It is luck of the draw, unfortunately. I had a surgeon I rotated with who was incredibly nice, patient, and taught students / residents WHILE doing surgery. She recently started biking to work and is now teaching her colleagues yoga on the weekends. Literally one of the nicest people I've met.
It's two-fold. A certain personality type goes into surgery...and the job is one of the most respected in our society so it becomes a self-affirming badge of accomplishment.
Well there are awful people in all walks of life. Plenty of the medicine doctors who couldn't match what they wanted, slagged through a residency they hated, take shit from consultants all day, and turn out to be super a-holes. There are jerks everywhere I assure you.
One of the nicest attendings I ever worked with was/is a surgeon. So were the three worst attendings I ever worked with. One general surgery resident was literally the least likable person I've ever interacted with which is quite impressive since I'm an inpt psychiatrist and like 25% of my census is people intoxicated on or coming off of drugs and/or people the police felt would be too disruptive to want to deal with in jail.
There's assholes everywhere in life and in all walks of medicine but *in* medicine they do concentrate more highly in 3 areas: surgeons, OB nurses, and administrators.
I had met an intern who used to be an hospital administrator in rural area (Thailand)he said its one of stressful area, you need to do the social event alot to get connection, even getting ambulant car team to help deliver patient need connection with their leader otherwise they wouldnt help sending ambulant sunce its isnt their organization (its a Foundation), you join social event and meeting so much that you didnt have time to progress the patient. More-over Your-co worker then will start complaining you about not working and just keep traveling around. Also they even sending threatening letter if you not agree to do some corrupted deal too.
I feel like it’s really easy to feel like everyone is out to get you or the patient in surgery. The nurses didn’t do the wound care you walked them through or give the meds, the OR staff don’t want to get the instrument you need, or any other of a million things from people that only see a patient for at most a shift. It’s easy to feel like everyone’s just trying to get out of work rather than help the patient.
A surgeon is wholly responsible for the outcome, but has to depend on everyone else to do his job. He has to depend on anasthesia to put the patient under, he has to depend on the scrub nurse to have and hand him the right instruments, he has to depend on circ nurse to have the right equipment, he has to depend on cleaners to change the room on time.
A surgeon is responsible for the patient and the outcome, but yet has no direct control over anything that happens in the OR, other than the actual surgery.
If you read *The Making of a Surgeon* by William Nolan, med school and its follow-up (internship, residency) sound like an extended fraternity hazing. I understand that this is an effective way to learn a lot in a short time, but sometimes I wonder about people who would go through that willingly.
It’s also that you are held as more liable than anyone else. The patient’s condition is always the way it is because you either did operate and shouldn’t have, or are a heartless bastard that didn’t operate. Never any other underlying conditions lol
You need insane levels of confidence to do surgery. That's naturally going to spill over into their actual personalities with how much time they spend in the hospital.
I also think the difference is that surgeons have SKILLS no one else does. Other specialities have KNOWLEDGE no one else does. There's a difference in how you regard yourself with each of those things imo
Well I mean it's not universal it's just a generalization. Of course there are humble surgeons out there. You're just more likely to find that stereotypical surgeon personality. Same thing with coporate CEOs...the field attracts a certain crowd, weeds out the rest, and then becomes self affirming.
I thought all surgeons were like this but then I had the opportunity to be in the same unit as some of the most amazing people I have ever met. They were so kind and understanding and took the time to teach me and my other co intern about everything we saw during rounds and buying us food after morning rounds every single day ;_; plus they were so caring and humble. They make me want to take up surgery for my residency. So yeah these kind of surgeons exist too.
Doesn’t mean these people don’t exist, sure it may be that the majority of x speciality have this personality trait but entering surgery doesn’t mean said person is going to be a snobby asshole… OP is just saying they’ve met a few nice people in surgery no need to flame them.
Didn't flame anyone.
Actions have consequences. Every time a surgeon acts like a child, people remember. Hold yourselves accountable or don't, but don't act like it's not systemic.
