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I'm hoping it's the one I'm on now....it feels like my own personal hell. Anyways those of you MS4's who have done them all--what did yall think?
I was kind of hoping for this result...I'm on OB-Gyn right now and if it gets any worse than this I'm seriously gonna consider dropping out! The catty residents and attendings, disgusting deliveries, SO MUCH BLOOD, and not to mention their surgeries are boring they have like 4 of them that they do over and over again. If I never have to see another caesarean section, D&C, or hysterectomy life will be good! Not to mention the marathon incontinence surgeries!
But seriously, what makes it so unpleasant isn't the work so much as it is the personalities...ugh.
I was gangpimped for about 30minutes by the attending and chief resident who did not want me to report the needle stick incident.
My experience in Ob/Gyn made me lose faith in ability of human beings to be kind to each other. Ob/Gyn is a very dehumanizing experience. I constantly remember those psychology experiments where they see how many volts a regular joe from the street would administer to a "volunteer" (who wasn't really shocked), but who pretended to be electrocuted. The average Joe when ordered by a "doctor", simply a person in a white coat, would increase the "voltage" by hundreds of volts although the volunteer screamed. I think that they take normal medical students into ob/gyn residency and turn them into people who are at ease with inflicting pain, humiliation and mental anguish in medical students via almost every known dirty tactic, if the medical profession was the army, Ob/Gyns would be the people who's job it is to kidnap terrorists and torture them to death in secret facilities. By the same analogy I guess internists would your standard army corps, surgeons the hot-shot fighter pilots, radiologists the radar technicians in the battleship, pathologists would handle what they still do, family practice docs would be the army corps of engineers who try to get clean water to people, neurologists would be communications officiers who man the electronic communication networks, pediatricians would be those standard troops in the news who are seen playing soccer with children or helping to rescue people kidnapped by terrorists.
Why are Ob/Gyns allowed to treat students so poorly? How do residencies even get enough applicants for Ob/Gyn?
That is unacceptable on the part of the attending and chief resident. What if the patient had been HIV or hep C positive? A needle stick incident needs to be reported promptly so that the student can receive HIV prophylaxis as soon as possible. That the attending and other residents harassed you for getting stuck, and did not want you to report the incident, speaks volumes about how malignant your program is.
I am sorry that you have had/are having such an awful experience. However, I think it's a mistake to take your own experience and generalize it to the entire profession. I honestly thought that I would hate this rotation and instead I am loving every minute of it.My experience in Ob/Gyn made me lose faith in ability of human beings to be kind to each other. Ob/Gyn is a very dehumanizing experience. I constantly remember those psychology experiments where they see how many volts a regular joe from the street would administer to a "volunteer" (who wasn't really shocked), but who pretended to be electrocuted. The average Joe when ordered by a "doctor", simply a person in a white coat, would increase the "voltage" by hundreds of volts although the volunteer screamed. I think that they take normal medical students into ob/gyn residency and turn them into people who are at ease with inflicting pain, humiliation and mental anguish in medical students via almost every known dirty tactic, if the medical profession was the army, Ob/Gyns would be the people who's job it is to kidnap terrorists and torture them to death in secret facilities. By the same analogy I guess internists would your standard army corps, surgeons the hot-shot fighter pilots, radiologists the radar technicians in the battleship, pathologists would handle what they still do, family practice docs would be the army corps of engineers who try to get clean water to people, neurologists would be communications officiers who man the electronic communication networks, pediatricians would be those standard troops in the news who are seen playing soccer with children or helping to rescue people kidnapped by terrorists.
Why are Ob/Gyns allowed to treat students so poorly? How do residencies even get enough applicants for Ob/Gyn?
I think that they take normal medical students into ob/gyn residency and turn them into people who are at ease with inflicting pain, humiliation and mental anguish in medical students via almost every known dirty tactic, if the medical profession was the army, Ob/Gyns would be the people who's job it is to kidnap terrorists and torture them to death in secret facilities.
