Dr. Orthochick: Bad med student

We had a medical student last month, Brad. He was rotating with us from a nearby DO program, which seems kind of weird because we don't accept DOs into my residency program so I'm not sure what the benefit to rotating at a program you know won't take you is, but I'm also not sure when to recommend a growing rod implant, so there's a lot out there I don't know.

Anyway, Brad was a third year and normally they don't rotate through ortho, so he got special permission from his school to rotate with us so I'm guessing it was because he really wanted to be a pod. Although I don't know if he didn't actually want to be a pod, he decided midway through that he didn't want to be a pod, or if he just knew that he wasn't getting in to our program and therefore didn't want to be a pod here, but he really didn't make much of an effort to be nice. If we were all at OrthoBreakfast, he would sit two seats over and not talk to anyone. I tried starting a conversation with him once walking from Point A to Point B, and he walked ahead of me after a while so that was the end of that.

I didn't really have much contact with Brad because I've been hanging out in Hand Land, but this other resident Paul hated Brad. His big argument was that Brad sucked in the OR and he was lazy in general. The OR thing I'm pretty understanding of, although I think after your first surgery week, you could figure out that if someone's tying knots, you should cut them. Hell, if your scrub nurse is nice, he'll hand you the stupid scissors when it looks like someone's about to start suturing, so this really isn't rocket science. But I'm pretty sympathetic to this sort of thing because I know what it's like to stand around and feel useless.

As for the laziness though, the rule is, if you operate on a patient, you round on him/her. Brad did not get this rule. I personally do not think it's all that hard to figure out, but Brad never did it. Paul told him at least six times that he had to round on his patients, but he never actually did it. And that's actually kind of obnoxious because it shows that you're paying attention and you care enough about your patients to see how they do afterwards. And if you want to do ortho, then you have to know how to manage postop ortho patients. You have to look out for the POD#2 hemoglobin drop in total joint patients, you have to make sure everyone's weightbearing status is being observed, and you have to make sure your incisions look good. This really isn't rocket science, but it takes a while to get used to how things are going to be after surgery and what to look out for. You want to know how much swelling is normal and how much erythema you can have before we worry about infection. And really, if a resident asks you to do something, you freaking do it.

My experience with Brad was limited to Friday night, when I walked into the OR and Brad was walking out.

Me: We're going to be doing a hemi in here, if you want to stick around.

Brad: I'm on vacation now.

Me: Oh. That's nice.

Brad: Yeah, two weeks off.

Me: Enjoy.

He left, the scrub nurse asked me if Brad was going to be back for the next case, I said no, and the circulating nurse said "Thank G-d!"

Like I said, Brad was not known for his operating prowess.

Anyway, as a final act of laziness, Brad never told anyone besides me that it was his last day on the rotation. So for Monday, the chief left Brad's assignment on the bone phone.

Me: You don't have to schedule something for Brad anymore. Friday was his last day.

Chief: Well, it was nice of him to tell me.

Resident: He was one of the worst med students we've ever had. We need to give him a bad evaluation. Something really terrible, but not so bad that he needs to rotate with us again.

Chief: I'll do that.

I guess on the plus side, since we don't take DOs at my program, Brad really didn't blow his chances here in that regard. I hope he decided to do something else though, because if not, this eval is going to look really bad on his application.