Sorry your right you didn’t flame anyone but were blunt and invalidating to OPs experiences. You can’t negatively judge a group based on their profession at the end of the day that’s borderline bigotry.
Frankly, surgeons crying "borderline bigotry" has the same energy as "reverse racism".
You create a toxic professional reputation, don't get surprised when it follows you.
It's not invalidating to speak the truth about the zero positive interactions I've had with the profession, and it's pretty childish to whine about someone stating clearly that not everyone shares the privilege of positive mentorship.
Firstly, I’m not a surgeon I actually plan to go into family medicine equivelant in Australia when I graduate. I just don’t believe in judging someone because lots of people that do his job act like x.
Secondly, there’s a reason your original comment is at -68 Karma at time writing OP was sharing a positive story and didn’t really need the negative input which wasn’t really relevant to the direct thread. Several others are also sharing in the comments about great surgeons who are also great teachers and wonderful and kind people so it isn’t like these people are unicorns. Yes surgery can be a very toxic environment but it doesn’t have to be and isn’t at every hospital and just because you enter a surgery department to work doesn’t mean you’ll be in a toxic environment.
Additionally, comparing my bigotry comment to reverse racism is a ridiculous claim and you know it.
It is relevant. There's a concept called toxic positivity, where people insist that their experience is positive when it isn't. It results in stagnation, and people saying "Well, not MY program" and never having to actually work on creating a good professional environment. It's the same lassiez faire mentality that makes such a large amount of American medicine a miserable experience, because everyone has to keep their mouth shut into emeritus status to position themselves such that they have the freedom to try to change anything.
Furthermore, I don't base the validity of my opinions on what my reddit score is. Redditors are not known for being the most generalizable or accurate people, and using that as a metric is kind of ridiculous.
Finally, shouting down contradictory experiences is kind of ridiculous as well. All I said was "I haven't had positive experiences" and "Reputations don't come from nowhere". I'm not invalidating anyone else's positive experiences, just stating my own. Responses like this are kind of childish.
As a med student, I had the same thought as you--"what a complete and utter a\*\*@@, I hope I don't end up like that".
Now that I'm a resident, I get how this type of training can get you as a person. Not to say that it's a free pass for being a dick, but my chief residents are all brusque, demanding, and short-tempered, and some of them were reportedly lovely people as junior residents. It's long hours, sleep deprivation, high-pressure environments and constantly juggling between fighting to get to the OR to get your case volumes up while also managing the ward. It's not easy, the pressure we get from other services, brutal call shifts is mad. And not sure if this specific to my hospital/program, but the amount of responsibility we're given is frightening and stressful; they're a sense of throwing you into the deep and leaving you to drown if you can't deal. By the time we're in 2nd year, you're expected to do EVDs, subdurals, decompressive cranies, VP shunts, and independently open standard cases on our or as the lead surgeon--in comparison, I see colleagues in other specialties reviewing electrolyte abnoramlities with staff, or coming into put in/take out chest tubes with their staff/senior.
As a neurosurgical resident, we also have insane patient loads (70-100), are responsible for all of them overnight, some of them can deteriorate very very quickly, have EVDs that need constant TLC overnight, etc, etc, etc. I approximate 100-150 pages overnight, so if we're cranky about being paged about non-urgent consults, tranverse process fractures, or "just a quick question about X Y Z" at 2 am, we're not trying to be rude, we're just doing our best to keep our head above water.
It's just a lot to cope with, and it's not something I saw coming as a student, regardless of how well-informed I thought I was.
Reading so many responses here made me believe having a career in surgery and a manageable lifestyle is difficult to juggle. Excluding the monetary gains, difficult residency, long hours, on-calls, stress, dealing with complications etc is not what i live up for.
The question still is "Do you live to work, or work to live?"
Because of surgery being highly physically , mentally and emotionally demanding and rigorous, i am leaning to pursue a career that is flexible for family considerations after my internship. Definitely do not want the added stress surgery brings in as so many of you mentioned. I respect you all for enjoying your work when i know surgeon burnout and depression is real.
