Me: “Hey, sorry, just reminding you – I have mandatory lectures from 11- 6pm today.”
Intern: “Okay, no problem. See you tomorrow..”
Me: “Hey, sorry, just reminding you – I have mandatory lectures from 11- 6pm today.”
4th year Resident: “Okay, no problem. See you tomorrow.”
Me: “Hey, sorry, just reminding you – I have mandatory lectures from 11-6pm today.”
Chief Resident: “Okay, no problem. See you tomorrow.”
6 hours of lectures later, my classmates go home, but I run back to the floor to grab my bag:
Me: “Hi!”
3rd year Resident: “So are you aware that you missed afternoon rounds?”
Fin.
(Moral of the story: On surgery, your absence is important enough to be silently judged – but not important enough for anyone else to actually explain it.)
(Alternative moral of the story: Never go back for your bag.)
(Alternative alternative moral of the story: You will never make everyone happy. Welcome to medicine.)
Actually, that resident is usually really nice. And I’m loving surgery. (Never thought I’d say that!)
But, man… COMMUNICATION. IT IS HARD.
Yeah, no matter what you do, someone will tell you that you screwed up.
A) Surgery is awesome (but don’t go into it. I’m serious.)
B) Resident 3 probably wasn’t even mad. Just say, “I’m so sorry I couldn’t find you before I left for classes! We had them from 11-6 today.”
C) You’re lucky you didn’t get roped into doing some work!
These little excerpts always make me laugh. At least you got your bag without having to do any work!
I’ll go with “Alternative alternative to the alternative: You will never make everyone happy. Welcome to real life. Be ready to have some pissed at you for a stupid reason for the rest of it.”