The New York Times' Pauline Chen recently wrote about the bullying in medical training. She described a study out of the UCLA School of Medicine where medical students complained about being verbally abused, slapped, and racially taunted. The researchers expressed dismay at their findings despite all attempts at elevating medical education. I'm quite surprised too. Most medical students I know are quite coddled, if not spoiled, during their clerkships. If they don't finish seeing their patients before rounds, no worries; the intern is supposed to do it anyway. If they're bored with an operation, they can easily make up an excuse about a meeting that they must attend to. And heaven forbid if they should have to stay after 5:00 PM or work weekends. There are all sorts of rules for protecting medical students from the real rigors of being a resident and attending.
In reality, the real bullying and abuse occurs at the residency level. If these medical students are complaining about their treatments now, wait until they hit residency. Then they'll understand what physical and verbal abuse really means. Though I've previously addressed the abuse I took as a surgical resident, I think I can point to one particular incident that marked the beginning of the end for my unsuccessful surgery training.
It was coming towards the end of my surgical internship. By then I'd become pretty comfortable with the work and had been praised by many nurses and staff for my work ethic. One weekend night while on call, I was paged by a nurse to come evaluate a patient's foot. The patient had just had a vascular bypass during the day and now the nurse was having difficulty finding a pulse. I went to see the patient though I was only cross covering for the vascular service and didn't know the patient that well. Sure enough, the foot felt cold and I too couldn't find a pulse. I quickly notified the second year resident about the findings. She agreed and said she'd take care of it. This was around 2:00 AM so I went to bed after that, exhausted as usual. The next morning, I told the vascular intern about what happened overnight. We rounded on our own patients then I went home to be with my family who had flown in from out of town during one of my rare weekends off.
We were out for most of the day. When I came back, my answering machine was blinking furiously at me. I pushed the button to hear who had called me. Out came the angriest message from the vascular chief resident. It was laced with all sorts of expletives and threats. He kept yelling I was such a screw up and how I almost allowed his patient to die and how I was a complete moron. That's the sanitized version. Unfortunately the machine was sitting in the living room where my whole family heard the message. I must have turned pale as a ghost since they all asked anxiously if I was okay. I quickly tried to contact my chief and the vascular chief but nobody called me back.
By the next day, I got the whole story on that patient. The patient's graft had clotted off and he nearly lost his leg. All the blame was being pinned on me as I was the intern on call. I thought this was extremely unfair as I had notified my resident about it, and even documented it in the chart. But what I didn't understand was that the second year resident had already notified the program that she was quitting surgery and starting radiology residency in a couple of months. So she got a pass while I as a categorical surgery intern was supposed to be more responsible than a second year surgery dropout.
That week's M&M Conference was a total nightmare. My case was supposed to be the highlight of the hour. Though the entire surgery program was supposed to be there, the second year resident, who would have been my backup, decided she wasn't going to attend M&M since she was leaving soon enough. So I was left to try to defend my decisions in front of the entire staff. Needless to say, it did not go well. One after another it was "What were you thinking?" or "Why didn't you?" or "Didn't you know?" The humiliation didn't ever seem to end.
But what was worse was that I was now a marked man. In residency there are always the golden or chosen residents and the marked residents. The golden residents could sever a carotid and everything would be forgiven. The unfortunate targeted residents could get a skin dehiscence and he'd be raked over the coals for why the wound got infected, why he chose that particular suture, why he didn't treat it earlier. I had seen this happen to other surgery residents and it was always painful to watch them getting flagellated up in the front of the room every week while the golden residents were always given a pass for much more egregious errors in treatment. I though this was extremely unfair but that was how the system functioned. Now I was one of the marked men. As if surgery residency wasn't hard enough as it is, now everything was ten times worse, with every decision second guessed and analyzed. Every complication was amplified and torn apart on a weekly basis.
I believe that night was truly the end of my surgery training. Once you are marked for failure by the staff, there is very little that one can do to change their minds. As an anesthesiology attending, I have seen that this preconceived notion about who are good residents still exist with surgeons. So if these medical students are already complaining about their abuses in medical school, they ain't seen nothing yet.
The operating room was rocking. People could hardly hear what each other were saying. The young new surgeon was blasting his favorite playlist through the O.R. speakers, which unfortunately for me was mounted on top of my anesthesia cart. He is a good surgeon with a great personality. Everybody likes working with him. But his taste in music runs towards, what's a charitable way of describing it, urban. When he first started working here he received a few complaints from the staff about his music. Now everybody's cool with it, as long as you don't mind the lyrics or the volume.
Tonight I'm f***** you! Tonight I'm f***** you! Tonight I'm f***** you!
Since the speakers are placed on my cart, I have the unlucky privilege of sitting closest to the noise, I mean, music. It's like sitting in the front row of a hip hop concert. Worse than that. It's like sitting directly in front of the speakers in front row of a hip hop concert. The booming bass sends 128 beats per minute vibrations clear through my body. While the volume may be tolerable for everybody else, they are all at least ten feet away. My eardrums are melting being only a couple of feet from the source.
