Pimp My Med Student, or Why I Love Poor Med Students

Or at least feel desperately sorry for them.

More on that later.

First: I had a bad day. So bad, that hands down, the least of the bad things that happened was that my stethoscope fell (bell/diaphragm first, not the earpieces, thank GOD) into a container of stale urine sitting in a commode.

I need a new stethoscope.

I don't even want to mention the other bad things that happened today, because I am beginning to enjoy my beer buzz, and if I dwell on it any longer, I'm going to stop enjoying my beer buzz, which might possibly be THE WORST THING EVER to happen, despite the sheer suckiness of my day.

Okay.

Back to Med Students, and Why I Pity Them.

There is this med student (discernable by the short white coat apparel) who has a rotation with the vascular group's residents. I've seen him around before, not paid much attention to him, actually, because hey, he's a med student, whatever. But today I got to work early, and there he was, poor thing, being all earnest and trying so hard to be nice... while his resident/intern mercilessly "pimped" him. I sat on the other side of the charts and scowled irritably at the resident, who was being a general all around prick to the kid, who was so flustered he kept looking like a buffoon--not that his intern was giving him anything but a rope with which to hang himself.

"Pimping," in the land of medical argot, means "riding your med student/intern/resident's ass so hard at the end of the day they look like they've been rode hard and put up wet." It's the whole "brass balls" shitty medical model of training--generations of ego and militaristic garbage hazing which is so incredibly counterproductive it's astounding they haven't done evidence based research that it's not a very effective method.

His intern/resident was so cruel to this poor kid I wanted to say something to him like, "Hey, asshole, give the kid a break; he's trying really hard!" but I"m sure that only make the kid's life harder, not better. It's not character building and it doesn't make you a better future doctor to be constantly told you're a worthless piece of shit, fit only to write notes (on patients you don't even get to see--so what's the point?!) The poor med student was like, "So I can go in the room, right?" and the intern said, "Ummm, no, you don't get to go in the room, I do. You can stay out here and write my notes [read: do my scutwork, bitch!}" Like, okay, I'm just a stupid nurse not fit to lick even a med student's toes, but uh, how's he supposed to learn if he can't go in rooms and see the assessment, dumbass?!

So His Highness got to swish around in his long white coat, going into the rooms doing his "history and physical" (I've read some of their notes and orders, and believe me, howeverly lordly and medical savvy they may seem to med students (who don't know any better); we nurses laugh when they try to write orders for the first time as an MD. And groan. And point it out to them, so they don't kill the patient). Then the resident, who I was beginning to believe was related to the Marquis de Sade, started torturing the kid by not letting him take notes on his dictated report. It was like watching that scene in Schindler's List. You know, the one in Auschwitz, when the poor souls are being led to the gas chambers, and the others are watching them wondering what their fate is.

It was sad, people. My heart bled for this kid, and I don't even think he's a "kid". I think he's probably older than me. Or he looks it, any way.

The only bit of solidarity I could offer (being one of the Untouchable class myself, as a dumb nurse) was to whisper to him, "Don't worry, it'll get better [translation: one day you get to do the pimping]" and addressograph some progress notes for him, something I would never do for an attending or resident unless she had treated me like a human being rather than a slavish troll, which practically none of them do.

I remember what it was like to be a scared shitless student, and a scared shitless new nurse. Hell, I know what it's like to be scared shitless and have some experience! If I didn't have understanding, caring teachers who taught me how to overcome my fear, I would have probably dropped out of nursing, and never had the pleasure of oozing stool and suctioning sputum. And what a tragic loss that would have been, n'est pas?

No seriously, to paraphrase that John Mayer song, "Interns be good to your med students.. They become interns, who turn into residents, so residents be good to your interns, too!"