Monthly Archives: December 2007

The Best of Med School Hell 2007

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It’s that time of the year again, the time when you find unlimited countdowns and the “best of” for the year. Why not have a best of Med School Hell? I’ll go ahead and list the most well-received and/or controversial posts of 2007 with a bit of commentary.

If you missed anything from 2007 and are too lazy to click on the Archives link, here ya go. Let’s start with the obvious.

January
January was kind of a dry month. There were only two posts that graced the binary digits of the MSH database this month. I was probably still recovering from my New Year’s eve hangover, but the best post of the month has to be the one I wrote about my vascular surgery attending. Yes, vascular surgery still sucks.

February
Ahh, the month of love. February of 2007 was also the month I scrapped the lame Blogger blog and migrated to my domain. Activity picked up this month, and here are some of the highlights:

March
March is the month that topped the post count for any month in 2007 at MSH. I might have been on too much coffee at the time or not playing WoW as much — I honestly don’t remember.

April
April produced a few winners, and maybe a few losers as well. I had a blast with Fun With Numbers. The real winner of the month is probably 101 Things You Wish You Knew Before Starting Medical School.

May
Moving right along into May, we started to see a greater frequency of guest posts.

June
Post frequency dropped a bit in June, probably due to more time spent doing outdoor activities. At least a single decent post was produced:

July
Guest posts rule the roost during this month:

August
Free pharma lunches and student loan debt is among us.

September
September was kind of a “blah” month for MSH. A couple of posts are worth mentioning:

October
A single lonely post was written in October. Fortunately, it was mildly popular:

November
November was probably the crappiest month for new content at MSH. Let’s try not to have too many months like that rolling into 2008.

December
Here we are, just about over the holiday hump and gearing up for a busy (or not so busy, depending on what you’re doing) 2008. December started off with the first post in the ‘Freedom’ series of posts, Finding Freedom In The Middle of War — Mindset. I have more posts in this series lined up and ready to go for the new year. Another notable post is:

Onwards to 2008

Thanks to all who have contributed quality content and commented at MSH. I appreciate the fact that I have a nice base of regulars and look forward to new subscribers over the coming months.

Have a safe and happy new year. Oh, and try not to get too shitty.

Everybody’s In It For The Money

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Have you ever heard “I’m not in medicine for the money?”

When people say they aren’t in it for the money, what they are really saying is “I’m too proud to admit I’m in it for the money.” Seriously guys, not many people are going to put in the financial and time investment required to become a physician without adequate compensation. The ass-backwards medical training process has brainwashed people into thinking that it’s not OK to desire financial reward for rendering services to people who largely don’t care that much about their health to begin with.

So I’m calling all of the posers out. They don’t love sick people enough, they don’t enjoy doing that 135th appendectomy, they don’t love the long hours and nights on call without sleep. Those old ladies with dizziness at 3 am are enough to make them want to puke. Their work gets long, boring and monotonous after a few years no matter what specialty they’re in.

I challenge you all to submit an anonymous poll to your medical school class and here is the question:

If physician reimbursement were capped at $35,000 per year with no other changes, would you continue to practice medicine?

Everybody’s in it for the money.

What’d I Do Today?

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My Life Today

  1. Woke up at around 10 am and worked on a few business projects for an hour or two.
  2. Went to the gym and then came home and had lunch.
  3. Logged onto World of Warcraft and got ready for tonights raid.
  4. Hung out and did some shopping with my wife. The Starbucks Gingerbread Latte rawks.
  5. Did my daily blog and forum reading for both personal and business use.
  6. Ate dinner, and then jumped into WoW for some raiding.
  7. Had a few Guiness Extra Stout.
  8. 1:40 am, still up typing this blog post.

My Life Had I Stayed in Medicine

  1. Wake up at 5:30 am and then commute to the hospital.
  2. Deal with sick patients all day.
  3. Repeat number 2 above.
  4. Come home at 6-7 pm.
  5. Have dinner, spend a couple of hours with my wife.
  6. Go to bed.
  7. Tomorrow is Saturday — I’d probably have to round on patients.

What’d you do today?

Medical Students v 2.0

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Lately I see more and more talk of “arrogant, entitled, lazy, and non-caring” medical students coming mainly from attendings. They’re actually referring to these students as the “new generation of medical students.” You see, they don’t understand why some of you guys are finally starting to “get it.”

Enter Medical Student 2.0

You guys are starting to wise up, and it’s about fucking time. I couldn’t be more pleased. Long gone are the training days of 1953, where students and residents practically lived in some run-down shit hole of a hospital room. Back during these wild west days, students would do just about anything that was asked of them. I can see the changes even from my training days just a few years ago. The balls are getting bigger, so keep eating those Wheaties.

This isn’t to say all of my work is done as it will never be fully complete. There will always be that subset of students who will kiss ass to get ahead. Ignore them as they will very soon be in the minority.

Majority Rules

One thing this new generation needs to keep in mind is the power of majority. If you have a majority on your side, you can get away with a hell of a lot more. What are they going to do, punish 80% of the class? I don’t think so. Ask for forgiveness, not permission. Your time will come when the majority of your class will be comprised of this “new generation” of medical students.

How Do You Become Part of the New Generation of Medical Students? Follow These Simple Rules:

  • Always, always question authority. Medical training is extremely inefficient, so questioning authority in the medical training setting is appropriate more times than not.
  • If an unreasonable task is asked of you, simply refuse to do it.
  • Never, ever complete menial tasks for residents or attendings such as fetching food or coffee. Tell them to pick up their own dry cleaning. Remember, they knew what they were getting into when they matched into their specialty. They sowed the seeds, now it’s time for them to harvest the crops.
  • You are paying for your education, therefore you are owed an education. This goes with the above bullet point. You aren’t paying $xx,xxx per year to run copies or obtain vitals. You’re paying to learn. Make them teach. If an attending doesn’t want to teach, he should get his pretentious ass out of academic medicine.
  • If you don’t want to participate in a procedure, tell them. Studying for your shelf exam is much more productive than “assisting” on a chest tube insertion. If they give you any lip, remind them that you’re paying for your education and that you get to call some of the shots.
  • Never skip conferences in lieu of scut. Conference time is break time and it’s often protected time for students at most medical schools. If an attending or resident demands that you skip conference to play human retractor or to complete some other meaningless scut, report them to your Dean. If they need someone to retract, they can pay an OR tech $20+ an hour to do it.

I hope that MSH can continue to shape future next-gen medical students and stop the abuse. All I can do is to continue to spread the word.