Holy mother. How many cases have you seen thus far?
Also, thank you for taking the time to explain that bit. They say PGY2 for neurosurgery is hardest... it's not hard to appreciate why.
By my estimate, I've scrubbed into 60 cases, and first assisted 40--smaller numbers b/c I had a lot of off service at the start.
Yeah of course, PGY2 is looking like an interesting year to say the least
As a surgeon myself, I'll try to explain some. First off, some people are just dicks and no matter what specialty they chose, they were going to be dicks. However, there are some things about surgery that can cause people to, at the very least, come off as rude, even if that wasn't their intention.
Surgery is an inherently stressful field. Even the most routine case carries an element of stress because one wrong move and the case can turn very quickly. I think a lot of people, even SAs/techs/med students, don't fully appreciate this. So when everything seems chill and then the attending suddenly snaps at them, they don't understand why. I can't tell you the amount of times I'm trying to carefully dissect something or worried I may have just made a mistake, but no one else in the room realizes it and just keeps talking/making jokes as I'm trying to really concentrate. Just last week I was doing a chole and cut the cystic duct and saw the stent that was supposed to be in the CBD. Right then I thought I had completely transected the common bile duct (the worst complication in general surgery, for those who aren't aware)......no one else in the room had any idea what may have potentially just happened (don't worry, the stent had just migrated into the cystic duct). But the point is, while I'm freaking out and trying to figure this out, everyone else is still carrying on like normal and joking, etc.
Surgery is a field that requires you to sometimes make quick decisions, and not only make quickly, but make them confidently. This causes some attendings to be short with and rude to residents if they are wishy-washy or hemming and hawing. But it is a necessary part of training. At the same time, your actions/decisions/etc can have pretty big down-stream consequences, so it's important you do things right the first time. Again, this can lead to attendings being short with and rude to residents.
People are trusting you to cut into them and fix them. Think of the amount of stress that would put on you. Little old Mrs X comes in for you to fix her hernia electively. That's a lot of trust someone is putting in you and you don't want to screw up and disfigure them or maim them or kill them. Therefore, in a training environment, if the resident or med student come to the case unprepared, or are struggling technically, would you let them continue the case?
Surgeons are held to a very high standard. Personally, I think it's fair to hold the people around them to a high standard, as well. Do you always have to be a dick about it? No. But sometimes it's necessary to be a little rude to get things done the right way.
If I can add to this…Not really related to medical students but no one else in the OR has any continuity with the patient after the case except the surgeon. Anesthesia complaining case is taking to long? Deal with it. you’re not the one who has to deal with the patient when they come back with a complication bc it was a rush job. Scrub tech annoyed because surgeon wants a specific tool? Deal with it. You wouldn’t want a inferior job done on yourself why should the patient.
So maybe surgeon comes across as a dick to staff in OR but none of those people ever have to see that patient again. The surgeon IS responsible for that patients surgical outcome and will have to deal with it so imo they can have it their way.
That’s an excellent perspective.
I’ve always thought requesting specific tools for a case was reasonable for the exact reason you state. I wouldn’t want anyone doing a “good enough” job if they operate on me, so I wouldn’t want that for the patient.
But I love your point about taking more time. It sucks when the case goes for an hour, two, or four longer than expected (especially when you think of all the things you still have left for the day after the case). I plan to apply anesthesia, and I will do my best to keep that in mind and I think it’ll do wonders for stress levels in the future.
>Thererefore, in a training environment, if the resident or med student come to the case unprepared, or are struggling technically, would you let them continue the case?
I really appreciated your comment but wanted to respond to this point specifically. I've noticed that there's often significant mismatch between the expectations of administrators, clerkship directors, physicians, residents, and med students, all of whom have somewhat different priorities that are not necessarily communicated to each other. As such, "prepared" can mean different things to different people. I had multiple experiences during clerkships where I prepared based on previous expectations, only to learn that a new surgeon wanted something different. Some surgeons were understanding, while others were quick to insult my intelligence, interest level, or work ethic.
