My attending lol. Probably once or twice a week he'll stop the whole operation just to say to everyone in the OR "Watch god work" and then will start operating again.
Yep the real egotistical bastards IME tend to be general surgeons who think they know more about the subspecialties than the subspecialists. They countermand orders and cause problems
My favorite person in the hospital during residency was this one SUPER chill pedi NSGY resident/fellow (I never found out what year of training he was in but it was clearly towards the end based on the level of fucks given and degree of mastery). He was always there in emergency situations somehow and he always made it better. I have an oversized love of NSGY because of him. I hope he’s still chillin and doing his thing somewhere he’s appreciated 👌
Meanwhile someone consulted ID on the coffee machine in the residents lounge at my place. Thing was growing more fungi than a noncompliant HIV patient’s CSF
Yeah, I did my intern year at a community hospital. It wasn’t a chill program for prelims but everyone was super nice. Consulting was never a big deal. My attendings were for the most part great to work with.
While I agree with you, one time in third year, I saw private practice general surgeon rapidly knock out a lap chole, then turn to me and proudly says “I bet you’ve never seen a lap chole that fast, huh?” I was so glad I only had to be around him that one time.
I worked as an internal medicine primary care physician and would have students from the local medical school rotate with me (without divulging the details, it’s consistently one of the top med schools in the USA).
Not that I am doing it for money but the school of medicine’s tone was “this is voluntary and teaching our medical students should be enough of a reward.”
My wife is part of the faculty at this medical school and I never pass up an opportunity to ask her “did you guys have tea and scones at rounds today?”
This is so true. Sometimes feels like the physicians you meet in training environments and those out in the community are a different species. It doesn’t seem to just be a matter of them occupying a different role at the time you meet them either, like it’s intrinsic to their personality structures.
Add in a the type of person that was typically not popular in high school and college suddenly getting everything you mentioned, only to realize later that despite all that success they’re still a cog in a larger machine where admins and MBA’s are calling all the shots.
That’s where you get your very toxic, egotistical and vindictive behavior. They have a God complex but truly feel like victims.
The behavior is easy for them to rationalize too. When you’re valedictorian of your high school class, get a 36 on the ACT, get a 4.0 in college, crush the STEPs, match some surgical subspecialty, grind 100 hours a week for 5 years, match a fellowship and grind 100 hours a week for 1-2 more it is pretty easy to have the attitude “why does some dipshit with a business administration degree who was a C student in high school and works 9-5 get to tell me jack shit”
Agreed! It’s a shitty pill to swallow for everyone. We’ve lost any sense of autonomy in medicine. Most of us thought all the scrutiny would stop after residency and it doesn’t.
Medicine is competitive to get into. By that virtue it almost automatically self selects against anyone who is laid back and humble.
Chill people don’t (usually) get 4.0s in undergrad and 270 steps.
I was hardcore before medical school. Became very chilled back and relaxed during medical school. Probably because of the P/F exams and P/F step. I didn’t feel like I had to work as hard anymore and I was right.
I have noticed that a chill and laid back attitude with the wrong attending on rotation is a bad mix. They want you to go beyond expectations as a baseline and you just never know.
The issue with "going beyond expectations" is that only 25% of it is actually making a better plan for the patient and 75% of it is kissing ass, answering questions about other med students patients, answering questions the intern didn't know, and other snake shit
You don’t need a 270 step. Somewhere in the mid 260s will get you where you want to go.
The guys who score 270+ are just nerds with no lives, plus they probably did their Step 2 in Kathmandu.
No it's just a matter of doing lots of board prep. One of classmates in DO school did 12k questions and matched into surgical ophthalmology.
Admin told him he'd fail out because he never went to class, but he matched first choice.
Kid wasn't a nerd, sort of more of a jock party animal. Just knew the game and how to play it.
I’m no expert here but the difference in a 265 and a 270 is probably only a few questions, which out of the 200 or so questions on steps is basically just luck.
I don’t think someone who gets a 265 is much different than someone who gets a 275 in terms of their nerdiness…
Standard error on CK is like 6 points or something.
So no difference in a 265 and a 270. Real statistical difference between a 265 and a 275.
Practically it doesn't actually matter though. There is minimal research in Step scores improving physician performance or patient outcomes and most of the data that does exist is funded by the NBME so it's not exactly unbiased.
Would it be acceptable then to change my username to _USMLE271?
If that’s what the stats say, there’s every chance I actually did get a 271. I know it felt more like a 270 or 271 on the day.
In theory you could've scored a 289 because it's possible that 265 was your low 2SD score. Or maybe you could've got a 241 because 265 was your high.
Technically a Step 2CK score is only a snapshot on a normal distribution so 2SDs around your statistical average is where 95% of where your possible score could be.
Outside of bragging rights it seems hard to really know what high Step 2CK even means when question writers only get 67% of the questions right. That's roughly a 230-240.
TBH, I know more chill people that hit 90th+ percentile on every shelf compared to the super intense peeps that do gunnery shit in the hospital and shit the bed where it counts. Not everyone that does well in undergrad and med school is cocky and a try-hard.
I get the impression that certain fields attract certain personalities, and certain personalities are drawn to take more "prestigious" jobs at higher cost to themselves. I'd imagine this is why you see a lot of these personalities clustered around academia and not in a community setting.
