Hitting rock bottom

[grunermann]

I'm seen a lot of posts where people thought they just couldn't go on. It happened to me today in Ob/Gyn. I think it just had to do with 13 straight days of waking up before 3am and the straw broke the camel's back when I had to watch ultrasounds at an anomaly clinic when the attending, fellow, and techs wouldn't even acknowledge my presence to even say excuse me when they almost walked into me. I'd never even seen an ultrasound before today. Of course, nothing was explained to me. Normally, such a tame thing would have rolled right off me, but had I had a gauntlet today, it would have been on the floor. I felt so beaten down, but I just cried my eyes out for about an hour. Talk about catharsis! I think I can actually go back tomorrow for more fun. Just wondering if everyone else had been the same wonderful experiences in third year

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[Dr.Evil1]

Yeah it is usually OB/Gyn that does it to you. I thought I was going to die after my week of nights. I had to drive into work over an hour through rush hour to get to work at 5 pm then stay awake with bitchy OB/Gyn residents and an occasional attending that wouldn't even let me see any delivery's of private patients. Never the less I would get stuck doing EVERY triage of an expectant mother that just wanted the whole pregnancy to be over. They cleaned the carpet in the only room I could sit up in and so I was constantly overwhelmed with fumes. I would get off work around 9 am and then have to battle an hour of rush hour traffic to get home to sleep 4-5 hours and do it all again.

The only way to get through it all is to figure out which stuff is really BS then fake your way out of it. Try not to screw other students in the process but if you have another BS session like the one that you described then like fake a dentist appointment and go do something nice for yourself like get a massage. Disappear into the library for like an hour and call a friend to talk for awhile. You have to steal little moments for yourself or else you will go insane. Remember too that 4th year is pretty easy especially after you submit your ERAS application.

 

[shorrin]

I had my visit to rock bottom today. Who would have thought it would be in internal medicine? I've been through the M3 grinder (surg, ob-gyn) and thought I was on easier street.

But if you add being very sick, (i mean 102fever two days ago, now 99's) an increasing workload, trying to impress a new team, and being asked to draw blood when you feel so terrible you can hardly stand up and after you had already sucked it up and asked to go home....

well, I burst into tears when I asked my resident what color tube top I needed. she asked if I was allright, and I said I just don't feel well, but she still didn't say go home.

I suppose that I'll have to work through being sick as a resident, but I have kissed a whole week of studying goodbye and as a student it's tough.

but, tomorrow's a whole other day right?

 

[lata]

sorry to hear this people... hopefully tomorrow will be a better day and you'll be able to start anew.. hey it'll be friday

 

[DarksideAllstar]

" So I was sitting in my cubicle today, and I realized, ever since I started working, every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every single day that you see me, that's on the worst day of my life."- Office Space

 

[Bo Hurley]

I'm seen a lot of posts where people thought they just couldn't go on. It happened to me today in Ob/Gyn. I think it just had to do with 13 straight days of waking up before 3am and the straw broke the camel's back when I had to watch ultrasounds at an anomaly clinic when the attending, fellow, and techs wouldn't even acknowledge my presence to even say excuse me when they almost walked into me. I'd never even seen an ultrasound before today. Of course, nothing was explained to me. Normally, such a tame thing would have rolled right off me, but had I had a gauntlet today, it would have been on the floor. I felt so beaten down, but I just cried my eyes out for about an hour. Talk about catharsis! I think I can actually go back tomorrow for more fun. Just wondering if everyone else had been the same wonderful experiences in third year

You've already gotten the 'Rock Bottom' in med school?
Wait until residency---that's when you'll get finished off by the 'People's Elbow'.

 

[drzanny]

OB was the worst rotation for me too. everyone is sleep-deprived, from the nurses all the way up to the attendings. for two weeks, i was the only med student at my site, and they still referred to me as "medical student". as in, after ignoring me for 45 minutes at morning rounds, "Medical student, how do you calculate blood osmolarity? the long equation, not the one with just sodium." "Medical student, page so-and-so". god forbid they teach me anything. i spent 6 weeks feeling like annoying wallpaper that people would notice only to criticize. it's just a matter of remembering that sleep deprivation would turn mother teresa into a raging psychopath. advice to anyone doing it now who's suffering: count down the days. it will end soon and you will NEVER have to deal with these people again.

 

[gwyn779]

I had my visit to rock bottom today. Who would have thought it would be in internal medicine? I've been through the M3 grinder (surg, ob-gyn) and thought I was on easier street.

