choosing chief residents

[spaslam]

how does your program choose its chief residents? the residents at our program nominate; the nominees either accept or decline; then we have a hidden ballot vote with votes to the dept secretaries who give the results to the Executive Committee (chair, program director and selected faculty). They then pick the chief. It happens that this year they picked our 3rd and 4th choices, out of 5. This has been very upsetting and we are trying to deal with this. Any thoughts?

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[whopper]

Its going to depend on the program. Some the faculty have complete say. Others do allow some resident input.

MY own alma mater-UMDNJ Camden & Atlantic City, the faculty picked the Chief. A problem I had with that system is the program often times only had 3-7 residents per class, and the program was split into 2 locations (each with a chief)--which i.e. made the program pick someone who was the least of evils instead of someone they wanted to be chief. Think about that--if you got a class with over 20 people, the odds of picking someone with enough leadership qualities to be a good chief increases, vs having to pick 1 out of 3. The program also did not want to hurt feelings & would not put in a PGY-III that might've done a better job than someone who was a PGY-IV.

 

[Kedan]

how does your program choose its chief residents? the residents at our program nominate; the nominees either accept or decline; then we have a hidden ballot vote with votes to the dept secretaries who give the results to the Executive Committee (chair, program director and selected faculty). They then pick the chief. It happens that this year they picked our 3rd and 4th choices, out of 5. This has been very upsetting and we are trying to deal with this. Any thoughts?

How do you know it was your 3rd and 4th choices if this was a hidden ballot?

 

[rtennis18]

Here's an interesting article from a recent Academic Psychiatry issue...

 

[spaslam]

the current chief asked the vote gatherers and announced it in a resident meeting.

 

[califdoc]

the current chief asked the vote gatherers and announced it in a resident meeting.

If anyone is to be blamed in this scenario, it's the chief.

Second choice for blame would be the administration for seeking a vote. While input seems reasonable, it seems to me that the decision should be made by the training director

 

[whopper]

No system is perfect.

If the residents pick, it could lead to a popularity contest. It can lead to the popular clique getting their person in--reinforcing their own groupthink position.

If the faculty picks, it could leave out resident opinions that are valid. The faculty might want someone that'll just satisfy their ends without acting as a person who can bring up the concerns of the residents.

If the PD picks, if that PD has poor insight into his/her program, or that PD is not a good judge, then he/she might not pick the best person.

No matter what system is used, there will be years where it does not pick the best person. I can tell you from personal experience, during my 4 years, any of the above systems would've picked a bad person depending on the year (well maybe the latter wouldn't have--we had a great PD, though I've seen several programs that didn't have a good PD).

It is something that I too would be upset about. A bad chief can a make a year go worse and its a title that can open several doors for the chief, so someone not right for the job can be getting an undeserved honor. My chief my PGY I year blew, and I got plenty of horror stories with her that were a result of her not doing her job right. In her defense she just delivered a kid and really didn't seem to care about being chief--so why then did the program pick her? She was the only PGY IV that year at my location. All the better ones left to do child psyche.

If you're not happy with the pick, only thing I can think of is talk to the PD about it. However doing so may not be wise. In several programs the PD is not open to hearing complaints without it costing that resident to some degree.

 

[Kedan]

I think the Chief should have kept that information secret because he/she had to know that this would be the reaction. Plus the new Chiefs have probably heard the buzz that no one wants them to get the job so that can't be good. Frankly, I don't really see that there's anything you can do about this situation. For one, if you go to the administration they're going to ask you the same thing I asked and from that point of you're on the defensive. Unless you have some evidence that they'd be awful Chiefs (and do you really want to be tearing down your colleagues) I'd leave it alone.

BTW, is the problem that the persons are bad choices or that they weren't your top choices? Because if it's the latter you might be in for a surprise. Maybe they won't be that bad.

 

[whopper]

Also take into consideration that a bad chief just isn't bad news for the residents. They're usually bad news for the program. Every chief that I thought was not doing a good job for the residents were also not pleasing the faculty, PD, & program coordinators. No bad chief I've seen was liked by the faculty, and the faculty would complain about them too--though not in front of the residents faces.

If you have concerns with the current chiefs, some of the faculty might be open to listening to you, including your advisor. However also be diplomatic. If you can talk to your current chief about it, that too coud be a better step instead of going to the administration or PD.