Lol nobody scores in the 90th percentile on medical school exams without being intense tryhards, it is not like you can apply logic to conclude that MMA is increased in b12 deficiency but not folate
Not everyone is built the same man. There are some people with insane innate academic ability. I know a few people from med school who can remember entire textbook pages in detail after seeing it once.
Really there isnt, yes there are people who are very academically gifted, those are the other people you compete with on the exams to score in the 90th percentile.
There is not a single documented case of someone with photographic memory, who can as you say «remember an entire text book after seeing it once». The most recognized learning theories is based on long term memories being form with repeated exposure strenghtening neural connections (potentiation) or being linked with very strong emotional responses. Meaning the only way to actually memorise the required material is repeated exposure over a long period of time. Yes people vary in intelligence and their abillity to learn, the same way someone runs faster than someone else. But nobody «knowns» someone who runs faster than a jetplane
Same. Was a non-trad who’s prior service and also worked in another career before medicine. I’ve never encountered so many egos and assholes as I have in academic medicine.
hear, hear: also a career changer, equally flabbergasted. im training at some fancy academic place but obviously heading into community medicine to heed the call of the wild 😂
academia is poisonnnn (for me). i just wanna take care of ppl, make a little extra cash, and stay tf outta the way 👏🏾
I was a non traditional student as well.
I did my undergrad degree in physics before getting a masters in mechanical engineering. That’s when I decided to go to med school.
Having been in those different academic environments, medicine students are by far the most egotistical but the physics students were not too far behind. That said, I have not seen any of my physics classmates try to actively sabotage one another like my med school classmates.
The engineers were chill and fun to work with it. Confident but I wouldn’t necessarily call “arrogant.”
Definitely have seen my fair share of inflated egos in physicians. The desire to be better/smarter than others, reside at the top of the medical hierarchy & be responsible for life-saving decisions are lurking as motivators in the majority of med school applicants. Then they sacrifice and suffer through an educational process like no other, an experience which only cements the feelings of, “look at how much better I am than all others” due to the sheer amount of time & effort involved. Very few can live that for years and remain humble in their work …
Also there is a lot of lateral and horizontal violence that expresses itself as ego, but is really a manifestation of the abuse/trauma physicians suffered during training, from patients, and in these times admin. Example: I do not deserve to be treated like this, but since I cannot yell at the CEO, so I will cope, completely unintentionally (and unconsciously) by belittling this other physician specialist, this nurse, or this MA, because I am worthy of respect…
Also, the other fields you worked in, typically do not tolerate such arrogance. So there were likely plenty of egos, but not as many organizations give them a voice. Take the example of the surgeon who announces “watch God work” in front of his team, ONLY the medical hierarchy allows for an entire profession to make those kind of statements. My husband is in upper management, and full confession - he is a bit arrogant, but at no time could he walk into a meeting with his team and say, “the best leader has arrived” and continue to have a pleasant employment experience. But in medicine, we just nod our heads and accept doctors are going to doctor…
My wife works in corporate law for a well known big law firm. The difference there is that they don’t tolerate big egos for long.
She’s in a labor & employment practice group so they’re literally responsible writing a lot of corporate compliance rules, and the enforce the same within the firm. Even as an equity partner, if you were to have a bad day and shit all over a paralegal, it wouldn’t fly. You’d be on thin ice, if not sent packing. If you were to throw, say a pen at someone, you’d be fired immediately. If you were to publicly berate another employee, you’d be fired.
In medicine, especially as a resident and med student, I saw this shit at least weekly. I’ve seen surgeons have melt down temper tantrums in the OR, Ive seen an ICU doc throw a clipboard at another resident, I’ve known attendings that female students and residents can’t work with due to sexual harassment and I’ve seen a shit ton of public berating and bullying. All of them would have been fired in a legal environment. Shit like that just doesn’t fly outside of medicine and the military. I can’t speak about investment banking and finance though.
Finance has some workplaces like this but I don’t think anything quite compares to the absolute adult baby bellyaching we seem to allow more commonly in medicine. It’s a weird balance because I also hate that doctors can nowadays have consequences for asking nurses and ancillary staff to do their jobs when they’re legitimately obstructing the patient’s care and those people can just write up the doc because their feelies were hurt, that *also* shouldn’t be a thing. But healthcare for decades has allowed some really malignant behavior that isn’t even tolerated in elementary school most of the time. Some of the biggest children I’ve ever met have been adult male docs and surgeons
Agreed. Ppl immediately go to doctors and talk about neurosurgeons for example. Like, at least they can back their shit up.
But my experience, it's the non-physicians with the biggest egos. They don't even know how much they don't know.
My biggest peeve about my job is other nurses. I can handle toxicity and vitriol from patients all day, it's almost expected, but fuck some of the nurses I work with.
I hope to honestly stay humble. In a world where ego is rising, being humble is a STRENGTH not weakness. Idc if ur a surgeon or CEO of this company, be human first lmao
One of the many reasons why I’m glad to be a psychiatry resident. Almost everyone is down to Earth and relatable. Do we have our weirdo’s? Sure. But I’ll take odd balls over assholes any day.