It's a tough call as to whether my rock bottom was during surgery or IM. I didn't have too many problems with OB, but I might have just been oblivious.
Anyway, my problem in surgery was that my mother-in-law (who I actually get along with very well) had just been formally diagnosed with lymphoma. So I wasn't exactly the most enthusiastic student in the world, which the resident took to mean I was lazy and not interested in learning at all. I was also doing this rotation 2 hrs. away and had to live in a dorm attached to the hospital. Coupled with the fact that it was winter when I was there, I never saw daylight.
During IM subspecialties was when we found out that the first treatment for my mother-in-law had partially failed. Again, I ended up being somewhat distracted. Add to that some more family issues and the fact that this was May, I just had a really hard time caring about sucking up to everyone, which was of course expected.

 

[shorrin]

everyone has personal life issues from time to time. I suppose it just seems like there is no support out there. med students aren't supposed to have problems right? heaven forbid.

Just when things seemed at the worst, the senior resident rescued me, sent me "a la casa" and told me to take sunday off if I needed to, and by the way to see a doctor next week if things aren't better, because I probably should be by now. I could have hugged him - now there's humanism in medicine if I've ever seen it.

 

[heldicus]

You've already gotten the 'Rock Bottom' in med school?
Wait until residency---that's when you'll get finished off by the 'People's Elbow'.

I love it! I'm still laughing

 

[ThinkFast007]

here's my trick...

when i am about to get scutted around...or can sense that so and so is a scutter, i ask 1000000 q's. it prolly annoys the $hit out of them but oh well. they cant say i wasnt trying to learn

additionally, they dont want to ask you to do extra stuff cuz they know they'll have to face the q's. but of course, you gotta do your nl duties,etc whatever they are..

been working soo far..hope it continues

back to M3 life

 

[vanelo]

Simple math:

Each horrible day that passes = One less day of the rotation

I did that when I had to wake at 4:40am every day for 6 wks and it worked.


Countdown, baby!!!

 

[VentdependenT]

Once Nov of 4th yr rolls around all you guys n' gals will be happy. ROL is exciting and once you get through interviews, which actually become fun after the 3rd session, you'll be set! Get through this year and enjoy 4th yr. Did I mention that anesthesiology is worth considering? Well if now then consider this as a thought provoker.

 

[medstudent2005]

forget about anesthesia...go for the gold: Radiology baby!

3rd yr sucked for me in many ways, but it was good in many ways as well. Surgery, which was my first rotation, was awesome for the first two weeks when i ddin't know what the hell i was doing but the attending didn't care and still appreciated all the questions i asked (it was vascular surgery)...they never taught me the concept of rounding and all that stuff...so when the real general surgery stuff rolled around, i had no clue still and got my ass torn to shreds for the last 6 weeks of the rotation...it was the most frustrating time of med school in terms of med school material itself...ob/gyn was cool, except that i had personal health problems and that really took a major bite out of me...the rest of third year was pretty awesome. the stuff i hated included having to look interested when you were not, which was like 90% of the time for me...sadly i realized i didn't like a whole lot about the actual practice of medicine, though the concept of it was really cool. so now i hope i match with radiology, which is a pretty awesome field!! I never broke down into tears cuz it was just not worth it and i say to you folks, don't take it that seriously!!! there's more to life then sucking up to ppl to get the grades, though we've all been there.

adios amigos

 

[Bo Hurley]

I love it! I'm still laughing

More people in medicine should definetly watch pro-wrestling. Last week on the wards a resident asked a med student some question, and the med student began her answer with "I think..."

Just then I wanted to yell out "IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT YOU THINK!"

But I knew the rest of the stiffs wouldn't get it. Damn Jabronis.

 

[AF_PedsBoy]

