nice try, but still a fake

来源: 2005-08-06 18:55:11 [旧帖] [给我悄悄话] 本文已被阅读:

I almost think this guy is not a fake doctor, now he is talking about his residency and something certainly sounds true. But read the piece carefully, I can tell he is a fake, does not know what a residency is about. I would point them out below.
This part about "don’t know much about teen sex or pregnancy related problems, drug related problems, ethnic and legal topics, STD, social worker, and he found it harder with HTN and DM " is stupid, only an outsider will ever think any of those will be issues. First, a real doctor will say the experience is very different for different specialties, he can only speak for his specialty. The author mentioned HTN and DM, so I assume he was in internal medicine residency. I happened to do my internship in internal medicine, and know a bit. a real internal medicine resident won't think HTN and DM are issues. HTN, DM are basically outpatient diseases, treated in clinics. they do not get admitted into hospital. As a resident, you spend most of your time in hospital, dealing with very sick patients. As a first year resident, your time in clinic could be a week or so in a whole year. In my experience, the greatest challenge is: you do not know the system at all, the "routines" familiar to AMGs. I don't want to talk too much, to help the fake doctor, so stop here about this one. Now, I will comment on his advises point by point.
1) to believe that "people do not expect you to speak perfect English" is dangerously wrong. The English requirement is much higher in residency than in graduate school. They do not mind you have an accent, but demand fluent expression and skillful use of English. That is why Indians have a great advantage, even though they have stronger accent. To talk about "know the patient a little bit ahead of time" is funny too, you definitely can know your patient better, but during daily rounds, the superiors see other resident's patients too, you may not know and can not prepare about other's patients.
2. about the nurses, "send some thank you flowers when you finish a rotation", anyone take this advice will become a laughing stock among his peers. Fist of all, this guy does not know what a rotation is. He probably assumes each rotation is in a different ward. In US hospitals, your patients are scattered in different wards, on different floors, unless you do OB/GYN or rotate to ICU. You deal with nurses of different floors all at once mostly. Nurses have better knowledge about patient care than a starting resident, so they can look down on the clueless new resident easily, boss you around is an easy game. you will learn to deal with this over time. the US nurses are not the same thing as Chinese nurses at all, they are a lot more knowledgeable and arrogant. this can be one of the greatest shock you can ever get. "They helped me so much and gave me all the little tricks to survive the first a few months." can only be a fantasy.
3. the story of attending yell at chief resident is laughable. this guy does not know how the resident team is structured. An internal medicine chief resident does not take care of specific patients, more a manager plus lecturer kind of job. And attendings can be buddies for chief resident, since they know each other for at least 3 years.
4) too short, you can take the general advise.
5)I never heard of the famous “I’m sorry. I was wrong. It won’t happen again.” thing, but it is ok if you use it.
6)may not apply. Haven’t you heard that a resident works 80-120 hours a week, you may not have time to follow sports. but you can try if you can keep yourself awake before TV.
7) be careful about helping others. I have learned my lesson, some people asks for favor but do not want to pay you back the call you did for him. never promise anything on the spot, unless it is very minor. just say I will think about it and I will let you know later. or I have to check with my spouse about our plan for the day.
8)too nonspecific,
9)too nonspecific,
Over all, the famous saying “the evil is in the details” still apply. This guy may have frequent contact with US med student during their basic science study year, but not anything beyond that, and no medical background.