Peds... lots of disney stuff around but not the happiest place on earth?

This has been a really rough week. I thought that peds would be filled with happy people and fun attendings but boy was i wrong...

On Tuesday, shit hit the fan when we got yelled at [more like screamed at] by the head honcho of the peds department. Reason being is that we are supposed to stay everyday until 5pm but since there isnt much to do in the afternoon, the interns AND the residents we have worked with have had one of us stay for the afternoon while the rest of us go home to use our time wisely. This worked all last week and then up until Tuesday when Dr. X [we will call him that for safety's sake] came in and found only Torey in the office. He told her to tell all of us to come back to the hospital by 2pm or else we will fail the rotation. SO we all came back and dr. X walked in at 2 and gave us a 5 minute speech that started with, " im gonnna make this short and to the point, you are all failing the rotation as of right now. you are going to have to work your way back up and bring your A game to pass this rotation. I have never be do disrespected in my life...blah blah blah." This went on for a while. he then just turned around and walked out the door. at first i really thought he was joking around because we rounded with him the week before and he asked a lot of questions but he still was fun to work with. i thought this lil rant was a joke and he was gonna stop in the middle and say, 'haha, just kidding' but he didnt. oh boy he didnt.

So this week we rounded with another doctor and boy was she a debby downer. this lady never smiled, made the meanest faces at you, and was not very fun to work with. She had her positive moments [telling me she was proud of me because i was 'teachable' because i went home and read about something she taught us the day before] but mostly, she was not very excited about anything. She was known to ask a ton of questions about your patients so we were warned to read everything about them and be able to answer her detailed questions. It was really hit or miss with her. Sometimes you would answer her question and she would be happy, other times you would answer and she wouldnt even look at you. Then of course, the times when you didnt know the answer she nailed us for it. Everytime i didnt know one of her questions she would tell us off about how 'you should know this and that' but she never gave you the opportunity to explain. She was ok at teaching but her accent kinda got in the way sometimes.

Anyways, on Wednesday I did a presentation [we have to do 1 every 2 weeks] and she gave me a good evaluation for it. But then Friday came about and she must have really changed her opinion on me. On rounds i guess i just didnt shine. She asked me what my plan was for a baby with a UTI and when i told her what antibiotics i wanted to put him on she said 'absolutely not, completely wrong' and went on to tell me why i was so wrong [even though my answer wasnt that off and i never got to explain why i chose them so really it just looked like i guessed an answer]. i mean, dont get my wrong, if i dont answer something correctly im not going to be upset at the attending for correction me because i am a medial student and i expect to be wrong most of the time, but the way she made me feel about being wrong was just really mean. then later during rounds i asked why she had decreased a dose of antibiotics and she said, 'no, i am not going to answer your question. we talked about that earlier in the week and you should know why.' So to prove i knew the basics of why and just that i was confused at why she was doing it that day instead of the next day, i ran through some of it with her but she still just looked at my like i was stupid. So, as we talked she told me how i shouldnt ask so many questions and that i should just look at the answers instead of asking people. That it makes me look stupid and when i get to other services people will pick on me for it. Yes, i am not shy and dont mind asking questions, but i have never been scolded for it. i guess i didnt formulate my questions right with her since she jut thought i was an idiot. but that doesnt make to much sense to me considering this is schooling and they are there to teach us. yes, i will look something up also but who is it hurting to ask a simple question during rounds to get the doctors opinion on the matter?

i wasnt too surprised when later that morning i asked her to do my 2 week evaluation and she pretty much just criticized me for about 3 minutes. She said i 'didnt know my patients at all' and that my knowledge was lacking. I need to read more and study more and that i have a lot of room for improvement [emphasis on the LOT]. I sat there just nodding and saying ok and trying to be as accepting as possible to her criticism. the part that made me the most angry is that she never gave me specific examples of what i did wrong and she never gave me any constructive criticism as how to improve. she just talked for a couple minutes, circled a bunch of low %s on my eval and then got up to leave. its like she just put me down, said [in not exact words] that i was stupid and that i needed to work harder. Oh, and then as she gets up and walks out the door she says have a good weekend, dont worry, you will be a good doctor you just have a lot of work to do. WHAT THE FUCK?

I may not have been a complete gunner on this rotation like that annoying girl [who at several times threw us under the bus and made herself look great on our expense] but i have still worked hard, gotten to the hospital early to read up on my patients and see them, and i worked hard to make the intern's lives easier. at this point i still dont know exactly what to do to make my grade go up because clearly my grade for this rotation is going to be at minimum passing level. on the bottom of the evalution she wrote 'student has much room for improvement over the rest of the 4 week rotation.' great...


i had to work this AM [saturday] and when working with one of the residents, we got to talking about that doctor and i told him what happened. he says she does that all the time and really does pick on certain medical students and residents and gives them really bad evals. so i guess i cant feel too bad if she does this to one person in the group everytime. but i cant stop wondering why me? i guess im just to talkative and normal...haha. this is the first time [of many i am sure] an attending has not liked me and i just need to get used to it and know that some people are gonna love me and some are gonna not love me and thats just life. i am able to kinda laugh it off today but honestly yesterday was a hard day. first time i have cried about rotations so far.

i worked all week, worked today and tomorrow [sunday] work all next week and then get saturday off. i will then work sunday- friday.

im really ready for vacation