss who the best students are.

Thats the best learning, and helps my team as well.

If you are not into working hard, (probably like the OP)
I would like some cofee, black, no sugar.

I do sympathize, and the resident seems like a real biyatch. I've been there.
Just tag along with the interns instead. Leave queen bitch to herself.

 

[neutropeniaboy]

You know, I used to think the same thing when I was a student: how come my residents don't teach me more?

I could finally answer that when I was an intern. First of all, when you're an intern, you don't really know that much about clinical medicine. And when you're a 3rd year or 4th year medical student, you need to learn about the clinic aspects of medicine. When you sit for your board examinations, it's not going to benefit you if you know how to write orders, calculate the adjusted calcium, know where to drop off the PT consult forms are, write notes on 30 patients, sit on the phone and talk to nurses/case managers/social workers/etc. or do all the mundane **** that is associated with being an intern. Interns are too overworked and too tired to teach medical students.

When I was an intern, I did what I could for the students; usually it was something. Whether it helped, I have no idea.

Now that I've been a resident for a while, my clinical duties are such that I often do have time to teach medical students a thing or two. Unfortunately, I don't have time to drag students off into a room and organize a lecture for them.

The teaching is a two way street. In the beginning, when I felt it was my obligation to teach, I did a lot of teaching as a resident. But then I found out that a lot of the students weren't really paying attention or seemed to get bored (maybe I'm boring to listen to), so I started waiting for students to show some interest or ask questions. At that point, I'd teach until their ears bled. But guess what: Students stopped asking questions. Maybe it's unique to my medical system, but students here expect to be spoon fed. I'm not going to spoon feed students.

Furthermore, it's disconcerting to a resident to want to teach to a student who doesn't know ANYTHING about what's going on. For example, if we're doing a laryngectomy with a student, and you ask the student simple questions like MAJOR nerves, MAJOR blood vessels, or GROSS anatomy questions and they haven't read or prepared for the surgery, why bother? We're not asking you to recite the five tissue layers of the vocal cords or what is acceptable treatment for a T1bN0M0 SCCa of the glottis. If a student doesn't show interest, why should we? After all, it does take away from our time that we can devote to something/someone else.

You have to realize that the days of the lecture hall are long gone. This is the interactive phase of your learning, and you MUST participate. Otherwise, you won't learn.

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Coffee. Residents love coffee. I can recall a few times when I've left my group to go get other residents and students coffee/whatever. You know, you guys can offer to do that as well.

Asking a student to go get coffee in almost all circumstances is wrong and disrespectful. However, if the atmosphere of the group is conducive and we've gotten YOU coffee, give me a break.

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Racial comments. Really, is this such a difficult issue? Speak to the chief or attending.

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Long hours. Get used to it. I took Q4 call as a surgery student and as a student on my medicine rotation. Those were the busiest services and required the most reading. My residents and interns saved me from all the bullsh*t calls, but if there was a consult or a new admission, I was there and I was writing my own H&P. Get used to it; it's called learning to be a doctor.

I woke up at 5am every morning, did ABIs on the vascular patients, got vitals, and wrote notes on the patients I followed, and did [whatever] before AM rounds with the chief residents. And I was there until 4pm on surgery days (since we had required lectures every afternoon), and until 5 or 6 every day on my medicine rotation. On my ENT sub-Is, I was there 12-15 hours per day 6-7 days per week...with call and trauma.

I managed to learn the material.

You'll find that if you bend a little bit, your resident will bend a little bit. Stop reacting and start being proactive. Learn to be a doctor for Christ's sake.

 

[Starflyr]

I assume that this is your first rotation, ever.

Its easy to feel completely overwhelmed at the very beginning and to be angry that people arent helping you more. Unfortunately, this is where you HAVE to learn to be a self-starter.

I remember how clueless 😕 I felt on my first day of my first rotation (surgery) 3rd year. I had NO IDEA what SOAP notes were. I didnt know how rounds worked, I didnt know where anything was, WHO anybody was or what the heck I was supposed to be doing. 😱

Luckily, I had a good intern who took about 30 mintues to sit down and explain things to us - at least to give us a little smidge of a clue.

The trick here, is to look for things that you CAN do and DO them, instead of hanging out with your resident all day, waiting to be told what to do. That gets old, and the resident is likely trying to give you a hint to get away from her and do something useful.

(oh, and how come you're with the resident? 😕 Are there no interns there? We rarely did much with the residents..they had other stuff to do)

Problem is, you probably dont know what those things are yet, so Ill give you some examples:

Things like:
-following up to make sure labs are ordered, have been drawn, sent and then getting the results.
-Entering orders to be countersigned(if you can do this).
-Writing the discharge paperwork (it's NEVER too early).
-Going to the OR early and learning how to prep the patient.
-Looking up an article/reading up on your patient's condition.
-Reading the old chart so that you KNOW your patient better than anybody else.
-CHecking in with yoru patient 1/2 way through the day to see if anything's changed.
-Offering to prepare a presentation on a relevant topic.
-Bugging the nurses/interns to let you learn to put in IVs, draw ABGs, etc or do other procedures (good luck this early in the year, the interns arent yet certified, but you can at least WATCH)

These are just SOME of the things you can do. Think of others. Dont follow your resident/intern around unless they TELL you to. That gets really OLD 😴 and probably wont impress them too much.