The first time we worked together he asked me to play some music during the case. I asked him what kind of music he liked. He replied he liked anything. Since I didn't know him well, I put on my most generic, least offensive playlist consisting of classic rock with a few country and western thrown in. This list will satisfy 95% of the surgeons here. He, lamentably, wasn't one of them. He quickly nixed it and brought out his own. I'm not sure where he was trained but it was obvious they didn't mind rap since he had no qualms about playing music which loudly trumpeted misogyny and male chauvinism. He raised some eyebrows at first but he eventually won us over with his humor, knowledge, and efficiency.
Everywhere you turn I'm going to make you wet!
Thank goodness for his speed. I can't stand much more of this. Now I know what it's like to sit in those lowriders I come across all over Los Angeles. When the case is finished, the surgeon quickly leaves, taking his music with him. At last, peace and quiet. Now I can put on something that is relatively more calming. Metallica anyone?
To all the medical student readers out there, here is the news you've been waiting for. A common question that I've been asked is what does it take to get into an anesthesiology residency. Well, there were no easy answers as it was purely speculative. However we now have concrete peer reviewed results to help with that inquiry. The current issue of Anesthesiology has published an article on the characteristics of applicants who successfully matched into an anesthesiology residency. The authors used the Electronic Residency Application Service to obtain their data. Since applications are made electronically and each applicant can apply to any or all anesthesiology residencies in this country, they were able to look only at applicants to Northwestern University's program in 2010 and 2011 to get a broad sampling. This gave them data on 1,976 applicants which corresponded to 58% of all anesthesiology applications at that time. That year, only about 66% of applicants were rewarded with a spot in a program in this country.
So who are the successful applicants? First of all, and not surprisingly, graduates of American medical schools are more likely to find a position than international graduates. The authors speculate that since it has been shown that international students have more problems with lower USMLE scores, language barriers, and higher failure rates on the ABA board certification, they are less likely to be chosen to enter a training program.
Another major, and one of the strongest, determinant of a successful match is a high USMLE 2 score, at least 210. The ratio of successfully matched applicants with a score of greater than 210 vs those with less than 210 was 1,076 vs. 86. So you can see that 210 seems to be a threshold for program directors. Score less than 210 on your USMLE and your chances of getting into a program shrinks significantly. While a higher test score does not equate to stronger clinical performance, the high achievers usually do better on in-service exams which leads to a higher likelihood of program accreditation. The authors think this makes directors more likely to choose better test takers regardless of their clinical abilities.
There's also a bias toward choosing female candidates for a slot. Perhaps since there are fewer female applicants, 36% of the applicants, they have a higher probability of getting chosen as programs try to show they don't discriminate against women. Also if you're older than 28, you'll have a harder time getting into anesthesiology. They theorize that since older students usually score lower on the USMLE, this makes them less desirable to programs looking for high achievers.
One surprising finding in this paper was that being well published bears no relationship whatsoever with successfully matching into an anesthesiology residency. Applicants who've done postgraduate work like getting a Ph.D. and working in a research lab are not anymore likely to get a spot than one who hasn't. As a matter of fact, the study found that the average number of publications made by those who made the cut was exactly ZERO. That's right. Despite what you may have been told about getting into a competitive residency, the quantity of papers published has absolutely nothing to do with the likelihood of getting in.
What do the residency program directors themselves consider the most important factors in residency applicants? They rated the residency interview as the most significant criteria when evaluating applicants. Excellent interpersonal skills and professionalism are highly prized by the gatekeepers. Next come grades and class ranking followed by USMLE scores. What is the least important element when looking for new residents? At the bottom of the list is interest in research and academic career. Surprising isn't it?
So there you go. If you are young, female, with excellent USMLE scores and graduated from an American medical school, you're golden. If you're older, male, finished at an international school and are interested in academic research, you may be out of luck. But you may still get in if you remember to bring your most vivacious personality and brightest smile to the interview.
If you're a fan of anesthesia history like me, you need to get yourself the August 2012 issue of Anesthesiology. There is a fascinating account of William Morton, the dentist who first demonstrated the efficacy of ether anesthesia which later became known as Ether Day, and his first documented anesthetized patient, a man by the name of Ebenezer Frost.
First of all, the authors debunk the idea that Dr. Morton was some sort of gifted professional with a fascination for scientific discoveries. They wrote of his troubles with the law as an embezzler and malcontent. He traveled all over the country as he swindled multiple business partners. He eventually settled in Massachusetts and married his wife mainly for her family's wealth. Through circumstances of association Morton came upon the identification of ether as a potent anesthetic. Now he just needed a subject to prove its effectiveness.
Ebenezer Frost was a baker who later became a professor of music. He showed up late on Sept 30, 1846 at Morton's front door complaining of a severe toothache. Morton quickly realized this was the moment he had been waiting for. He brought the patient inside and got his consent for the tooth extraction. Morton then poured ether into a handkerchief which Frost inhaled. Frost was quickly unconscious and Morton pulled out the diseased tooth. When Frost awoke, after Morton poured a glass of water on his face, he didn't even realize that the procedure was already finished. Sound familiar? Morton then had Frost sign an affidavit that he had his tooth pulled while under anesthesia.
Morton wanted to popularize the application of ether anesthesia in the hopes of receiving royalties. This eventually led to the public demonstration at Massachusetts General Hospital on October 16, 1846 which has become immortalized as Ether Day. While the patient on Ether Day was Gilbert Abbott, the first documented anesthetized patient was Ebenezer Frost. Great story.