Definitely, BUT if the culture is such that MS/Residents have to keep their mouths shut otherwise they are whiny babies then that's never going to happen.
The culture needs to change. It is OK for doctors to complain.
RE: the culture
Someone I know sustained a severe injury from training.
When it was just first starting, they were starting to have symptoms, and they were starting to show despite their best efforts to hide them.
They were just on the verge of saying something the resident in charge to ask for help, but they were beat to it when the resident told them that they noticed, and for the sake of their grades and career they better get better at hiding them. It wasn't a threat. As far as they were concerned, they were looking out for this person.
They went to the Dean of the medical school to see what could be done. They were told the only way to be accommodated would be time off but it would extend their graduation date and it would negatively impact their career and the Match. That they needed to do WHATEVER it took to graduate on time if they could continue to pass their rotations.
They were thankful they already liked the taste of blood, because biting their cheek until it bled, became a common coping mechanism for trying to hide the pain they were in.
Let's talk about the fact that for anything like this that comes up, the first offer is time off, despite the administration being fully aware that aside from not passing things in medical school, extending the grad date is one of the most harmful things for a student's career. The best thing is to provide reasonable accommodations for the student to continue on and succeed.
When you basically go to the admin with a request to go to a doctor appt, and you get met with "well maybe you need time off, but it will extend your grad date..." I mean, what is the message here? It's a nonsensical reaction, which is why I assert there's a different message.
Suck it up or **** your career. Which is such a ridiculous thing to be the knee jerk reaction to any expression of medical need.
The message is clear - work work work and just suffer. No one cares. That's clear here not only in my little story, but this thread and all others like it.
It didn't help either that despite doing their best this person was so busy that even spending a lot of time reading and self-treating, their healthcare was spotty at best. So the emphasis on self-neglect that exists for all in training, in their case was dangerous. So something that should have been "ignorable," but also at the same time, should NOT have been EXPECTED to be ignored, became a permanent injury.
Of course, they only have themselves to blame. But they were not a doctor yet. They were being ADVISED BY DOCTORS I assume weren't trying to torture them, but look out for their career. In hindsight, the whole thing is a ridiculous tragedy.
Later, as a med student, they had an accommodation to go to a few medical appts, scheduled for when they would impact patient care the least. Guess what? They got a negative evaluation specifically related to being gone those few times.
They were told by their Dean to "hide" their injury for residency interviews or not be matched.
I've just covered the really overt issues. Of course they dealt with discrimination in a number of other ways.
That's my point. I'm not a ****ing snowflake, that's not why I'm pissed about all this. To me this isn't about whah whah I don't want to work 16 hours a day - I'm fine with it. The problem is that setting the bar there, what happens when people get hurt? What happens when they seek help?
Yes, you need to be highly functional, and even if you sustain injury on the job, you need to be able to cope and adapt. But the environment should be less intrinsically bad for health, less encouraging of self neglect, and real reasonable accommodations need to be allowed. Discrimination happens, and it's not going to get better in a system rife with workaholism, overwork, burnout, and outright refusal to allow people to take basic care of themselves. The whole culture is off.
Congratulations, you needed to pass a kidney stone and it took 2 days. You're using the stupidest examples that are not likely to lead to discrimination, and do not need ongoing accommodation.
You're also setting up a false dichotomy. Someone's medical condition not being consistent with residency training at the current grueling pace does not equal not being able to practice as a competent attending. Yes, you must get through training, yes training must be a more condensed and structured experience. But no, it doesn't have to be as punishing as it is, and that's evidenced by other training systems.