Fourth year is much much easier but I hit a week where I got deathly ill on Thursday with a hideous gastroenteritis (chills, myalgias, fatigue, 30-40 episodes diarrhea/day, 3 episodes vomiting), which happened to be the exact day the intern retreat started. So I was walking around like a zombie trying to cover our thirty patient census with just the chief, and she told me, "Don't write your notes, just come help me," which meant "Come look up labs and make phone calls for me." Then between episodes of being scutted, I would sit there trying not to throw up, she would say, "You look bored," and give me some random learning issue to lecture to her about. When I told her I was sick she gave me a homily about how she worked an entire shift between quietly throwing up in her call room. She DID let me go home at 4:30 PM, though without giving me too much grief. Friday, more of the same. She asked me, "You look tired, are you working two jobs?" The real reason is it's hard to sleep when you have to get up every half hour to hit the bathroom. Saturday, call from 7:00 AM to Sunday 7:00 AM, where if she caught us sitting at any time she would send us off to do something - for instance me and the intern both got an accept note to write for another medicine team. Of the six patients I was covering/cross-covering I D/C'd five of them and I still didn't get to sit down until 11:00 PM when we were supposed to flow on our patients. Sunday I finally staggered home, collapsed, and was treated to the sight of my Eagles and McNabb tossing the Superbowl. It was a good weekend.

 

[Clevername]

I hit so many rockbottoms I can hardly keep them straight. But OB/Gyn definitely takes the cake:

One horrendous call night with a bitchy ob resident stands out: First she tells me I'm there to help her only and not to ask too many questions. I remember the following that night: A big fat woman comes in "in labor", vomits in the hallway right in front of the med student "call room" which is really a closet with a tiny bed jammed in there somehow. I get to deliver my first baby that night...HIV positive female of course. I ask the resident what the chances are that the baby is HIV positive...I get yelled at for asking this question in patient's room, even though I whispered it and with the woman howling the way she was, you couldn't hear a fire alarm. Next baby...the nurse (imagine big fat blonde nurse w/ nasty attitude who has it in for the med student) in the room starts screaming at me for being in HER way...as if you could NOT be in the way of someone with an ass the size of Wyoming. The resident tells me: "as a med student, you don't want to get in the way".

Next baby...the attending is present this time. She is tired, bitter and hates men. She tells me to gown up for a delivery. Of course, I don't put on my sterile 8 gloves the way she likes, so she tells me to take them off. She proceeds to condescendingly teach me how to put on gloves sterilely. With the whole room watching me, I am now expected to showcase this skill, which I apparently could not do. So she tells me I don't listen and that's something I need to work on. I don't get to deliver this baby, which was the only positive thing that came out of this scenario.

 

[livewires]

For me it's been Peds...I thought I loved kids. I am so @*$!ing sick of Ear pain, ear pain, ear pain, sore throat, sorethroat, congestion, ear pain, cough, cough, cough, ear pain that I want to just scream. I am working in a Peds clinic and it's like a factory. We see like 120 patients per day and if I take even a few minutes extra in the morning, the load backs up and keeps me there for hours over end. Outpatient peds rivals the OB/GYN clinic for me as far as the most painful experience so far in my third year.


Lets scream together...AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[ericdamiansean]

Hey guys, i'll be starting my clinicals in about a week or so, from what I've read here, thank God I'm starting with peds.

What bothers me is that, is this just the American schools that make the students so stressed out by forcing you to learn everything? I dont' exactly mind it, that's why you guys think that you are the best in the world and are superior over others.

I have friends who are going through UK schools, and I'm from an Asian school myself, and I guess we don't go through those stuff that you do, but then, I do question how much I do know in relative to you guys.
My friends in the UK/Indian med schools tell me that they learn alot less, even lesser than my school (Malaysia) in it's virtually stress free even for the weaker students

 

[danip]

well today i suppose i hit rockbottom and for no good reason either ---it was just a combination of things that have been going on for the past few wks. This is what happens when you're stuck for 3 whole months on medicine with an attending who is a d**k. let me explain this man----you try to present--he rolls his eyes; you try to answer a question he snaps ; you try to do a thorough h and p--he's bored....so you assume he hasn't gotten laid in at least a yr and that is it......but still i let it get to me so today when I presented at morning report he told me i failed to captivate my audience lol and proceeded to shred apart my presenting skills which he has in no way tried to better. did he dare to complement me on the thoroughness of my history---no or question me on any of the topics i read up on at 3am while i was on call---no. not to mention some intense personal and health issues i have on my mind---so suffice to say this morning i was a sorry sac and bawled in the dirty bathrm. i guess we've all done it once or twice right; though this was a first for me

everyone has personal life issues from time to time. I suppose it just seems like there is no support out there. med students aren't supposed to have problems right? heaven forbid.

Just when things seemed at the worst, the senior resident rescued me, sent me "a la casa" and told me to take sunday off if I needed to, and by the way to see a doctor next week if things aren't better, because I probably should be by now. I could have hugged him - now there's humanism in medicine if I've ever seen it.

