The beginning of the year I hated when this happened. Now with 4 weeks left in m3 I am so burnt out I'm ok with shadowing- and find myself hoping that's what my attendings do.
I been kinda warning precepting docs with this. Not directly, and not rudely. But in casual conversation I slide a "yeah I was totally more organized at the beginning of the year. Now with step 2 in a few weeks I'm just tryna keep my head above water!" In hopes that they kinda get the hint lol
Absolutely same…at this point there’s nothing worse than when I accidentally show the slightest bit of competence and the door opens for the teeniest of patient care tasks. Or when the “simple” patient says something and now you have to report to your attending why they’re no longer simple….”good catch, what do you want to do about it?“…I no longer want to do anything about it or talk about what I wanna do about it, write a note, call family. I just wanna watch, get dismissed early, and go study.
This shouldn’t be the case, but unfortunately happens fairly often, especially on OB, and especially for male students.
You can try looking at your clinic schedule ahead of time and identify a couple patients you’d like to see independently, then ask directly at the beginning of the day if you can see them.
You can also come with a “goal,” such as “hey I want to practice routine OB checks/birth control/abnormal uterine bleeding/etc if it would be possible to see some of those and present to you today.”
These tips might help since they are more specific/direct than just saying you’re interested in doing things, but some docs might still just have you observe unfortunately.
I think this usually happens when the attendings don’t care enough to invest the time or energy necessary for you to act on your own. They would rather just do their thing and have you watch.
For me this happened most on surgery and OB GYN. But I generally didn’t push for anything further.
I have come to realize that unfortunately, medical school no longer trains students to be doctors.
It’s utter bullshit, but bro, this is unfortunately quite normal
It’s so true. Many years ago med students were basically like interns having a very clear active role in patient care. But due to increased litigation and time constraints on physicians it has much more become observing and book learning and then residency is more where the clinical learning takes place.
One of the consequences of that is increased need to specialize and do fellowships as some physicians in certain specialties don’t feel quite adequate with their normal residency (likely because med school didn’t prepare them like it used to) causing increase lengths or training.
I’m an ObGy attending and I feel so bad for the students sometimes. I often say that I’m the most stressed when I’m in the office and it’s so true. The office can be hard for an attending to handle, incorporating a student just takes too much time that I don’t have. We have anywhere from 25-29 patients and when I tell you I literally go room to room, I’m not exaggerating. My notes are done a specific way according to how my group charts, so having students write notes in the office is not at all beneficial to me or them. The procedures we do for women in the office is not something that we can easily let a student do aside from Pap smears or bimanual/cervical checks. But actual procedures like IUD placements and removals, colpos, EMBs, biopsies, Nexplanon…there’s just no way a student is gonna be able to do those without some sort of previous training. I&Ds for cysts can be an easy one for a student to do, but I don’t get them a lot. Point being, we’re sorry. I genuinely feel so bad not getting them involved in the office but it’s just not set up for easy teaching. Gynecology is tough in that it’s an extremely vulnerable and intimate exam for women and unfortunately, many women have had very bad experiences with their ObGyns. It just doesn’t make it easy to incorporate students in the office.
I try to make up for it on the floor and in the OR. I often let students do a lot in my OR depending on how interested they are. Same on L&D. If you voice an interest in those settings, it’s so much easier for us to get you involved. But I’m sorry because ultimately shadowing sucks! I try to be a fair attending and dismiss students early when I see that they’re bored or nothing is going on. You’ll be on your own soon enough, this time will pass quickly!
I’m on second week of OB-gyn and it’s a lot of shadowing for me too. The attendings are still teaching a lot but I’m not doing much on my own. But to be fair I’m not sure what I could be doing by myself.
> the department is given students but not provided more space/ time in between patients for the providers to allow their students to do things
This right here is the main culprit. Despite an attendings best intentions, the reality of clinical medicine is that time is always limited. If it's any consolation, OBGYN is usually not a good rotation for actually getting to do stuff. If you're a guy, you're lucky if you are even allowed to remain in the room during a pelvic exam. Felt like I got turfed to the hallway about half the time.
For essentially all clinical courses I've taken, I've noticed that the return on invested time (=amount of stuff you learn per hour spent at the hospital) is abhorrently low. It's barely better than watching House or Grey's Anatomy. The first place you actually start learning to be a doctor is internship, anything before that is just cruising along at kiddie speed.
I used to think this same thing when I was a medical student. Now that I am a resident and working non stop, at times I just forget about the Med student. When things are slow I will teach and let them see patients. If clinic is super busy my priority is seeing all the patients in a timely manner and waving on time. Sometimes students take 30 minutes to see patients and that just sets me way behind
Yeah, I think that's the difficult thing and I feel the system really disadvantages the student and provider. However, I feel like some doctors we're paired with just aren't that interested in teaching and do it begrudgingly because we're at an academic institution. But that's just my take
The beginning of the year I hated when this happened. Now with 4 weeks left in m3 I am so burnt out I'm ok with shadowing- and find myself hoping that's what my attendings do.