That said, it's entirely possible that your experience stems from a malignant program. I have friends at other med schools who have related horrible OBGYN experiences, while others have reported just the opposite. So if you or anyone else is really interested in the field, don't give up. Look into doing a one month away rotation at a place with a well-regarded and benign program.
Good luck.
You know, I have wondered how this goes unchecked in OB programs. I mean it's one thing to get yelled at a few times if a resident is having a bad day or if one screwed up royally. But to get mentally abused how Ob residents and attendings do on an every day basis is simply unacceptable. I believe that as medical students, we should unite and do something about it. I don't believe it's acceptable. I mean I personally have not had surgery yet, but I have heard of many people having great experiences in surgery, yet I have not heard of one person saying, wow! what a great Ob experience I had. I don't think this is by chance. I say we unite and make a change happen with Ob!
Wow.
I know a lot of generalizations get made on sdn, but wow.
I can't say I loved my Obgyn rotation, because I really disliked outpatient gyn, but I was treated very decently by the residents and attendings. I would hardly characterize them as torturers.
I agree. When I complained to the director about getting screwed on my grade, she initially said I dont see how there is a relationship between the two events. I was like, well let's see. I got an outstanding on my mid rotation eval (which I got at the end of the 4th week reall), days before the needle stick incident. I got graded by all these people I never worked with! and they had the audacity to not even sign the evals and I got a proficient. None of the people who worked with me for weeks were allowed to grade me and the resident w/whom I worked for about 4 weeks who said great stuff about me, that eval was dismissed.
What's terrible also is that when I went down to the ER, the dr and the nurses said well you can have the patient tested as well. I said yes I'd like that and I put that in a letter to the site director! The patient was there several days and they did not test the patient, which would have taken about 5 minutes. The patient came back twice-never got checked. On my evals, all these lies were written. It was disgusting and even the needle stick incident was talked about! I was like how can anyone not see the unfairness with this? I wonder if there is some sort of abuse hotline or whether the AMA somehow does anything about these kinds of things. Oh and also, they billed me for everything. The nerve!
Some "toxic" or "malignant" sites perpetuate an environment of abuse of the student, whereas other sites will treat you quite well and are more like a rational medicine clerkship. While it is bad to generalize, we make generalizations all the time in medicine like most patients with disease x had risk factor y, etc. . . most cases of right sided heart failure are caused by . . . attendings certainly make generalizations about students. I wouldn't want to malign the entire ob/gyn field, obviously there are some excellent preceptors, however, it maybe true that on a whole, via medical culture as it stands today, ob/gyn clerkships, IMHO, allow a level of abuse not seen on other clerkships. . . this is what needs to be addressed.
I think that a national movement to reform Ob/Gyn clerkships nationwide would be a great step in relieving the suffering of so many medical students and produce more humanistic physicians. There is a logic in Ob/Gyn that has nothing to do with rationality, after my Ob/Gyn my nervers were fried, and the treatment by attendings and evaluations have much less correlation with how well you do, or how hard you work and can leave you feeling very disillusioned with medicine.
I agree. I had a poor experience during a shadowing experience as a freshman and swore off the profession. I even made sure ob/gyn was my first rotation so i could get it out of the way. Well, even though the hours were tough and some of the attitudes were toxic, I learned and got along with a lot of residents and faculty. I have experienced toxic and great ppl in all of the rotations during 3rd year....including pedi and psych. I would also recommend doing an away rotation at another prgm for those who are interested in ob/gyn but hated their rotation at their home institution. I am glad I did b/c I plan to apply to residency prgms this fall. I know residency will be stressful but I don't plan to turn into the stereotypical B**** ob/gyn resident that some of my friend's claim i will become.