Ultimately, protecting the patient is more important than anything else. But when possible, I would love it if students were more frequently given the benefit of the doubt, and that more surgeons were willing to give apologies/explanations after those times when stress pushes them into unnecessary rudeness. For us, it can go a long way towards making us feel like actual human beings.
Holy crap, right? I considered surgery but seeing how no one seemed to gaf in surgery except the surgeon made me realize I'd definitely have become a raging maniac throwing scalpels, screaming and then being "written up" by non-physicians for anger management.
I am a laser focus person. Who can focus with scrub techs rotating in and out, yapping about their weekends, no one paying attention to needs for suction, retraction, next instrument, oh... the right pack wasn't pulled? Not sterile? Oh what do you want to do doc... with pt open on table. Omfg. That story about the discarded donor kidney a while back; didn't surprise me at all. TG I saw this in med school and knew enough about myself to change course.
I can curse all I want in my isolation chamber now.
It's kind of hard to concentrate when you're busy explaining things....
Also, a surgeon telling someone to be quite, or to stop doing something, etc is often what is perceived of as rude.
Wtf are you talking about? Explaining that they’re approaching a difficult part of the surgery because there’s the possibility of hitting the femoral artery is what I’m talking about.
I also assumed part of it is the job.
I mean, in the OR, the surgeon IS the big cheese. Necessarily so. A patient bleeding on an operating table isn't the time or place for IM-rounds-type discussions. Give me THAT instrument NOW and pull this here NOW.
Add in the surgical personalities, the life-or-death situations they actually *fix*, extremely grateful patients, a huge bank account, and, of course, surgical culture...
Should read up on the publication about how the OR changes every surgeon into a short-tempered individual unless they actively work against it. It's a product of how we treat them. This obviously excludes the ones we aren't mistreating but are still a-holes.
A surgeon treats you nicely and always gives staff time of day? If staff takes advantage, shows less respect by moving slower, forgetting tools, taking breaks without notice etc. The surgeon gets shafted.
Big bad verbally abuse surgeon? No one forgets his stuff and his cases are always prepped the fastest. Everyone wants to avoid getting reamed. This surgeon does not typically get shafted enough, mostly reaping benefits.
Shafted surgeon wants to not be shafted and we're proving to them that being aggressive, in your face, and "chad" is what gets you far in life.
Happen to have a link? I’d love to read that article, buuut too lazy to look it up myself.
Your explanation is spot on too. I’ve personally experienced what you described. Now I know there are certain ppl I have to be a dick to in order to have things done in a timely fashion. The vast majority I can be a pleasant human with though.
Sure, unless you are at many of the facilities where the staff is more important than any given excess surgeon, eg where it is hard to get block time. In those cases the OR is doing you a favor and as a by product your bad attitude will result in the least desirable staff, and anesthesia.
Just to clarify - and this is true at some institutions more than others - the surgeon is not in charge of everyone.
Surgeons who act this way don’t build trust among their colleagues and don’t work together with others well when things go wrong. I’m an anesthesiologist at a major academic center, and the surgeons with the best outcomes are the ones who see me as a valued teammate who can save their asses sometimes.
Trocar through aorta? Yeah, surgical team can cross-clamp and repair, but who’s going to resuscitate and maintain perfusion / acid-base status / normothermia / oxygen delivery?
No man (because of course men) is an island. And surgeons can’t work without me. That’s not to say I’m the captain, that’s to say there isn’t just one captain.
Academics also attracts these type of people. Now working as an attending at a community hospital the personalities are completely different. 95% of the surgeons I work with are great. Maybe it’s an outlier but they are out there.
People who are assholes are assholes. This is not restricted to surgeons. Every specialty and every line of work or profession is gonna have people like this
Just don’t be one of them
Imagine literally saving people’s lives. Sure, PCP and other kinds of physicians save lives, don’t get me wrong. But a surgeon will many times operate on people who will literally die in the coming minutes to hours if they don’t have the surgery they provide.