 

[happy5]

6 mo from now will you care about this guy. focus on advancing your own education and let unconstructive criticism roll off your back. seek out positive opportunities and people who like to teach.

and more importantly call your friend steve and buy him a drink, he will know what to do cause he is REALY smart.

 

[Pili]

Fourth year is much much easier but I hit a week where I got deathly ill on Thursday with a hideous gastroenteritis (chills, myalgias, fatigue, 30-40 episodes diarrhea/day, 3 episodes vomiting), which happened to be the exact day the intern retreat started. So I was walking around like a zombie trying to cover our thirty patient census with just the chief, and she told me, "Don't write your notes, just come help me," which meant "Come look up labs and make phone calls for me." Then between episodes of being scutted, I would sit there trying not to throw up, she would say, "You look bored," and give me some random learning issue to lecture to her about. When I told her I was sick she gave me a homily about how she worked an entire shift between quietly throwing up in her call room. She DID let me go home at 4:30 PM, though without giving me too much grief. Friday, more of the same. She asked me, "You look tired, are you working two jobs?" The real reason is it's hard to sleep when you have to get up every half hour to hit the bathroom. Saturday, call from 7:00 AM to Sunday 7:00 AM, where if she caught us sitting at any time she would send us off to do something - for instance me and the intern both got an accept note to write for another medicine team. Of the six patients I was covering/cross-covering I D/C'd five of them and I still didn't get to sit down until 11:00 PM when we were supposed to flow on our patients. Sunday I finally staggered home, collapsed, and was treated to the sight of my Eagles and McNabb tossing the Superbowl. It was a good weekend.

This, which might look heroic, is actually not a good idea. I too used to work while sick, and with horrific colds and chills. But when one has a fever, and especially diarrhea and vomiting, one should just call in sick. Period. No asking for permission. A visit to the doc, a signed doc paper, and home to bed. If this somehow ends up on the eval as laziness, a lawsuit should be threatened in no uncertain terms. This will get some attention. Let's not forget, in the heat of trying to get honors, basic law, or the rights of patients. Many immunosuppressed patients are ill served by having a contagious medical student (who is not helping much anyway) around. We are students, not employees.

 

[Hoo\/er]

I hit so many rockbottoms I can hardly keep them straight. But OB/Gyn definitely takes the cake:

One horrendous call night with a bitchy ob resident stands out: First she tells me I'm there to help her only and not to ask too many questions. I remember the following that night: A big fat woman comes in "in labor", vomits in the hallway right in front of the med student "call room" which is really a closet with a tiny bed jammed in there somehow. I get to deliver my first baby that night...HIV positive female of course. I ask the resident what the chances are that the baby is HIV positive...I get yelled at for asking this question in patient's room, even though I whispered it and with the woman howling the way she was, you couldn't hear a fire alarm. Next baby...the nurse (imagine big fat blonde nurse w/ nasty attitude who has it in for the med student) in the room starts screaming at me for being in HER way...as if you could NOT be in the way of someone with an ass the size of Wyoming. The resident tells me: "as a med student, you don't want to get in the way".

Next baby...the attending is present this time. She is tired, bitter and hates men. She tells me to gown up for a delivery. Of course, I don't put on my sterile 8 gloves the way she likes, so she tells me to take them off. She proceeds to condescendingly teach me how to put on gloves sterilely. With the whole room watching me, I am now expected to showcase this skill, which I apparently could not do. So she tells me I don't listen and that's something I need to work on. I don't get to deliver this baby, which was the only positive thing that came out of this scenario.

Hell yeah, OB sucks. It sucked so bad for me that I walked out on the rotation during a call shift after spending one week on the service. **** 'em

 

[AznTrojan]

ahh.. good times.. i remember OB/gyn..

the residents tried to fail me even though i got honors on my exams.. thankfully the chief of ob/gyn (someone i have never met) gave me a great eval and i high passed ob/gyn..

3rd year's a bitch.. just hang in there.. and wait until 4th year rolls around.. life gets better

 

[Diamox]

FYI, same deal in Canada. We all hit rock bottom once and awhile. What's worse is that up here we have to learn our stuff for the degree, and then learn American stats, and stuff like Rocky mountain spotted fever for the NBME exams.

It's usually not one thing that breaks you but a series of events - often coupled with lack of sleep.

I've found that it's not the amount of knowledge that gets you by but your ability to adapt to change and handle being pimped all day/week/month. We'd do alot better in medicine if we weeded out the antisocial personailities at the admissions desk...

