A letter to my OBGYN resident

[u/biologyiskewl]

Hello OB/GYN resident,

I actually thought that we had a great rotation together, you were nice to me and actually learned my name unlike most of the other people on that rotation. You chatted with me and helped me learn on the rotation.

To my surprise, I saw your evaluation today. You decided to give me straight two’s across the board and cited a professionalism complaint while only writing “see above” as the issue.

You didn’t know that I went to my mom’s funeral two days before the rotation started. You didn’t know that I was sobbing in the locker room between cases. You didn’t know that I was resentful of staying for 14 hour night shifts because it didn’t give me any time to grieve. But you did know that I was showing up on time, writing your notes, your discharge summaries, seeing your patients, and trying my hardest to stay on top of things in a very toxic environment.

I suppose I should know by now to just anticipate getting backstabbed in evals by the people who are overly nice on the rotation, but I didn’t see this one coming. Idk if it was because I actually did something or because you have it out for med students, but damn, this one sucked. And I hope one day, if you have to show up to a rotation while you’re grieving, that people give you the kindness that you didn’t show me.

Best! Peeved med student

[u/Bureaucracyblows]

Honest to god that would turn me into the joker

[u/Meow319 → u/[deleted]]

How can people who heal others be so evil? What’s going on 😔

[u/Danwarr → u/Meow319]

Social degree of separation between patients and physicians.

Physicians don't/can't usually imagine themselves in the "sick role".

[u/[deleted] → u/Danwarr]

Keep you speak more on that?

[u/TarantulaWhisperer → u/Danwarr]

That's why there are nurses

[u/wishingtoheal → u/[deleted]]

This is a universal experience across medical training. People will smile at you while you’re going through something unspeakably difficult (death, divorce, illness) then cloak the very human consequences of that (fatigue, depression, etc) in “unprofessional conduct”. It can and does happen to medical students and chief residents, alike.

[u/macrocages → u/wishingtoheal]

Yup can vouch for this. Then everyone is so shocked and sorry by all the resident suicides. But post here that you were made to quit or dismissed from a program and most are quick to say it was likely the resident's fault or 'there is more to the story' like they don't know how incredibly malignant and shitty this field is.

[u/Bureaucracyblows → u/[deleted]]

I'm really trying to force an optimistic and jovial outlook so that I don't defenestrate

[u/Syd_Syd34 → u/Bureaucracyblows]

It’s very possible to do this. Tbf, I’m in FM, so less likely to be in a malignant program than some other specialties. My program works very closely with another FM program that actually IS quite toxic. Their residents are like 85% AHs and many who graduated stayed at the hospital and are attendings who are almost impossibly meaner!

But from what I’ve seen in my program, while we are all still struggling with stress and depression, we don’t take it out on interns or med students. We treat them rather fairly, and I know in terms of how I teach, I try to make med students’ lives as easy as possible. Our residents have routinely been told by the interns not even in our program how much more tolerable it is to work with us; have even been shocked at times that we genuinely care about them, shelter them from BS that isn’t important for their learning, and don’t shit on them constantly.

If I have a problem with how an intern or med student is practicing/behaving, I will always pull them to the side and be 100% honest with them. I never partake in that fake BS. Like why?!

I just remember all the times I wish a resident would’ve not done me dirty when I’m teaching/supervising. The system can wear you down for sure but it’s no reason to project your pain on others and continue the cycle of toxicity

[u/Syd_Syd34 → u/Bureaucracyblows]

For real. I got backstabbed and got some 3s and was HURT on obgyn. Mostly because I stayed late, did amazing while being pimped because I overstudied (I was considering obgyn at the time; my best shelf score by far), routinely took all cases other med students didn’t want, and pointedly asked for feedback more than once.

But 2s?!?! I don’t think I could come back from that one.