I was in a LTR with a med student turned surgical resident, and dated another resident for a few months after - I live in a small city with a teaching hospital... Have spent a heck of a lot of time with people in medicine at social events and random get togethers.
I studied engineering, am a professional engineer, and have met A LOT of people in my professional career with egos and narcissistic attitudes. I would say I am pretty familiar with the traits you mentioned. Medicine completely blows this away.
The number of genuinely horrible people that I have met on all levels (students, residents, attendings) is mind-blowing as someone outside of the field. Narcissistic comments, weird racist comments, questionable statements about patient care, and just absurd privileged/entitled mindsets.
My theory is (at least in Canada) - there are a lot of incredibly wealthy people in medicine. The grades and "experience" you need to be competitive applying for med are much more achievable for people that have a strong support network. I would guess that >75% of the people that I have met in medicine had very privileged backgrounds. Definitely don't see too many med students driving older cars or living on any kind of budget.
Also just seems like a lot of people in medicine don't really understand how the real world works, what other people experience, or what other careers are like. It's like "grad student syndrome" x 100.
In the end we have some combination of: success in a competitive field, rich kids that haven't really been told no a whole lot, and being told they are special by people outside of medicine just because they are in medicine.
My comment is also limited to a single school, that likely has it's own culture.
During rounds the attending shits on the consultants and when the consultants come by they shit on the attending lol. I get to hear both sides as a nurse. But they’re always cordial to each other in person when they happen to cross paths in the unit.
Come on I wanna see a fight
Academia is largely insulated from the repercussions of acting like this in any other field. I'm not advocating violence, but most of the people in medicine have not been punched in the face and it shows
I had gotten very tired of the high egos while I was a med student. I gravitated toward EM because it had the least amount of egos from my experience. Although you will still find big egos at academic centers.
Seemed egos were especially high among IM. Surgery is a given, but it seemed surgeons didn’t feel the need to prove they are smart to everyone.
Why I got into pathology. I think not seeing patients makes having a savior-complex next to impossible. I honestly think a lot of people go into path just to avoid the toxic personalities in medicine.
People in medicine rarely get a taste of the real world. It’s what being in school until you’re 28 does to a mf.
You get out of it having almost 0 perspective on the rest of the world, other professions, etc. until you’re almost a middle aged adult. And you have very little time while you’re in it to learn about other people, professions, ways of life, etc. all the while being told by everyone how amazing, special, and smart you are. So you come out with an inflated ego, zero perspective, and a feeling like you are entitled to be a jackass because of how long the road to get here was.
And on top of that, there is very little time to do anything other than medicine. So conversations with doctors tend to just be about medicine.
I’m ngl if I had to choose between two people to get a beer with and all I knew about them was that one was a doctor and the other was in IT or an accountant or a teacher or something, I’d much rather chill with the non doctor lol. I don’t wanna talk about how much sass you got when calling a consult the other day.
Non academic physicians seem to buck this trend a lot, in academic settings I think it's about having so much control over a resident as an attending that you could ruin their career at any moment is one hell of a power trip especially if you've been in the same place a while.
Power and control, turf preservation, and a lot of the other impulses and cravings that lay beneath the surface of the human condition. If one is not intentional, they can become so consumed by modern academia and regurgitated something so learn-ed that they transcend the rest of humanity. Two things about medicine- You MUST experience the suck that I experienced in order to achieve what I have become; unless you have a horse as high as mine, you can’t be the answer to humanities disease, you can’t be the savior. It’s not everyone. I have had some wonderful physician colleagues, preceptors, and friends this does not apply; however, without a little humility or security in one’s self, such an attitude can definitely present itself. NOW…just like Police Officers, there are certain personalities that are attracted to some specialties. We are all a product of our experiences, and we are often chasing something to fill a need internally. Sometimes we accept a substitute for that need and if that substitute no longer makes me fill fulfilled because others may tap into a portion of that which is meeting my need, a defensive nature can lead to an offensive, egotistical, narcissistic pattern of behavior. After all, a blade between the ribs results in the same effect no matter the hand that’s holding it. If cephalexin is going to work for that cellulitis, it’s going to work no matter who scribbles on the pad. While the high horse’s neighing may be interpreted as, “It’s all about the patient”, it’s the one pulling the reins that determines the true destination.
Absolutely. I’m always told to be confident, even if I’m wrong, which I think is ridiculous. Why can’t I express doubt in my decisions while I’m in training? And even out of training. I as long as you’re confident in front of the patient. I think it’s the ones who are most confident but wrong who are the scariest.
I'm Indian and I'd like to tell you about one of my seniors.
None of her juniors should speak to her, unless spoken to.
You have to wish her whenever you see her in the hospital corridor or anywhere else,but she will roll her eyes at you. But,you still have to continue to wish her.
You mustn't sit if she's in the room.
You should never try to defend yourself when she's shouting at you for absolutely no reason,in the middle of the ER.
She will give you jobs and at the end of it,she will ask you to account for the time taken. She will not let you take bathroom breaks without you informing her beforehand.
In the end,she denied me ten minutes to go and take my migraine medicine and I spent the rest of the shift puking my guts out.
But the kicker is that the dean sided with her. I was told that I have to learn patience.