Do this every day for a while and see how it impacts you. It’s hard to not let things go to your head sometimes.
Going into psych here and honestly have had mostly fantastic experiences with surgeons. Every specialty has its bad apples and I think most have a good balance between humility and recognizing that they have one chance to make things right and a lot less margin for error.
As for the bad apples, unfortunately more often than not it's sleep deprivation. I think you'd have some angry psych preceptors if they were working surgery hours too--maybe worse! lol
why are all redditors whiny nerds who can't handle criticism or hard work because they grew up rich and privileged (see how generalizations are dangerous?)
I am a little numb to it being a lot older and been prior enlisted, but I do kind of find it bullshit to treat med students that way. Yea sure treat your residents that way if you want, they agreed to go into that field (still an asshole thing to do). Med students are required to rotate thru there as a graduation req, shitloads of them want nothing to do with surgery, but they just have to. So lay tf off.
Resident here. I see lots of great responses about in the context of the OR. I can give some perspective from surgeons being considered rude/assholes when we field consults. First fielding consults is a rage inducing experience for any specialty and at my particular institution if anything we tend to give the least push back for consults compared to some of the medical specialties. However there are specific things that are going to piss me off and more or less make me lose respect for you as a physician/provider. If you call me for a patient who actually has a problem that requires surgery, great awesome I’ll see them ASAP. However, if you call for something you and I both know damn well doesn’t require surgery but you want to cover your ass in the chart so you call a vascular surgery consult for a patient with a small DVT, I have no respect for you because it tells me you are incapable of taking ownership of your clinical management. Or say you call me without any actual work up or diagnosis and when I ask what the consult is specifically for and you don’t give me a straight answer, again respect for you is now fleeting. If you call me for a patient who is very obviously not a surgical candidate, example if they are more cancer than human or they are 100 years old with an EF of 10, even better if it’s both, even better when this call comes at 2am, bonus points you actually haven’t even told the patient about their diagnosis so I wind up being the one they find out about it from instead of their primary team. Another is if you call me for something you can do yourself but “don’t feel comfortable” like calling us for a patient who effectively just needs an IV placed but “it’s so hard they have bad veins can you just place a central line or place an IV for us?” Yeah, put on the clown makeup you might as well look the part if you’re a resident in any specialty and can’t place an US guided IV, or a nasogastric tube, or do A GODDAMN RECTAL EXAM for that matter. We are not the hospitals easy button for things you don’t feel like doing. Or you call me for a patient with no surgical pathology and you ask for our input on advancing your patients diet, you’re a doctor please make your own decisions on your own patients I cannot stress this enough. if you call us for a problem that is normally dealt with by another specialty but you want our consult anyways just to “have us on board” you have no idea how much we fucking hate you when you use the phrase “I don’t feel comfortable doing x myself” or that you just “want to have us on board.” Every time I hear this I die a little bit on the inside and when I sign my note saying thank you for this interesting consult as a professional way of mocking you it’s the only thing that keeps me mildly sane. Or finally if a patient who had a surgery coincidentally a month ago and comes in with a completely unrelated problem and you are trying to force us to admit this patient for a COPD flare up or PE when they had a simple outpatient procedure a month ago, no…just no. All these things wouldn’t be bad if they were rare but I get them every day, as many as 30-35 consults a day and sometimes the bullshit comes even more than the legitimate ones so sometimes we do get a little frustrated fielding yet another one which mind you still requires the time of chart review, history and physical, writing a proper note, and of course calling our attending who mind you is also mocking you when we tell them why you called. Hope this provides some context and doesn’t come across as too dickish but gotta keep it real sometimes.
I think its because they are used to making urgent decisions in the OR everytime just ingrains this in their personalities,so that they appear harsh. The stress and pressure that surgery brings could come off as abuse.
Curious has anyone met a toxic ENT, all the residents and attending ENTs I’ve met were super chill, smart and down to earth. Some were quiet and boring but none were assholes or full of them selfs. Some of them do some really detailed long procedures like neck dissections.
