Why don't you just go out of your way to scrub in with him? This is where most surgery teaching occurs. In the meantime, the residents can teach you plenty. You could also email him (less confrontational) and ask whether he would have time to meet with you over the next few weeks (but it should be about pursuing a surgery career, etc, not about "will you teach me now?"). You will make him feel bad, leading to your labeling as a epst if you ask the way you suggested. Just my 0.02
The problem is I m not doing a rotation with him. I am doing another rotation, so the resident has no responsibility to teach me. Neither they will have the time, since their time are not flexible compared to the attending. Email him or fixing a time with him for an appointment does not sound suitable in my situation, as I see him almost very often, and I always just walk in to his office, or just call him...sometime I even sit on his chair and occupied his desk and office, eat his snack, use his computer as i like...etc...Yeah..I am pretty close to him, that is how I feel now...however, he is still my superior...and I am a lowly MSIII only...it is because of this, I really don't want to say anything or do anything that could possibly hurt my relation with him. Yet at the same time...as an MSIII...my job is to learn.
Yeah...I do actually scrub in with him sometime, when I am free...and I have to admit that during the operation, he did actually spent time teaching me, like telling me the anatomy, teaching me how to fix it etc...and not pimping me, since he actually knew it is just pointless to pimp me at this time. In fact, I have to admit that, he is the nicest attending to me in my life. If I were to describe, he is the ideal person I will want to work with for the rest of my life.
It seems to me that he only teaches senior residents and not med students. I believe I could be his only med student so far since I have never seen any other med students with him neither I know of any med student that were trained by him before. So I believe he may forget what a med student actually need compare to a senior resident, since senior resident had enough of hands on, all they need is guidance. However, this may not apply to a med student without any hands on experience. Also, the learning method in any kind of surgery is more of hands-on, not just giving lecture. The more you do the better you are. So I actually wish he can teach me hands on and let me do some, and not just giving me lecture, which is useful, but not so much useful to me at this time. That is why I really wish he spent time and teach me hands on let me do it.