 

[LovelyRita]

After 1st year I did an 'elective' ER rotation.

I came away with tons of knowledge about interacting with residents, attendings, & so forth. However the learning process was VERY FAR from pretty.

Every resident asked me why I was there, and that I should be enjoying my summer instead. (but I really just wanted to get to know the ER!)

One resident took me aside and told me that it wasn't too late to quit medical school 😱 and to pursue another career--this, from his own frustrated perspective. (sorry dude, I'm in it for the long haul).

There was one resident who was truly 'nice' and warm and open...i.e., 'follow me, we're going to go look at this patient...'--but he was being REALLY nice. I was a stranger to this hospital and to all these people and I think he sympathized with that because he was new too.

So here's what I learned (for myself, at least). Keep an open mind, ask what you can do to help, ask the right questions (not didactic stuff), TELL SOMEONE you would like to learn how to suture, start IV's, place the foley, do a blood gas, etc. etc. And most of all, be ready to be enthusiastic in the least enthusiasm-yielding situations.(make sense?)

And find an outlet for your stress. Really. Exercise or something. Don't let it build up, because you will blow up one time in front of the wrong person. This didn't happen to me, but I can see how it might be possible.

Good Luck...I'll be in your shoes in about 3 months. And then I'll probably be writing in about how my resident's a real bitch or a-hole. 😀

 

[StemCell]

Take a deep breath and settle down. Seriously.

Then, paste a smile on your face and put some enthusiasm in your step. Third year is all about impressions. Your knowledge and ability to ask the "right" questions is growing---and you will encounter a lot of forgiveness for your inexperience if you consistently have a good attitude and energy level. It isn't easy sometimes--but force yourself to do it.

As for keeping busy....Ask the resident if there is anything you can do to help the team. Be specific if you can. "would you like me to see how mr. Smith is doing this morning". "would it make things easier if I started in Mr. Smith's d/c summary" etc... At my hospital students aren't really supposed to be doing d/c summaries but we earn much in the way of grattitude if we step up. (the resident/intern may do some re-writing, but it is still helpful to have some of the initial presentation/meds/hospital course in the computer!)

If the resident says no--page the interns and ask them if you can do anything for them. Especially this time of year when they are all new and totally overwhelmed. Take the time to go through the old charts--but be wary of "chart lore". If you can add to the background history then you are helping the interns get the "complete picture"

If you are going for coffee--ask if anyone wants anything. It is a nice courtesy and it promotes good karma!

You will have lots of long days--especially in OB/surgery/medicine. Read when you can, the pocket books and PDA books can help with this. Print Up-to-date summaries to read when you have a few minutes. If you are just sitting around staring at either the resident or a wall--you are NOT going to make a good impression. Use this time to learn about whatever issue your patient has--and then use that info when generating your plan--you may be wrong/misinformed/whatever, but if you come up with suggestions for the care of the patient it shows that you've been thinking/learning. The point of all this is for you to learn, and for you do figure out how do do a lot of that learning on your own and on the fly.

If no one needs any help and they aren't doing anything interesting--leave them alone. Serously. Make sure that everyone knows where you are/what you are doing and that you REALLY want to be paged if you can do anything. You will figure out with time how to be visible and interested without being in the way. Then you will re-learn this for every set of residents/attendings you are with.

Above all, back to the beginning, smile and show enthusiasm all the time. Even when you are so tired that it hurts to smile and you just want to go to bed...the resident probably wants the same thing. You are being evaluated 24/7 at this point--and attitude is HUGE. I can't emphasize that enough!

Good luck with third year...it is exhausting but you won't believe how the time flies.

 

[kornphan]

Thank You everyone for all the input.. much appreciated.. btw.. I am not a whiner , or can't deal with the 14+ hours day , no breakfast / lunch.. thats least of my problem.. I was just amazed if not shocked to find out that some Residents call students ( not me personally ) by racial slur instead of their proper names... that's most shocking.. if this was a Corporation then they would be fired on the spot... I guess it doesn't apply here so yes I will SUCK it up and will see you all at the Graduation in 2 years ... so hang in there ;-)

Thanks again to everyone... ( This wasn't a complain, just my observation as I am new to this )... 😎

 

[PeterUbers]

i've never encountered a resident calling a student by a racial slur ... but every resident isn't a P.C. machine that never goes outside the ranch w/ his or her language...

if you wanna be a proactive, P.C. advocate... mention it to him/her...
if you wanna have a chance at honoring or doing well in that rotation, suck it up, and don't say anything. Remediating that one resident isn't going to change the way that resident practices medicine nor will it change the way their patient's receive care from him or her..