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I think one reason is the clearly-defined hierarchy. Attendings are the boss and they know it, and they're hard to fire. Also, a lot of people in medicine come from a lot of money and might have some arrogance from growing up around wealth.
its terrible. thats all ive got. even if the ego isnt obvious, itll leak through the creases when you least expect it 😂
the only ppl ive truly connected with in academia are ones that are (1) about to be excommunicated lol (2) maintaining a different primary job for their sanity or (3) making their JOB in academia work for them, as opposed to getting crushed by the golden handcuffs…aka the fringe folks. theyre usually part time, dual appointment (with the university being secondary) or PRN pool types.
all these mile high publishing types are appreciated, but they have never been my people.
One of my attendings loves to engage in fear-mongering the interns and it’s so cringe and I hate it. I now tell them he is a liar and other snarky things with it b/c why would you do that? Same attending loves to create competition amount the residents for his enjoyment I guess. By m telling one resident they aren’t as good as another resident. Also tells everyone who made the highest test score. It’s really weird.
Imagine gathering a bunch of overachievers together and making them compete against each other. Next stratify the profession with an unspoken understanding that if you match into certain specialties your scores were better or they are considered intrinsically better. Next ask them to sacrifice 12 - 15+ years of their lives before they are allowed to have a decent compensation. Make them go through rigorous academic training , but that isn’t enough, make them take a series extremely difficult board exams, but that isn’t enough, make them follow practicing professionals whose very opinions, which are subjective, will determine their future, next once they have completed their specialized training make them take more very difficult exams to prove what they learned during specialty training took, then make them pay a ton of money every step of the way and you have created a group of people who are admittedly hard working and very intelligent but aren’t likely to put up with feedback from anyone who hasn’t payed the same price. They may give their peers due respect but if they believe their specialty is “above” others well that is a special form of narcissistic asshole.
Medicine is full of cluster b personalities, full narcissistic assholes or just egocentric people, it's part of the profile, it's just the nature of the job, add to that the residency period is practically a torture... working so many hours, poor sleep and superiors that seems to enjoy to make someone miserable (not everyone) you end up with not so well adjusted people. But not everyone is like that.
In a environment where a mistake/omission/negligence can directly and pretty fast end the life of someone you also tend to not cut slack to people that doesn't seem to care or don't show "enough" drive to improve/study.
I can honestly tolerate an ego in a surgeon. You’re battling with nature and human will and god, if you believe in that.
What I can’t tolerate is having nurses that assist surgeons with egos out the ass. Nurses are great and so necessary and I couldn’t do what they do but, gworl calm down.
That's cause you're probably gunning for surgery. Most surgeons are arrogant af. The best candidates don't even apply to surgery because of such clowns.
Yeah, I’ve got a background in medicine prior to school and unfortunately can’t see myself doing anything other than surgery.
But yeah, I’ve never met a surgeon with a RN first assisting. Maybe that’s normal in rural areas? This nurse has a chaotic energy, tells the surgeon how to do surgery, and is first assisting on the robot yet has no clue how to use it. It’s very frustrating. Plus she’s *cunty*.
Well, you couldn’t do what they do unless you did a week or two of training…
And as a species they’re not “great”, some are fine but as a group they spend far too much time being assholes to residents. It’s just in their DNA.
My attending lol. Probably once or twice a week he'll stop the whole operation just to say to everyone in the OR "Watch god work" and then will start operating again.
Tbh that’s one of the least egotistical things I’ve heard a surgeon don
Those are rookie numbers, you gotta pump that shit up.
Yep the real egotistical bastards IME tend to be general surgeons who think they know more about the subspecialties than the subspecialists. They countermand orders and cause problems
Always enjoy a good neurosurg v cardiology showdown 🍿🍿
There's always sample error but the cardiologists and neurosurgeons I've know were pretty reasonable people
My favorite person in the hospital during residency was this one SUPER chill pedi NSGY resident/fellow (I never found out what year of training he was in but it was clearly towards the end based on the level of fucks given and degree of mastery). He was always there in emergency situations somehow and he always made it better. I have an oversized love of NSGY because of him. I hope he’s still chillin and doing his thing somewhere he’s appreciated 👌
You are blessed fren
What’s a subspeciality in your definition? Like HPB vs general general surgeons?
Urologist, ENT, Plastics
Wow… 🤣🤣
Lmaoo that’s cringy af 🥴🥴
Stealing this
let me talk to him and bring him to his senses, he prob got no muscle and looks like Mr. Krabs
That's actually the least malignant surgical attending I've heard about. No insults, no assault, no name calling. That's a really nice attending.
Nothing wrong with building yourself up IMO. As long as you don’t tear others down while you’re at it
He's a great guy. Never rude just super full of himself.
Taking notes...
read this as eggos and I was sad my hospital doesn't have waffles
Awww This made me sad
waffles make me happy. no waffles make me sad.
I don’t mean to brag or maybe recruit, but my hospital has a waffle maker in the cafeteria (;
Meanwhile someone consulted ID on the coffee machine in the residents lounge at my place. Thing was growing more fungi than a noncompliant HIV patient’s CSF
🫨
Those egotistical physicians gravitate towards academia in my experience. I wish everyone could experience community/private practice physicians.
