<p>D has been made to feel inadequate more than once but has experienced minimal asinine behavior. She has noted that some doctors make the effort to teach well even when they are incredibly busy and a few have little patience for it. There is a lot of ego out there. She has already been involved in the public health health world long enough to know that all doctors are teachers and need to develop that part of their skill set. When it is her turn she plans on being the doctor that teaches well.</p>
<p>It has been interesting to hear her start to plan the next step. She seems to know through word of mouth which residency programs are more toxic than others.</p>
<p>I know of at least one real toxic one in the Philadelphia suburbs that I did my one year of internship at before going off to the West Coast to finish my catagorical Residency that turned to be even worse.</p>
<p>The article in the OP is a must read for all premeds. I was an Astronomy major as an undergaduate and although I received grades high enough to get me into a US medical school I never seriously considered medical school as anything but a possible back-up and was never part of the premed culture in college. After a lot of soul-searching I finally came to the conclusion that I did not have a sufficient aptitude for Math to do well in Astronomy as a graduate student and accepted an offer of admission to an East Coast allopathic medical school.</p>
<p>I was totally unprepared for the bullying culture in U.S. medical education that I endured as a medical student as well as during residency. Believe me, this article is no exageration, in fact, if anything they understate how bad it can get and it happens everywhere. Premeds should realize that if they get into medical school that they will be yelled at, insulted, publicly humiliated and possibly be subjected to physical violence by people senior to them in the medical hierarchy. From what I have seen on some of these threads though is that the pathalogical personalities you have to contend with in medical school and residency might have their roots in the premed experience.</p>
<p>Sounds nice. Jeez. My kid is a few weeks into MS3 and thankfully has not faced anything similar to what is being described here. I hope she doesn’t. As to how she responds if/when faced with such situation, I dunno. It might not be pretty.</p>
<p>Yes, my daughter who is in her third year and about 2 months into her clinical rotations has heard terrible things from others in different schools about the bullying particularly in surgery.</p>
<p>DD will finish her first clinical rotation next week, so far, two great residents- one hard core, very demanding & an excellent teacher, and her attending is about the best she could have hoped for.</p>
<p>It is interesting how different the experiences and expectations are at different sites. DDs & roommate are doing the same subject in different locations, DD is there every day at 7AM and leaves between 7 & 9 PM, her roommate works half the time. DD says, though, that the roommate is bored whereas DD is learning tons.</p>
<p>DD finds it interesting that school admins seem to think the kids all work 9-4 and on lecture days, lecture 9-4, the admins act like that is all that has to be done, yet DD is at the hospital for hours before and after lecture.</p>
<p>I would imagine certain settings have this bullying culture ingrained and pass it on to each new generation, I wonder how well they will be able to discern the existence of this when they interview for residencies?</p>
<p>Here’s a linkhttp://<a href=“Bloomberg - Are you a robot?”>www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-02/scalpel-throwing-surgeons-stun-anger-management-pioneer-health.html:</a></p>
<p>Having read the article and more importantly the numerous comments written below, it sounds as if D’s experience has been very good by comparison to some. She enjoyed her rotations.</p>
<p>When DS was applying to med school, somebody told hm that, if he has a choice in the end, it is better to attend a school that tends to be more “protective” of its students. This is more important than the ranking of the school.</p>
<p>The reason is that while you may not subject to an abusive environment in college (except for a brutal grading policy occasionally – but you could deal with this by working hard academically, unlike in hospital, you could be yelled at or belittled just because you are at a “wrong” place at a “wrong” time.), this is a real possibility as a med student in clinical years or as a resident. A more proper analogy may be that you are in military! (It also has the ranking because of the seniority.) It is not all about academic any more. They may try to do something unreasonable intentionally in order to make you “tough.”</p>
<p>During a second look trip (we drove him there as it was close to our home town), we could see the hospital from our hotel’s room. Seeing some students who were working hard late into the night, he jokingly said these students were being abused.</p>
<p>Which specialty tends to be more abusive? I also heard a funny story: There are some specialty that is for a doctor who hates patients.</p>
<p>Talked to my data point today. This topic came up. She had attended a class-wide mini-switch party (don’t ask me but supposedly “most” were “switching rotations”). I don’t know what made it “mini”. Didn’t ask. She said there were some stories but nothing that scared her. Some volatile personalities but sometimes the student describing the volatile behavior had equally fantastic things to say about the resident. “They are brilliant.”</p>