Granted, I'm a pretty sardonic and antisocial human being who can find the negative side of just about anything but damn. You seriously need help.My experience in Ob/Gyn made me lose faith in ability of human beings to be kind to each other. Ob/Gyn is a very dehumanizing experience. I constantly remember those psychology experiments where they see how many volts a regular joe from the street would administer to a "volunteer" (who wasn't really shocked), but who pretended to be electrocuted. The average Joe when ordered by a "doctor", simply a person in a white coat, would increase the "voltage" by hundreds of volts although the volunteer screamed. I think that they take normal medical students into ob/gyn residency and turn them into people who are at ease with inflicting pain, humiliation and mental anguish in medical students via almost every known dirty tactic, if the medical profession was the army, Ob/Gyns would be the people who's job it is to kidnap terrorists and torture them to death in secret facilities. By the same analogy I guess internists would your standard army corps, surgeons the hot-shot fighter pilots, radiologists the radar technicians in the battleship, pathologists would handle what they still do, family practice docs would be the army corps of engineers who try to get clean water to people, neurologists would be communications officiers who man the electronic communication networks, pediatricians would be those standard troops in the news who are seen playing soccer with children or helping to rescue people kidnapped by terrorists.
Why are Ob/Gyns allowed to treat students so poorly? How do residencies even get enough applicants for Ob/Gyn?
Well, my ob rotation was horrible, H O R R I B L E. In capital letters. !!!
I constantly felt like I was in another dimension, one where everything I said was sort of taken out of context, and not in a good way. I always felt like I had said or done something terrible, and people were always snarling at me. L&D nurses, residents and especially academic attendings. The community docs were super nice, tho.
I was constantly chastized in those stupid c sections for not holding things the right way or cutting the suture 'wrong.' Funny, the community docs always said I did an excellent job and all my surgery evals said the same thing.
It was a complete nightmare and I could hardly even go in everyday. Gyn was better, it's almost like plain old surgery. But my God, the residents and the academic staff were always fighting among themselves and I of course got sucked into that whirlpool of hate. They said some of the meanest things I ever heard to my face. Worse, was the stuff they sort of snidely said around me, but about me. It was like a junior high nightmare. Mean, mean people.
I think Child speaks plain but truthful stuff. I think she reveals the dark side of medicine pretty accurately.
I am sooooooooooooooo relieved to hear that other people's Ob experiences were bad. I too felt as if I was in another dimension! It was strange too because I had just come off my first rotation for which I got a clinical outstanding and was repeatedly told how great I was! Then Ob comes and it's like I went from super star to super idiot! I continue to postulate my initial idea: All of us who have been Ob-abused should form a coalition to have some change happen in Ob rotations. It won't help us, but it might help those coming behind us who will without doubt, also face horrible experiences if some changes don't occur.
how any of you laughed off OBgyn?
i.e, whenever someone harrassed you, you just had a smirk on your face and sorta chuckled?
it sounds like you people who want to cry, take the rotation too seriously. When you really don't care about something, not even asshoe attendings can move you.
I was kind of hoping for this result...I'm on OB-Gyn right now and if it gets any worse than this I'm seriously gonna consider dropping out! The catty residents and attendings, disgusting deliveries, SO MUCH BLOOD, and not to mention their surgeries are boring they have like 4 of them that they do over and over again. If I never have to see another caesarean section, D&C, or hysterectomy life will be good! Not to mention the marathon incontinence surgeries!
But seriously, what makes it so unpleasant isn't the work so much as it is the personalities...ugh.
how any of you laughed off OBgyn?
i.e, whenever someone harrassed you, you just had a smirk on your face and sorta chuckled?
it sounds like you people who want to cry, take the rotation too seriously. When you really don't care about something, not even asshoe attendings can move you.
how any of you laughed off OBgyn?
i.e, whenever someone harrassed you, you just had a smirk on your face and sorta chuckled?
it sounds like you people who want to cry, take the rotation too seriously. When you really don't care about something, not even asshoe attendings can move you.
yeah i have done that...most times it works esp. if it is well knows that the resident/attendant is mean to everyone. but most times i was laughing on the inside since it is much safer that way.
WHAT??
That is like the meanest thing I have ever heard. If someone asked me for a letter of reference and I didn't like them I would say 'student, I would like to write you a strong letter but I can't do it for XYZ reason.' But I would say something sort of decent like, I didn't observe you much, or it was early in the year and your strength wasn't as high as I am sure it is now. I would NOT write one that screwed them, because - that would be insane. And mean. And, did I say insane??