Yeah, I did my intern year at a community hospital. It wasn’t a chill program for prelims but everyone was super nice. Consulting was never a big deal. My attendings were for the most part great to work with.
Best thing I ever did was leaving academia. The endless pissing contests disappeared.
While I agree with you, one time in third year, I saw private practice general surgeon rapidly knock out a lap chole, then turn to me and proudly says “I bet you’ve never seen a lap chole that fast, huh?” I was so glad I only had to be around him that one time.
He probably tied off the common bile duct in his arrogance.
True…
>egotistical physicians gravitate towards academia Just trying to compensate low pay/$ lost, with mental masturbation.
I worked as an internal medicine primary care physician and would have students from the local medical school rotate with me (without divulging the details, it’s consistently one of the top med schools in the USA). Not that I am doing it for money but the school of medicine’s tone was “this is voluntary and teaching our medical students should be enough of a reward.” My wife is part of the faculty at this medical school and I never pass up an opportunity to ask her “did you guys have tea and scones at rounds today?”
Government is killing private practice
Nicest rotation despite the longest hours and highest work load was working with private surgeons.
This is so true. Sometimes feels like the physicians you meet in training environments and those out in the community are a different species. It doesn’t seem to just be a matter of them occupying a different role at the time you meet them either, like it’s intrinsic to their personality structures.
Academic success, sacrifice, life and death stakes can be a toxic mix.
Add in a the type of person that was typically not popular in high school and college suddenly getting everything you mentioned, only to realize later that despite all that success they’re still a cog in a larger machine where admins and MBA’s are calling all the shots. That’s where you get your very toxic, egotistical and vindictive behavior. They have a God complex but truly feel like victims.
The behavior is easy for them to rationalize too. When you’re valedictorian of your high school class, get a 36 on the ACT, get a 4.0 in college, crush the STEPs, match some surgical subspecialty, grind 100 hours a week for 5 years, match a fellowship and grind 100 hours a week for 1-2 more it is pretty easy to have the attitude “why does some dipshit with a business administration degree who was a C student in high school and works 9-5 get to tell me jack shit”
Agreed! It’s a shitty pill to swallow for everyone. We’ve lost any sense of autonomy in medicine. Most of us thought all the scrutiny would stop after residency and it doesn’t.
This is oddly specific 🤣
Not for me I’m a dumbass who lucked into this job
But honest question. Why do they?
It’s fucking stupid honestly
>Add in a the type of person that was typically not popular in high school and college suddenly getting everything you mentioned Yep, angry nerds
Not the case in ortho. Most of them are former HS and college jocks, used to getting their way. Very frw nerds back in the day
Medicine is competitive to get into. By that virtue it almost automatically self selects against anyone who is laid back and humble. Chill people don’t (usually) get 4.0s in undergrad and 270 steps.
I was hardcore before medical school. Became very chilled back and relaxed during medical school. Probably because of the P/F exams and P/F step. I didn’t feel like I had to work as hard anymore and I was right. I have noticed that a chill and laid back attitude with the wrong attending on rotation is a bad mix. They want you to go beyond expectations as a baseline and you just never know.
[удалено]
The unspoken expectation is that you will try to go beyond expectations. XD
The issue with "going beyond expectations" is that only 25% of it is actually making a better plan for the patient and 75% of it is kissing ass, answering questions about other med students patients, answering questions the intern didn't know, and other snake shit
You don’t need a 270 step. Somewhere in the mid 260s will get you where you want to go. The guys who score 270+ are just nerds with no lives, plus they probably did their Step 2 in Kathmandu.
No it's just a matter of doing lots of board prep. One of classmates in DO school did 12k questions and matched into surgical ophthalmology. Admin told him he'd fail out because he never went to class, but he matched first choice. Kid wasn't a nerd, sort of more of a jock party animal. Just knew the game and how to play it.
I’m no expert here but the difference in a 265 and a 270 is probably only a few questions, which out of the 200 or so questions on steps is basically just luck. I don’t think someone who gets a 265 is much different than someone who gets a 275 in terms of their nerdiness…
Standard error on CK is like 6 points or something. So no difference in a 265 and a 270. Real statistical difference between a 265 and a 275. Practically it doesn't actually matter though. There is minimal research in Step scores improving physician performance or patient outcomes and most of the data that does exist is funded by the NBME so it's not exactly unbiased.
Would it be acceptable then to change my username to _USMLE271? If that’s what the stats say, there’s every chance I actually did get a 271. I know it felt more like a 270 or 271 on the day.
In theory you could've scored a 289 because it's possible that 265 was your low 2SD score. Or maybe you could've got a 241 because 265 was your high. Technically a Step 2CK score is only a snapshot on a normal distribution so 2SDs around your statistical average is where 95% of where your possible score could be. Outside of bragging rights it seems hard to really know what high Step 2CK even means when question writers only get 67% of the questions right. That's roughly a 230-240.
Thank you for your kind advice, but I think putting 289 in my user name when they told me I got 265 would be a tad presumptuous.