<p>My kid said she could see where students who had not had yellers and screamers in their life could be put-off but for my kid…she said she’d had plenty of exposure, lol. Playing competitive sports for competitive coaches (me included) and having some tough old-school eraser throwing teachers apparently lessens the shock value. And as for hard-nosed totalitarians? Yeah. She’s been there, too. </p>
<p>The only specific story she re-told was about how a student was doing a physical exam the way they were taught to do it and a resident being highly critical of it. Like a 5 minute explosive rant of “critical”. </p>
<p>Take home point for parents: Randomly yell and scream at your kids while insisting on irrational and ever-changing demands or performance. You’ll either end up with an ax-muderer or a well-prepared med student.</p>
<p>Oh, almost forgot. Before I could mention our family’s “rule” she mentioned it. My kid has been taught the difference beween discipline, coaching, teaching, instruction and “abusive behavior”. She knows where “the” (or at least “her”) line is. Stay on the right side of the line and she will be your most loyal player. Cross that line? She has been taught to not be cowed into silence or submission. For her, that line is pretty far down there…but it is there. I would hope it is there for everybody. </p>
<p>P.S. Eraser throwing wasn’t over the line but she said scalpel throwing (if it was at her) was. A generalized throw wouldn’t have made it over the line. lol</p>
<p>I had read this thread when it was first posted but was hesitant to comment. What was described sounded like an “off-day, feeling under the weather” kind of day for sons’ football coaches.</p>
<p>Like curm’s daughter middle son (one in med school) played competitve team sports from age 6 through D1 college ball. The louder the coach, the bigger the kid grins, he just can’t help it. Has gotten him in more trouble more than once. Swear that boy just eggs them on. Really…takes the escalation gradient as a personal challenge.</p>
<p>As a lineman he would be physically hard to bully…and once he opens his mouth it just gets worse. Kinda like Sheldon (big bang) meets Worf (star trek, next generation). Of course he had to be tough growing up, his big brother was 2 years ahead and he always felt like he was behind. Eventually time evened it all out.</p>
<p>So I don’t envision him being bullied, I have heard and seen from some of his classmates that he is enjoying school so very much. Says he needs to take it more “serious”. Classes started again and he is again really having fun. Huge grin on his face. Advisor signed him up for some “extra” work, classes, research…</p>
<p>Interesting concept, DD did a stint previously with a doc that is unpopular and was she was warned about him, whatever that means. I know he is not PC at all and that may have been a big part of it. She had a great time, said it took her a few days then she realized he was just like her Dad and things were great from then on, joking around, comfortable, etc.</p>
<p>Growing up with competitive sports from an early age through university and still playing now on coed teams, maybe some of the bullying is just what athletes see as normal? </p>
<p>I am sure there are some places and people who are over the line, I am not discounting people’s experience, but academia is rather politically correct and the world of sports often is not. If some students are coming from a more sheltered academic upbringing they could be shocked by the behavior which sporty kids see as somewhere on the spectrum of normal.</p>
<p>We have a family peer who is a lifelong academic, professor and dean, etc. He is easily shocked by non-PC joking around And he is sincerely bothered by this stuff, he is not capable of being okay to joke about things he considers important.</p>
<p>And I guess that kids who were fashion models or high level pianists may have had similar experiences. I don’t want it to sound like I’m saying athletics is the only place kids get exposure to this stuff. Far from it. But the reality is some kids haven’t faced a lot of hostility or maybe not even much “unpleasantness”.</p>
Yeah, the “my way or the highway”, “I don’t give a crap what you were taught, you are doing it all wrong” rant of the doc who was criticizing the physical exam apparently didn’t phase the kid who was getting it. She shrugged it off with a "Sheez. He coulda just told me how he wanted it done. It woulda saved some time. " ;)</p>
<p>In every profession, there are people who like to throw their weight about and are abusive; it just appears that the system seems to tolerate this sort of a behavior more from physicians than from others. In the OR, if a surgeon throws a fit because something wasn’t right and empties the tray on the floor, there’s a fair chance that the action the OR manager takes would be make changes in the staff’s actions than have the medical staff office reprimand the doc. This would be far less prevalent for others. So it’s not surprising that some docs are bullies, and the recipients are sometimes the med students, some of whom learn this lesson only too well.</p>
And he is sincerely bothered by this stuff, he is not capable of being okay to joke about things he considers important.</p>