 

[Blade28]

OB/gyn can be brutal. I loved the gyn surg part of it, but L&D during the OB part was rough. I think we rounded starting around 4:30 - 5 am every day, 7 days a week...call was q3, exclusively L&D, no sleep, and there were no "post-call" rules.

My worst experience was a full day of L&D (5 am - 7 pm), followed by a brutal L&D call, then two extremely complicated TAH-BSOs the next day which lasted until around 9 pm.

I agree, though, fourth year is much better. Hang in there, get through your third year required rotations, you'll be glad you did.

 

[cubsrule4e]

Im just a naive pre-MSI and know next to nothing about rotations, but these situations seem somewhat analogous to my job as a scribe at an ER. Basically I'm just the doctors' bitch, and dont get to do anything of clinical relevance aside from getting symptoms and history from the patients and doing their D/C or admit papers.

Have any of you, instead of breaking down and crying, lost your temper and yelled back at the resident/attending? Would that be grounds for immediate negative evaluations without chance of redemption or would they just not even care as long as you followed up on what they told you? Ive never really had any problems with the doctors (although ive butted heads with a few nurses) even though many of them are arrogant dinguses. Im also an ice hockey official so between these 2 jobs i take crap from people on a daily basis. Hopefully this will provide me with some experience for rotations, as far as the criticism goes.

 

[Saved Satan]

"I suffered through it all. So should you."
This is the overriding mentality under which med students and residents continue the age-old cycle and which continue to breed out the dis-empowered physicians who are defensively preoccupied with "How to go through another day safely" disconnected from the big picture. There is reason why lawyers and businessmen are easily preying on the myopic physicians who continue to cling to the idea "How to go through another day." Med students and physicians do talk about their problems and plights, but do not seek the power to take charge and change the malignant situations. They do not realize what power they possess as an organized, concerted group. This is the true plight indeed.

As can be seen on this thread and the general residency thread, what consoles you and makes you survive each day of this misery is "In xx days it will all be over. Then it will get better." This is what a slave used to repeat to him/herself to survive each day of torture until a new Master comes to rescue just to give a slightly better slavery to which the slave is infinitely grateful. He/she remains a slave.

One dean of med school said, "I still wonder whether we are to produce physicians who are submissive to the system or who can take charge and revolutionize."

What do you all think? Haven't you have enough of your premed mentality which forever trembles and get paralized before the thought of a failing grade and rejection which drives you to comply and prolong the rotten system. The lawyers and businessmen know this weak spot of yours and are taking full advantage of it. They deserve the money they rob off you for their audacity and slyness. They smelled your "slave" mentality. They claimed themselves your Masters. You grumbled, yet you complied, for you know not what else to do.

You are too busy memorizing terms; you are too busy trying to pass; you are too busy trying not to make mistake; or you are too busy trying to make one more dollar. Thus you are too busy to have a panoramic vision of your full potential to lead and command, not be led and be told. It is ironic that the required quality of med school admissions is leadership.

This is an age where a 3 years old girl can sue her mom for alleged emotional or physical abuse. We have empowered even a feeble child to stand up for her own dignity and right. What about you?

You will say, "You don't know what it's like. There is nothing you can do here. Either you suck it up or get kicked out." Can they kick out ALL interns? Can they kick out ALL residents? Can they kick out ALL physicians? If you are too weak to make a change alone, organize your peers as a unified group. No one can stop you then. You CAN change the age-old rotten mentality "I suffered through it. So should you." You CAN end the bigotry of the lawyers and businessmen adulterating medicine, your and your patients' life.

Next time you feel you are treated inhumanly and unjustly, ask yourself whether you are a born-slave or a born-master. Perhaps a handful of brave med students and physicians are what we need at the beginning. A site like this can mobilize the force. The neurosurgery site (nsmatch.com) is beginning to realize this.

One concrete example: Few years ago in S.Korea ALL physicians in the entire nation rose together and striked refusing to work for days against one bill the government was trying to pass. The result: the nation had to listen and comply. What else can it do? Caveat, extreme emergency cases were treated during the strike. This is the power you have. Use it. Or continue the misery and pass on the misery to the next generation of med students. How much of a leader are you? Or are you just a perpetual trembling premed "counting the days"? Tell me what you are.

I am what I am because I REBELLED against GOD himself. It should be much easier to rebel against evils.

 

[Resident Alien]

Saved satan liked your post and agree.