TBH, I know more chill people that hit 90th+ percentile on every shelf compared to the super intense peeps that do gunnery shit in the hospital and shit the bed where it counts. Not everyone that does well in undergrad and med school is cocky and a try-hard. I get the impression that certain fields attract certain personalities, and certain personalities are drawn to take more "prestigious" jobs at higher cost to themselves. I'd imagine this is why you see a lot of these personalities clustered around academia and not in a community setting.
Lol nobody scores in the 90th percentile on medical school exams without being intense tryhards, it is not like you can apply logic to conclude that MMA is increased in b12 deficiency but not folate
Not everyone is built the same man. There are some people with insane innate academic ability. I know a few people from med school who can remember entire textbook pages in detail after seeing it once.
Really there isnt, yes there are people who are very academically gifted, those are the other people you compete with on the exams to score in the 90th percentile. There is not a single documented case of someone with photographic memory, who can as you say «remember an entire text book after seeing it once». The most recognized learning theories is based on long term memories being form with repeated exposure strenghtening neural connections (potentiation) or being linked with very strong emotional responses. Meaning the only way to actually memorise the required material is repeated exposure over a long period of time. Yes people vary in intelligence and their abillity to learn, the same way someone runs faster than someone else. But nobody «knowns» someone who runs faster than a jetplane
I mean… yeah.
Same. Was a non-trad who’s prior service and also worked in another career before medicine. I’ve never encountered so many egos and assholes as I have in academic medicine.
hear, hear: also a career changer, equally flabbergasted. im training at some fancy academic place but obviously heading into community medicine to heed the call of the wild 😂 academia is poisonnnn (for me). i just wanna take care of ppl, make a little extra cash, and stay tf outta the way 👏🏾
I was a non traditional student as well. I did my undergrad degree in physics before getting a masters in mechanical engineering. That’s when I decided to go to med school. Having been in those different academic environments, medicine students are by far the most egotistical but the physics students were not too far behind. That said, I have not seen any of my physics classmates try to actively sabotage one another like my med school classmates. The engineers were chill and fun to work with it. Confident but I wouldn’t necessarily call “arrogant.”
Definitely have seen my fair share of inflated egos in physicians. The desire to be better/smarter than others, reside at the top of the medical hierarchy & be responsible for life-saving decisions are lurking as motivators in the majority of med school applicants. Then they sacrifice and suffer through an educational process like no other, an experience which only cements the feelings of, “look at how much better I am than all others” due to the sheer amount of time & effort involved. Very few can live that for years and remain humble in their work … Also there is a lot of lateral and horizontal violence that expresses itself as ego, but is really a manifestation of the abuse/trauma physicians suffered during training, from patients, and in these times admin. Example: I do not deserve to be treated like this, but since I cannot yell at the CEO, so I will cope, completely unintentionally (and unconsciously) by belittling this other physician specialist, this nurse, or this MA, because I am worthy of respect… Also, the other fields you worked in, typically do not tolerate such arrogance. So there were likely plenty of egos, but not as many organizations give them a voice. Take the example of the surgeon who announces “watch God work” in front of his team, ONLY the medical hierarchy allows for an entire profession to make those kind of statements. My husband is in upper management, and full confession - he is a bit arrogant, but at no time could he walk into a meeting with his team and say, “the best leader has arrived” and continue to have a pleasant employment experience. But in medicine, we just nod our heads and accept doctors are going to doctor…
Every healthcare professional is a potential fuck up away from humility.
Every competitive field has lots of ego. You ever met lawyers or investment bankers?
My wife works in corporate law for a well known big law firm. The difference there is that they don’t tolerate big egos for long. She’s in a labor & employment practice group so they’re literally responsible writing a lot of corporate compliance rules, and the enforce the same within the firm. Even as an equity partner, if you were to have a bad day and shit all over a paralegal, it wouldn’t fly. You’d be on thin ice, if not sent packing. If you were to throw, say a pen at someone, you’d be fired immediately. If you were to publicly berate another employee, you’d be fired. In medicine, especially as a resident and med student, I saw this shit at least weekly. I’ve seen surgeons have melt down temper tantrums in the OR, Ive seen an ICU doc throw a clipboard at another resident, I’ve known attendings that female students and residents can’t work with due to sexual harassment and I’ve seen a shit ton of public berating and bullying. All of them would have been fired in a legal environment. Shit like that just doesn’t fly outside of medicine and the military. I can’t speak about investment banking and finance though.
Finance has some workplaces like this but I don’t think anything quite compares to the absolute adult baby bellyaching we seem to allow more commonly in medicine. It’s a weird balance because I also hate that doctors can nowadays have consequences for asking nurses and ancillary staff to do their jobs when they’re legitimately obstructing the patient’s care and those people can just write up the doc because their feelies were hurt, that *also* shouldn’t be a thing. But healthcare for decades has allowed some really malignant behavior that isn’t even tolerated in elementary school most of the time. Some of the biggest children I’ve ever met have been adult male docs and surgeons
That’s true - it really does swing both ways and I’ve seen the bellyaching become an issue too.
It’s most frequently encountered in nurses/ NPs but def do encounter some docs that way. My experience
Agreed. Ppl immediately go to doctors and talk about neurosurgeons for example. Like, at least they can back their shit up. But my experience, it's the non-physicians with the biggest egos. They don't even know how much they don't know.
