Worst pathology insults heard during training..

[green mantis]

Alpha: He doesn't have high work ethics, so he'll do pathology or something like that.

I'm not sure if surgeons qualify as having high work ethics. All of the rotating medical students interested in surgery or surgical residents were complete slackers. They'd show up for AM conference & then disappear for the rest of the day.

A side benefit for us is that they do see how much work we do during the day.


----- Antony

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[MSHell]

I got another gem today when I told a retired peds nurse I wanted to do path. She answered:

"So you don't want to be a doctor?!"

 

[Napoleon1801]

I got another gem today when I told a retired peds nurse I wanted to do path. She answered:

"So you don't want to be a doctor?!"

I hope you told her it was because you were looking forward to dissecting neonates.

 

[Arctic Char]

I hope you told her it was because you were looking forward to dissecting neonates.

haha i pulled that once in peds, to many furrowed brows . . .

besides, you know the comment "what, you don't like people?" . . . seriously, whats SO great about people anyway?

 

[MSHell]

I hope you told her it was because you were looking forward to dissecting neonates.

That would have been really funny.

But I'm a really bad liar and couldn't say that convincingly. Dissecting babies makes me sad.

 

[Pleione]

What a way to delurk. Here we go.

I'm still in med school. In the equivalent of third/fourth year for you in the US. I was off for a week of (very) rural medicine this spring. Got asked which kind of doctor I wanted to be seven times in five days (aargh!). The first six (!) times I got the reaction "Well, that's a GREAT speciality for when you get a family! Good hours! Great pay!" or some variation thereof, most of the times combined with the "but, don't you like people?" (Yep, I'm a woman. A woman definitely without children and no intention of ever getting any. Also very career minded, and intent on becoming a very competent pathologist, not some broodmare off from work as soon as possible every day).

The last time, when the most senior doctor in the whole place asked, I tiredly responded "pathologist, hopefully with lots of research". He got really excited and exclaimed that pathology was a great speciality and proceeded to show me pictures of various disgusting skin conditions he had collected during his years in this remote area. That and photographs of a bear he'd had wandering outside his bedroom window the year before.

 

[112641]

At a multi specialty case conference when I was a 1st year the discussion of why it was sometimes difficult for specimines to yield the 12 lymph nodes needed in colon resections. One of the oncologists:

".... it's because pathology residents can't count past 10 without taking off their shoes."

 

[JerZGirl]

A woman definitely without children and no intention of ever getting any. Also very career minded, and intent on becoming a very competent pathologist, not some broodmare off from work as soon as possible every day.

Curious. Being a broodmare and a very competent pathologist are mutually exclusive? I must respond in defense of broodmares everywhere. I’m board certified in AP/CP, a physician-scientist and a mother of 3.

I have been published in high-impact journals and I have a job offer at a global referral center when my fellowship ends. The cases I see are ones that the workhorses (to use your equine metaphor) in the community could not solve; there is no low hanging fruit in my world but it is enormously satisfying work. When not on service, I work on my research projects.

To the point, almost every female pathologist I knew had kids and they were a bright, determined, cadre of women who never shirked responsibility or backed down from a challenge. Unfortunately gender bias is real; female physicians almost have to work twice as hard in order to be taken seriously and have any kind of career progress. It's especially sad to see that there are females out there who believe that brains and work ethic go down the drain with the lochia.

The post that prompted this reply is, without question, one of the most offensive things I have heard during training.

 

[Pleione]

I have not written that every mother is a broodmare. I apologize if you thought my post was offensive. But I never wrote that motherhood and being a competent pathologist were mutually exclusive. I have never believed that a female loses her brain when getting kids and if you think that that is my view from my post I believe you are interpreting it very strangely. Maybe I expressed myself badly since english are my second language, but seriously?

I have been told personally by a female pathologist that it is a good speciality to choose since you can skip research and overtime and go home early and take care of the kids. That is broodmare mentality to me and that made me disappointed. I'm a student, looking for a mentor and I get that? Not very inspiring.

Not every mother acts that way and I'm sure you are very competent. I'm just tired of people thinking that I want to choose pathology to be able to spend lots of time with my children, when I'm really choosing it because I love the work, the science, the scope, well everything about it. That was what my post was about. I'm sure I'd be just as irritated with this if I had kids at home.

The post that prompted this reply is, without question, one of the most offensive things I have heard during training.

Maybe I misunderstood this sentence, but you think my post was that offensive?! Or is it the comments I got? Come on, I'm frustrated with people thinking I choose path for other reasons that path because I'm female. That's it. No mother equals broodmare. No brains and work ethics down whatever. That's not my words.

 

[green mantis]

To the point, almost every female pathologist I knew had kids and they were a bright, determined, cadre of women who never shirked responsibility or backed down from a challenge.

This comment doesn't seem to apply to any of the pregnant females or males w/ pregnant wives in my residency program. All of them were willing to milk their condition one way or another, regardless of how hardworking they were prior. I think that can be considered as shirking responsibility.

I've heard of one female resident who pretty much grossed until she was about to deliver. She even examined her own placenta some time afterward. That's what I call dedication.


----- Antony

 

[raider]

Comment during my residency:

Senior and very famous hematologist/oncologist (after my tumor board presentation): Son, I did not catch your name but that is one of the best presentations, I have heard.

Renowned Gynecologic surgeon to his fellows /residents:Listen to him, he knows eveything. Things that you might never ever know.

Senior surgeon:I wish I had you as my pathology teacher in second year, I would have done pathology.

Insults: Nada

Its not the field that makes the man, its the man that makes the field.

 

[Apollyon]

Let me put it this way: When I work at the community hospitals in the ED (we have one uni, one "standalone", and 2 community EDs), I get a LOT of phone calls. Over 2 1/2 years, the single solitary name I remember is a pathologist who called one Saturday morning.

 

[Arctic Char]

its not the field that makes the man, its the man that makes the field.

word up!!!!