And if I was a PD reading a terrible letter like that, I would feel sorry for the smiling student in front of me and I would try and find out the truth: nice student/mean attending or whatever.
I second EVERYTHING you just said - I'm in hell
I thought about that too. But unfortunately, if you look like you're laughing when they yell at you, they might go completely postal on you.
Document why it is hell, they like pouring salt in the wound, and a bad evaluation might show up later in your file without you being informed. They can get pretty nasty, and really don't think about the consequences of their actions.
Yep. They did that to me! I wasn't allowed to give out evals. And they didn't even had the guts (most of them) to sign the lies they wrote down on evals. They suck.
Ob/Gyn to me seems to be a very poitical field. I.e. attendings can make evaluations based on personal feelings, and not on merit. Ob/Gyns are *notorious* for writing a horrible LOR for someone that they don't want to be in Ob/Gyn and will think nothing of torpedoing you plans to be an Ob/Gyn.
GEEZ I HOPE YOU ARE WRONG! So far my LOR writers have either volunteered w/o me asking and/or seemed eager to write it. I have no choice but to trust the process.
I'd like to hear if anyone actually LIKED OB? Despite a horrible clerkship experience, what makes it redeemable? Does it bother you that these residents are mean, catty, miserable, obviously working more than 80 hrs/week, and appear to be hating life? If you had a good experience, what do you think about the fact that it has such a bad reputation and so many people have bad experiences.
I just wonder how this field attracts people. Even the surgeons appeared to be happy with their job and they are also working 80+ hrs/wk. I'd never seen anything like this.
The other thing that is irritating is when some of us have a horrible exprience and then some others thought it wasn't bad at all. What is different about us? Did they treat us differently or are we responding differently?
I think that sometimes people who match into Ob go into Ob because they initially wanted to match into surgery but couldn't, so they figure Ob is better than nothing because there is some surgery involved. Also if you look at trends, alot of the programs are no longer able to fill their spots with American seniors, but have quite a proportion of foreign medical graduates. I know that was the case where I did Ob. Maybe they are unhappy they couldn't match, they work long hours, the schedule is crazy, and they don't have a good lifestyle due to the hours and responsibilities they have. That's my 0.2.
Well there was only one Ob/Gyn residency program that didn't fill this past year. Applications are up and more US grads ARE applying to Ob/Gyn. I agree there may be a few who are doing Ob/Gyn as a second choice but there are many competitive applicants that are and have applied and matched into Ob/Gyn b/c they actually love the profession. Check out the stats b/c the trends are changing. Everything is cyclical. Also applications are up for those applying to general surgery. Some speculate that the 80 hour rule has something to do with it. I know you had a poor clerkship experience but try not to stereotype the whole profession ok. Third year is a tough year and there is bound to be something that you didn't like. Luckily, at my school students are encouraged to help make changes in the curriculum. For instance, there is now no overnight shift and more free weekends for those on the ob/gyn clerkship b/c student's imput were recognized. Also, our faculty and ombusdman (sp?) encourage confidential disclosure of any bad behavior among faculty towards students or students toward students. I have seen the behavior of residents and faculty change based on student's confidential complaints. Maybe more schools should do the same.
I don't stereotype, there are things that they are the way they are though. If you look at the threads, you will see that there are alot of people who have been abused in Ob. Maybe your school happens to be one of the few where they have an easy Ob rotation. That's not the normal thing. The mere fact that they don't make you stay overnight says alot. My call schedule in Ob was q4, overnight every time and most of the time you either would get 2 hours of sleep and sometimes none. The experience of easy Ob rotations, however, is not the norm. Most of my rotations have been tough, but there is a difference between being tough and fair, from being insane and psychotic and where I get abused just because the people are crazy. I think your case is very unique and when I tried to disclose the abuse, nothing was done. So again, maybe your school is more student protective, mine and most other schools are not. Look at the poll and you'll see why Ob is disliked by so many.