..........................

Resident Evil .......

........or evil resident. Take your pick.

*This is kind of a dry long read. So proceed carefully. 

Throughout my clinical years in med school (3rd and 4th year), I have only been brought to tears once by an Attending, and that was on my first Medicine month. I was completely and utterly humiliated. Since then I have had other not so pleasant experiences like been kicked out of a surgery which actually made me happy because I hate scrubbing in for surgeries. 

I've never had any issues with residents, the most "negative" feedback I have gotten was that I was too quiet, but my clinical grades were usually good. Fast forward to a few months ago.  I was placed on this team with all females. Two teams shared the team room and the other team consisted of all females also. The rotation started very well.  Everyone was cool. I got the vibe that an intern on the other team didn't like me, but as time passed and people talked, it became clear that it was just her personality and she was grumpy all the time. 

On this team, we took call every 4 days. I was supposed to take overnight call with the Senior, but since a senior and an intern had to be on call and our team consisted of one senior, two interns and one med student (me), if I stayed overnight, the next day there would only be one intern to cover the whole team. So the senior decided I would only take call until 10pm so i would be available to help the intern the next day. I had no issues with that. 

I started this rotation thinking the senior knew I was a SubI since I was at the end of my 4th year. So when she would only let me take one new admission on call days, I asked her for more, but she said I don't want you to have more and do mediocre on all, I'd rather have you take one and do it well. I was like Okayyyyy. 

On call days, she started a competition amongst the interns including the ones on the other team. Whoever can finish and staff an admission within 2 hours wins a prize. 

So first 3 weeks of the rotation went by without any issues. Then Friday of the 3rd week, she out of the blue asked me if this was my SubI and I said yes and i thought she knew. She was like noooooooo, hmmm, so that means we have been under working you. You haven't been doing the work of an intern. I calmly repeated that I thought she knew which is why i initially asked for more patients. Besides, if you are a fourth year most rotations treat you like a SubI anyway, so i don't know where her brain went. Then she said the assignment she gave me earlier, that i hadn't submitted intern level material so i had to re-do it, I was like fine. 

Then she says, well you have one week to prove yourself.  Next call, I'm going to give you 3 admissions, and you can't take 5 hours to do one (that was a jab). I said sure, no problem. We were on call that day and in this hospital, they cap at 10 new admits per team. We capped really early that day before 6pm, we already had all 10, meaning there would be nothing to do overnight.  As the senior resident she sees all the patients, but the interns assigned to the patient sees them and writes the note. So by 10 pm that day when it was time for me to leave there was nothing more to be done. She wasn't doing anything, so I jokingly said, "Is there anything I could do for you before I ditch you?" Big mistake, although at that time i was oblivious to the fact that i had committed a faux pas. She was like hmm...aren't fourth years supposed to say overnight. I was like yeah, but you said i shouldn't. Then she turns to the senior on the other team and starts asking her about work hour restrictions for med students, I was laughing the whole time cos i thought she was joking. She had told me multiple times prior to that day that she didn't want me staying overnight especially since she was pumping every 4 hours and she would have to be bothered by me, If i stayed overnight. Finally she shoos me away and I leave. 

The next day she was post call, so I didn't really see her after morning rounds. After that, I noticed that she was very snippy with me, she also started to micromanage me, wouldn't give me any breathing space, she would give me a long to do list and still say make sure you go to noon report and make sure you are done with all these things before xyz time, knowing fully well that there was no way i could go to noon report and finish all she wanted on time. I would ask her a question, she would tell me to figure out the answer myself. It started to get to me especially since she wasn't that way when I started that rotation. During rounds, if i say one thing, she would attack me in front of the Attending. I was just tell what the hell is going on here. It wasn't making sense and I knew i wasn't imagining it because she was so friendly and nice at the beginning of the month. I was like is this one PMSing, what the hell? 

Then the next call day came and she gave me the first admission. I didn't even have time to finish my progress notes on my other patients, before she told me to start going to the ED to see this new patient. I went to the ED, saw the patient, came up with my assessment and plan, ran it by her and then staffed with the Attending in less than 2 hours. I was very excited because I usually took longer. Then we had to go to radiology to look at an image and she asked me and one of the interns to come along. On our way there, I was like, hey, I finished my new admission in 2 hours, and she was like, are you done with your progress notes for your other patients. I said no, and she said, well then, there's no need to be excited because you are not done. I was like o_O. 

After we got back from Radiology, we sat down to go over my note and she starts by saying that I shouldn't have been gloating that i was done in 2 hours, how do i think someone else who was around but wasn't done in 2 hours would feel. In my mind, I was like what's this mad woman talking about, I was the ONLY one who usually took forever to finish and she was the one that started the 2 hour competition in the first place, so I was baffled. There never would have been any talk of finishing in 2 two hours if she didn't start the freaking competition in the first place and not only that she had told me that I couldn't take forever with any new admission, so i didn't see anything wrong in being excited that I actually finished an admission on time for the first time that month.

Then she went on to say that I need to watch the way I talk because I could be rubbing people the wrong way and not know it (this conversation was taking place in a room full of people). 

TO BE Continued. I'm tired. lol.