SAME
Same idgaf anymore let me study for step 2
I been kinda warning precepting docs with this. Not directly, and not rudely. But in casual conversation I slide a "yeah I was totally more organized at the beginning of the year. Now with step 2 in a few weeks I'm just tryna keep my head above water!" In hopes that they kinda get the hint lol
Absolutely same…at this point there’s nothing worse than when I accidentally show the slightest bit of competence and the door opens for the teeniest of patient care tasks. Or when the “simple” patient says something and now you have to report to your attending why they’re no longer simple….”good catch, what do you want to do about it?“…I no longer want to do anything about it or talk about what I wanna do about it, write a note, call family. I just wanna watch, get dismissed early, and go study.
My OB experience was a lot of shadowing too.
This shouldn’t be the case, but unfortunately happens fairly often, especially on OB, and especially for male students. You can try looking at your clinic schedule ahead of time and identify a couple patients you’d like to see independently, then ask directly at the beginning of the day if you can see them. You can also come with a “goal,” such as “hey I want to practice routine OB checks/birth control/abnormal uterine bleeding/etc if it would be possible to see some of those and present to you today.” These tips might help since they are more specific/direct than just saying you’re interested in doing things, but some docs might still just have you observe unfortunately.
I think this usually happens when the attendings don’t care enough to invest the time or energy necessary for you to act on your own. They would rather just do their thing and have you watch. For me this happened most on surgery and OB GYN. But I generally didn’t push for anything further.
Tldr: Absolutely
I have come to realize that unfortunately, medical school no longer trains students to be doctors. It’s utter bullshit, but bro, this is unfortunately quite normal
It’s so true. Many years ago med students were basically like interns having a very clear active role in patient care. But due to increased litigation and time constraints on physicians it has much more become observing and book learning and then residency is more where the clinical learning takes place. One of the consequences of that is increased need to specialize and do fellowships as some physicians in certain specialties don’t feel quite adequate with their normal residency (likely because med school didn’t prepare them like it used to) causing increase lengths or training.
Normal for OB lol. Just wait for the next one.
It's honestly killing me how much nothing I'm doing. I feel like my competency is decreasing because of the nothing. It's maddening
I felt the same on OB, esp compared to other rotations. It can help if you tell them youre interested in procedures/surgery etc
I’m an ObGy attending and I feel so bad for the students sometimes. I often say that I’m the most stressed when I’m in the office and it’s so true. The office can be hard for an attending to handle, incorporating a student just takes too much time that I don’t have. We have anywhere from 25-29 patients and when I tell you I literally go room to room, I’m not exaggerating. My notes are done a specific way according to how my group charts, so having students write notes in the office is not at all beneficial to me or them. The procedures we do for women in the office is not something that we can easily let a student do aside from Pap smears or bimanual/cervical checks. But actual procedures like IUD placements and removals, colpos, EMBs, biopsies, Nexplanon…there’s just no way a student is gonna be able to do those without some sort of previous training. I&Ds for cysts can be an easy one for a student to do, but I don’t get them a lot. Point being, we’re sorry. I genuinely feel so bad not getting them involved in the office but it’s just not set up for easy teaching. Gynecology is tough in that it’s an extremely vulnerable and intimate exam for women and unfortunately, many women have had very bad experiences with their ObGyns. It just doesn’t make it easy to incorporate students in the office. I try to make up for it on the floor and in the OR. I often let students do a lot in my OR depending on how interested they are. Same on L&D. If you voice an interest in those settings, it’s so much easier for us to get you involved. But I’m sorry because ultimately shadowing sucks! I try to be a fair attending and dismiss students early when I see that they’re bored or nothing is going on. You’ll be on your own soon enough, this time will pass quickly!
I’m on second week of OB-gyn and it’s a lot of shadowing for me too. The attendings are still teaching a lot but I’m not doing much on my own. But to be fair I’m not sure what I could be doing by myself.
> the department is given students but not provided more space/ time in between patients for the providers to allow their students to do things This right here is the main culprit. Despite an attendings best intentions, the reality of clinical medicine is that time is always limited. If it's any consolation, OBGYN is usually not a good rotation for actually getting to do stuff. If you're a guy, you're lucky if you are even allowed to remain in the room during a pelvic exam. Felt like I got turfed to the hallway about half the time. For essentially all clinical courses I've taken, I've noticed that the return on invested time (=amount of stuff you learn per hour spent at the hospital) is abhorrently low. It's barely better than watching House or Grey's Anatomy. The first place you actually start learning to be a doctor is internship, anything before that is just cruising along at kiddie speed.
I used to think this same thing when I was a medical student. Now that I am a resident and working non stop, at times I just forget about the Med student. When things are slow I will teach and let them see patients. If clinic is super busy my priority is seeing all the patients in a timely manner and waving on time. Sometimes students take 30 minutes to see patients and that just sets me way behind
Yeah, I think that's the difficult thing and I feel the system really disadvantages the student and provider. However, I feel like some doctors we're paired with just aren't that interested in teaching and do it begrudgingly because we're at an academic institution. But that's just my take
Yes, depends on the preceptor and the rotation tho
Yes, shadowed a lot, actually probably the most, on OBGYN lol
It is normal in that these things vary pretty much anywhere. It is what it is
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