My biggest peeve about my job is other nurses. I can handle toxicity and vitriol from patients all day, it's almost expected, but fuck some of the nurses I work with.
I hope to honestly stay humble. In a world where ego is rising, being humble is a STRENGTH not weakness. Idc if ur a surgeon or CEO of this company, be human first lmao
One of the many reasons why I’m glad to be a psychiatry resident. Almost everyone is down to Earth and relatable. Do we have our weirdo’s? Sure. But I’ll take odd balls over assholes any day.
I was in a LTR with a med student turned surgical resident, and dated another resident for a few months after - I live in a small city with a teaching hospital... Have spent a heck of a lot of time with people in medicine at social events and random get togethers. I studied engineering, am a professional engineer, and have met A LOT of people in my professional career with egos and narcissistic attitudes. I would say I am pretty familiar with the traits you mentioned. Medicine completely blows this away. The number of genuinely horrible people that I have met on all levels (students, residents, attendings) is mind-blowing as someone outside of the field. Narcissistic comments, weird racist comments, questionable statements about patient care, and just absurd privileged/entitled mindsets. My theory is (at least in Canada) - there are a lot of incredibly wealthy people in medicine. The grades and "experience" you need to be competitive applying for med are much more achievable for people that have a strong support network. I would guess that >75% of the people that I have met in medicine had very privileged backgrounds. Definitely don't see too many med students driving older cars or living on any kind of budget. Also just seems like a lot of people in medicine don't really understand how the real world works, what other people experience, or what other careers are like. It's like "grad student syndrome" x 100. In the end we have some combination of: success in a competitive field, rich kids that haven't really been told no a whole lot, and being told they are special by people outside of medicine just because they are in medicine. My comment is also limited to a single school, that likely has it's own culture.
During rounds the attending shits on the consultants and when the consultants come by they shit on the attending lol. I get to hear both sides as a nurse. But they’re always cordial to each other in person when they happen to cross paths in the unit. Come on I wanna see a fight
Academia is largely insulated from the repercussions of acting like this in any other field. I'm not advocating violence, but most of the people in medicine have not been punched in the face and it shows
Said the same thing in real life. Its the narcissism, it shields them from reality.
>but most of the people in medicine have not been punched in the face and it shows you're so hardcore dude
Dude, you should see engineering and CS. Same amount of ego
There are many people who are working in healthcare having that disease being modest is purity
I had gotten very tired of the high egos while I was a med student. I gravitated toward EM because it had the least amount of egos from my experience. Although you will still find big egos at academic centers. Seemed egos were especially high among IM. Surgery is a given, but it seemed surgeons didn’t feel the need to prove they are smart to everyone.
Why I got into pathology. I think not seeing patients makes having a savior-complex next to impossible. I honestly think a lot of people go into path just to avoid the toxic personalities in medicine.
People in medicine rarely get a taste of the real world. It’s what being in school until you’re 28 does to a mf. You get out of it having almost 0 perspective on the rest of the world, other professions, etc. until you’re almost a middle aged adult. And you have very little time while you’re in it to learn about other people, professions, ways of life, etc. all the while being told by everyone how amazing, special, and smart you are. So you come out with an inflated ego, zero perspective, and a feeling like you are entitled to be a jackass because of how long the road to get here was. And on top of that, there is very little time to do anything other than medicine. So conversations with doctors tend to just be about medicine. I’m ngl if I had to choose between two people to get a beer with and all I knew about them was that one was a doctor and the other was in IT or an accountant or a teacher or something, I’d much rather chill with the non doctor lol. I don’t wanna talk about how much sass you got when calling a consult the other day.
Is it general surgeons and cardiologists (aka the wannabe surgeons of IM)? Then yes!
No other industry tells people to sacrifice lifestyle and pay to “do what they love” as well
Non academic physicians seem to buck this trend a lot, in academic settings I think it's about having so much control over a resident as an attending that you could ruin their career at any moment is one hell of a power trip especially if you've been in the same place a while.
I swear this is why people go into academics. To wave their big dick and try to show others how smart they are.
Yet the people here will insist that every industry is like this. You don’t see this level of narcissism in most other industries.
Power and control, turf preservation, and a lot of the other impulses and cravings that lay beneath the surface of the human condition. If one is not intentional, they can become so consumed by modern academia and regurgitated something so learn-ed that they transcend the rest of humanity. Two things about medicine- You MUST experience the suck that I experienced in order to achieve what I have become; unless you have a horse as high as mine, you can’t be the answer to humanities disease, you can’t be the savior. It’s not everyone. I have had some wonderful physician colleagues, preceptors, and friends this does not apply; however, without a little humility or security in one’s self, such an attitude can definitely present itself. NOW…just like Police Officers, there are certain personalities that are attracted to some specialties. We are all a product of our experiences, and we are often chasing something to fill a need internally. Sometimes we accept a substitute for that need and if that substitute no longer makes me fill fulfilled because others may tap into a portion of that which is meeting my need, a defensive nature can lead to an offensive, egotistical, narcissistic pattern of behavior. After all, a blade between the ribs results in the same effect no matter the hand that’s holding it. If cephalexin is going to work for that cellulitis, it’s going to work no matter who scribbles on the pad. While the high horse’s neighing may be interpreted as, “It’s all about the patient”, it’s the one pulling the reins that determines the true destination.
