Malignant Attending Vent Thread

[HooliganSnail]

Just had a very frustrating series of shifts with the most asinine attending who loves to humiliate the resident and make my life generally miserable....for no good reason.

I made this place to complain about bully attendings, you know the one's who make everyone's life miserable and everybody hates.

This is a thread to vent frustrations purely for a therapeutic release.

This is NOT a thread for someone to comment about "turning the other cheek", or inform me that I just need to get through it, and life is better after residency, I know that already.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Apollyon]

You dingus - how can you talk about me like that?

 

[BoardingDoc]

You dingus - how can you talk about me like that?

Maybe don't be such a douchecanoe to Hooligan and they won't have to take to the internet with their pitchfork.

 

[bravotwozero]

I'm sorry you have attendings like that. While I certainly dealt with such people off service, I did not have this problem in the ED. I would dare say that as far as malignant attendings go, EM isn't commonplace for such people. Either way, vent off by all means.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Venko]

Just had a very frustrating series of shifts with the most asinine attending who loves to humiliate the resident and make my life generally miserable....for no good reason.

I made this place to complain about bully attendings, you know the one's who make everyone's life miserable and everybody hates.

This is a thread to vent frustrations purely for a therapeutic release.

This is NOT a thread for someone to comment about "turning the other cheek", or inform me that I just need to get through it, and life is better after residency, I know that already.

At the risk of violating your thread exclusions, I will say that sadly, I probably was very unpleasant to work with a five to six years ago.

I was not a very good teacher, doctor, husband or father then. I felt mentally tired of work and other obligations and felt little power to do anything about it.

I have slowly and intentionally taken back control of my life and have rekindled my love for all parts of my life: work, husband, and father. The residents who worked with me then can see the difference, those that didn't can't fathom that I could have been so unpleasant before.

To this end, if this is truly a consistent behavior pattern from this attending, you could consider letting your chief residents know or potentially discussing with the chairperson that this attending may not be doing very well and may need some help or support.

It should never be your job to care for them, but attendings are fallable and human...maybe you can help them?


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

 

[Hannah Faulkner]

Just had a very frustrating series of shifts with the most asinine attending who loves to humiliate the resident and make my life generally miserable....for no good reason.

Sorry to hear...there are weird people everywhere, it good to vent off

 

[gman33]

I had an attending in residency who was the worst.

He was away for a few weeks and I found myself thinking that maybe he was dead.

And I really hoped that he was...

Residency will pass.

There is no excuse for that kind of behavior, but it will pass.

 

[HooliganSnail]

At the risk of violating your thread exclusions, I will say that sadly, I probably was very unpleasant to work with a five to six years ago.

I was not a very good teacher, doctor, husband or father then. I felt mentally tired of work and other obligations and felt little power to do anything about it.

I have slowly and intentionally taken back control of my life and have rekindled my love for all parts of my life: work, husband, and father. The residents who worked with me then can see the difference, those that didn't can't fathom that I could have been so unpleasant before.

To this end, if this is truly a consistent behavior pattern from this attending, you could consider letting your chief residents know or potentially discussing with the chairperson that this attending may not be doing very well and may need some help or support.

It should never be your job to care for them, but attendings are fallable and human...maybe you can help them?


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

I appreciate your perspective from the other side, and applaud your efforts to better yourself. It is not often you meet people who are actually self aware.

Regarding your advice, unfortunately, I am the chief resident, and this individual is core faculty. We're stuck with him.

 

[evilbooyaa]

Didn't read OP - Edited my post. Ignore!

 

[gamerEMdoc]

Resident evaluations of attendings are usually anonymous, so hopefully if you or other residents feel this way, enough people put down in writing their issues with the attending. That way the PD has to address it with the attending. If its not documented, it never happened, and it's all just heresay and nothing will change. I'd really encourage you and any other residents who are having issues with the attending to honestly mention these issues in a constructive manner in your evaluations of the faculty.

 

[filhodeinferno]

There is one of those attendings at every residency, I think. The one that gives you anxiety before you go into the shift, makes every shift with them miserable.

As I'm a few months out from graduation, I find now that I'm no longer phased by this type of behavior. The bad ones can say or do anything to me, but they can't stop time!

