Last week, I whined about an annoying co-sub-I I had during my medicine sub-internship. Anyway, as it turned out, I honored that rotation. I'm pretty sure it was a general rule that everyone had to honor their sub-I, to boost our chances of landing a good match and help our school's reputation. But I did get very nice comments from my attending and the senior resident, so I was happy about that.
One thing I wasn't too pleased about was the comments from the intern on the team, Betty. Her one-line comment was: "Did adequate job. She was quiet and I couldn't assess her knowledge base."
That one sort of pissed me off. I'd worked closely with Betty all month, been on call with her, helped her with scutwork, etc. Plus she'd gone to my med school, so I knew her from before that rotation too. Hell, I'd been to her home before. On the last day of the rotation, Betty burst into tears because she was overwhelmed and I spent over an hour talking to her and trying to comfort her. That evaluation sounded like it was for someone she'd just passed by in the hallway a few times.
The one thing I could think of was that Betty was kind of angry that me and the other sub-I left the rotation a bit early. It was a July sub-I, but July 31 fell on a Sunday, so the clerkship director officially gave the sub-interns permission to have that weekend off since many of us would be starting outside rotations on Monday. Considering I had an away elective starting Monday and had to permanently move out of my apartment, it was nice having a FULL WEEKEND to move everything I owned to a different state. But I knew Betty was not happy about this. She pissed and moaned about the fact that we weren't going to be there, and insisted we write skeleton notes for our patients for the weekend, which we did.
Also, she was pretty miserable. Possibly one of the top 5 most unhappy interns I've seen, including myself.
Or maybe she honestly felt that after spending 3-4 hours rounding with me every single day for a month, watching me get pimped countless times, and having countless conversations with me, she still knew nothing about me.
Wow. That sounds a bit petty. I imagine that whole thing must be pretty darn stressful but really?
ReplyDeleteOuch. Well, at least that wasn't your resident or attending, so I can't imagine it carried the same weight.
ReplyDeleteIt happens to the best of us. I had a resident write, "Medical student good at staying out of the way." Fortunately I still got honors on that rotation. But sheesh. Seriously?
ReplyDeleteI had one attending tell me toward the end of a rotation "You were one of the best medical students I've worked with". In my evaluation, he wrote "Student performed adequately".
ReplyDeleteThe evaluation held no weight. It was just the principle of the thing. I didn't expect her to write anything wonderful, just a nicer sentence than that.
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ReplyDeleteI had a rotation with a friend of mine. She threw me under the bus several times on it, blaming me for stuff she forgot in front of our preceptor, telling her I was slowing her down, etc. I was like WTF?! I didn't even see her most of the day. We had different patients assigned to us, only met for rounds at the beginning of the day and conferences at the end. The first time she did it, I confronted her afterwards, and she sounded like she was trying to convince me it really was my fault.
ReplyDeleteShe was a friend, so I didn't say anything to my preceptor about it. I normally just addressed my patients accordingly and tried to avoid her so she couldn't come up with anything. I remember once in conference, I said something wrong (not even serious, I suggested giving a patient a laxative, without first stating we needed to check for bowel obstruction - big freakin' deal) and she literally attacked me in front of the group, made a huge deal about it. I would have never have done that (granted, my preceptor would probably have pointed it out anyway, but I would never attack another student).
I could tell she was clearly stressed (it was a tough rotation), and whatever. It's not like any of that matters once we got on with our real lives anyway...but it did piss me off.