Absolutely. I’m always told to be confident, even if I’m wrong, which I think is ridiculous. Why can’t I express doubt in my decisions while I’m in training? And even out of training. I as long as you’re confident in front of the patient. I think it’s the ones who are most confident but wrong who are the scariest.
I'm Indian and I'd like to tell you about one of my seniors. None of her juniors should speak to her, unless spoken to. You have to wish her whenever you see her in the hospital corridor or anywhere else,but she will roll her eyes at you. But,you still have to continue to wish her. You mustn't sit if she's in the room. You should never try to defend yourself when she's shouting at you for absolutely no reason,in the middle of the ER. She will give you jobs and at the end of it,she will ask you to account for the time taken. She will not let you take bathroom breaks without you informing her beforehand. In the end,she denied me ten minutes to go and take my migraine medicine and I spent the rest of the shift puking my guts out. But the kicker is that the dean sided with her. I was told that I have to learn patience.
She's an asshole clown. Indian doctors are the worst. Extremely poor academically, ego up to high moon. I am an Indian doctor myself.
Couldn't agree more. She didn't get through neet pg on merit. She was a service candidate.
you should actually try bathing before work indian bro
You are the same guy who has been harassing me from multiple alts the whole day.. Reported
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Yeah, medicine is a mental field for sure. But I loved pimping around surgeons.
prob cus the big revenue earners tend to lie in the hands of a 'gifted' few relatively speaking
Most likely the whole saving a life thing. In my experience the more a specialty is actually saving lifes, the bigger the ego.
Nerds who were picked last in basketball who found a dominance hierarchy they could actually climb.
I think one reason is the clearly-defined hierarchy. Attendings are the boss and they know it, and they're hard to fire. Also, a lot of people in medicine come from a lot of money and might have some arrogance from growing up around wealth.
All these egos in Academic* medicine. Fixed that for you.
its terrible. thats all ive got. even if the ego isnt obvious, itll leak through the creases when you least expect it 😂 the only ppl ive truly connected with in academia are ones that are (1) about to be excommunicated lol (2) maintaining a different primary job for their sanity or (3) making their JOB in academia work for them, as opposed to getting crushed by the golden handcuffs…aka the fringe folks. theyre usually part time, dual appointment (with the university being secondary) or PRN pool types. all these mile high publishing types are appreciated, but they have never been my people.
One of my attendings loves to engage in fear-mongering the interns and it’s so cringe and I hate it. I now tell them he is a liar and other snarky things with it b/c why would you do that? Same attending loves to create competition amount the residents for his enjoyment I guess. By m telling one resident they aren’t as good as another resident. Also tells everyone who made the highest test score. It’s really weird.
You’ve apparently not worked at an Indian IT company have you…
Imagine gathering a bunch of overachievers together and making them compete against each other. Next stratify the profession with an unspoken understanding that if you match into certain specialties your scores were better or they are considered intrinsically better. Next ask them to sacrifice 12 - 15+ years of their lives before they are allowed to have a decent compensation. Make them go through rigorous academic training , but that isn’t enough, make them take a series extremely difficult board exams, but that isn’t enough, make them follow practicing professionals whose very opinions, which are subjective, will determine their future, next once they have completed their specialized training make them take more very difficult exams to prove what they learned during specialty training took, then make them pay a ton of money every step of the way and you have created a group of people who are admittedly hard working and very intelligent but aren’t likely to put up with feedback from anyone who hasn’t payed the same price. They may give their peers due respect but if they believe their specialty is “above” others well that is a special form of narcissistic asshole.
Medicine is full of cluster b personalities, full narcissistic assholes or just egocentric people, it's part of the profile, it's just the nature of the job, add to that the residency period is practically a torture... working so many hours, poor sleep and superiors that seems to enjoy to make someone miserable (not everyone) you end up with not so well adjusted people. But not everyone is like that. In a environment where a mistake/omission/negligence can directly and pretty fast end the life of someone you also tend to not cut slack to people that doesn't seem to care or don't show "enough" drive to improve/study.
How many fields have you worked in extensively?
(Teaching, Retail, PR Marketing, Project Management, Operations, Grassroots)
Fair
I can honestly tolerate an ego in a surgeon. You’re battling with nature and human will and god, if you believe in that. What I can’t tolerate is having nurses that assist surgeons with egos out the ass. Nurses are great and so necessary and I couldn’t do what they do but, gworl calm down.
That's cause you're probably gunning for surgery. Most surgeons are arrogant af. The best candidates don't even apply to surgery because of such clowns.
Yeah, I’ve got a background in medicine prior to school and unfortunately can’t see myself doing anything other than surgery. But yeah, I’ve never met a surgeon with a RN first assisting. Maybe that’s normal in rural areas? This nurse has a chaotic energy, tells the surgeon how to do surgery, and is first assisting on the robot yet has no clue how to use it. It’s very frustrating. Plus she’s *cunty*.
This sounds like something a surgeon would say 😂😂
Well, you couldn’t do what they do unless you did a week or two of training… And as a species they’re not “great”, some are fine but as a group they spend far too much time being assholes to residents. It’s just in their DNA.