At this point in my career I've found myself more annoyed by the attendings who just sit back and do nothing while I do all the work, but then still get nit picky with parts of my A/P. I get it, you're not going to pick up charts or see the patients because you know I can handle it. I appreciate that. . . but if you wanna make modifications to my plans or criticize my assessment, then get up off your butt and go do your own H/P and we'll talk.

That's my contribution to this rant thread.

 

[Tenk]

Man that sucks. They sound like a bully. I ****ing hate bullies. Growing up I was small but for the past 15 years I have been pretty beastly thanks to the gym. I never let anyone walk over me anymore. Violence rarely solves problems in the work place but you should never be a push over to anyone. You're an EM doctor damnit!!!!!

Try doing this:

Be overly enthusastic to the point of ridiculousness. If they try to make you feel dumb. Compliment them on how smart and amazing they are and how you want to be just like them. Smile a lot every time you see them and also wave at them for no reason if they make eye contact.

When they make jokes laugh loud and awkwardly and then later mutter the joke to yourself when they are in ear shot and laugh some more. Then turn to them smile and wave again.

Every time you come on shift and you see them go: OH YEAH ITS DR BADASS HERE TO SAVE THE DAY or something equally cheesy and ridiculous. Then say: Man we're gonna have the BEST time today. Say the same phrase every single time you see them so it becomes like nails on a chalkboard. Then wave and smile.

When they berate you just smile a lot and act like you're about to have a mental breakdown but don't. Just nod your head a lot and smile.

They may at first try to intimidate you but if you hold strong eventually this attending will be afraid of YOU. You will make THEM feel uncomfortable. All the while you will just be playing a game with them. You are now in control.

You see, the biggest thing that residents and med students don't realize is that malicious attendings can't do jack didly **** to you. Everyone already knows they are an dingus and if all you are doing is acting like an overly enthusiastic maniacal fun machine they can't do anything to you. But you can make their life a living ****ing hell. They will never want to work with you and in the mean time you can just troll the hell out of them. The best thing is if you can get other residents to do it too.

Good luck.

 

[engineeredout]

It's tough when they're in your field. I've reached the point in residency when attendings from other specialties (community hospitals so most have no residents/fellows of their own) start acting like ass hats to me and yelling at me. I start off nice but if they're douche bags I give it right back. I just don't care anymore.

I don't give a **** interventional radiologist that it's midnight on a Saturday. Yes I want you to come in and do your ****ing job


As far as the ED is concerned, I'm more annoyed by attendings who micromanage me as a PGY4. You really need to change my Benadryl order from 50mg to 25mg because "I Never give 50mg"?

 

[shoal007]

It's tough when they're in your field. I've reached the point in residency when attendings from other specialties (community hospitals so most have no residents/fellows of their own) start acting like ass hats to me and yelling at me. I start off nice but if they're douche bags I give it right back. I just don't care anymore.

I don't give a **** interventional radiologist that it's midnight on a Saturday. Yes I want you to come in and do your ****ing job


As far as the ED is concerned, I'm more annoyed by attendings who micromanage me as a PGY4. You really need to change my Benadryl order from 50mg to 25mg because "I Never give 50mg"?

as for a comment on the benadryl thing. as an attending I have a very specific practice and reasoning for dosing of medications. I would have likely changed that as well if I caught it. But i try not to micromanage my residents. Afterward i usually say i like to do x because of y. you can do what u want but this is what i like. Hopefully you have still been getting lots of good feedback like that. First year out on your own is very insightful.

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

 

[fahimaz7]

It's tough when they're in your field. I've reached the point in residency when attendings from other specialties (community hospitals so most have no residents/fellows of their own) start acting like ass hats to me and yelling at me. I start off nice but if they're douche bags I give it right back. I just don't care anymore.

I don't give a **** interventional radiologist that it's midnight on a Saturday. Yes I want you to come in and do your ****ing job


As far as the ED is concerned, I'm more annoyed by attendings who micromanage me as a PGY4. You really need to change my Benadryl order from 50mg to 25mg because "I Never give 50mg"?

Haha. The Benadryl comment is classic. Just give 2x25 next time. Lol

 

[da8s0859q]

First year out on your own is very insightful.

This times a million. Even for the little things.