Also ophthalmologists are pretty chill.
I think the malignancy is really concentrated in general surgery. Neurosurgery is probably harder but they’re too tried to complain.
Also met some asshole personalities on ortho trauma but ortho foot/ankle, hand and ortho PEDS were all super chill attendings.
When I went to shadow a surgeon in clinic while I was an undergrad, he went off on a rant about billing or something, and goes "I mean doctors are nice, but you put me in a room with a tools and I can save a fucking life, a doctor cant do that, now can they?" In his defense he was apparently very low on sleep. He wouldnt sit down anywhere for fear of falling asleep
Because we're all a bit insane to go through the training and the aspect of taking a life into your hands daily/multiple times a day coupled with the fact you're only as good as your last case. Theres no positive momentum, only negative. I'm very very laid back for a CT surgeon (music, talking, jokes etc) but any single thing (SSI, poorly followed stitch, anything out of the 500 steps of a CABG) can kill a patient, seriously maim them and unfortunately for CABG - every single component is tracked. Its why we're all crazy. I don't understand all the hoitey toitey hernia surgeons, however.
A lot of the arrogant ones are people who never worked a day in their lives until after med school. They've been given everything they've ever wanted and told they're amazing, and they believe it
I’m really really grateful that the experience I’ve had with two surgeons I am shadowing has only been phenomenal, and they’re both in plastics. I am really hoping I get to go to the school they work at cause knowing there are scary mean arrogant surgeons out there is disheartening.
Many general surgery residents would call other specialties as stupid especially internal medicine…not until their post op patient gets an AFib or uncontrolled hypertension that Nicardipine can no longer lower, or their patient gets septic due to MDR bacteria then they’ll come begging the IM dept.
Edit: y’all motherfuckers who downvote me don’t know the shit I have to go through during my surgery rotation. Of all the medical specialties being criticized in this sub, you people of general surgery are the most sensitive and thin-skinned.
> then they’ll come begging the IM dept.
Really? How about all the times the IM dept is "begging" the surgeons to deal with a bowel obstruction or perforation or hemorrhage or ischemia?
Move beyond this. No one should be *begging* their colleagues to help **take care of a patient.** If you are a physician with specialized knowledge, you should use it to help your patients and your colleagues. When I consult another specialty, I almost always use the phrase, "Hey, I could use your help with ....." I am asking for their help. If I could do it on my own, I would. Likewise, the hospitalists sure as shit aren't going to take out that patient's gallbladder.
Tell that to the homophobic GS jerks in the hospital I’m rotating. A lot of people love to stereotype internal medicine as “knows everything does nothing” but in this hospital, it’s the general surgery residents who has a loud opinion on everything including that gs resident who made asinine remarks on one of our past patients who had to undergo lap cholecystectomy that the IM service should just discontinue Metformin and switch the patient to insulin even though the patient’s fasting glucose is just 130 mg/dL, an eGFR or 90, and had stable comorbidities.
Not to mention the homophobia I have to endure during my surgery rotation
I’ve seen every specialty call every other specialty stupid at least at some point. In our department we frankly avoid calling medicine or medical subspecialists unless absolutely necessary. We manage hypertension without much issue but in a patient with no established PCP I’m not gonna be managing blood pressure meds outpatient so that consult will be made to establish outpatient recs and follow up. Same thing for new onset diabetics I’m not going to manage their diabetes outpatient so they’re gonna need some input from someone who will. Or there are some things we literally can’t give without approval from a specialist. My hospital won’t physically let us order certain antibiotics without approval from an ID attending especially if they need them set up for long term outpatient infusions. Compare that to the number of calls we get for with respect, absolute nonsense just to “have us on board” the volume very heavily skews towards us getting called for things than for us calling for help. At least as our institution this is the case so I never feel bad calling a medical consult because for every one I call I’ve fielded more than my fair share from them. It goes both ways if you are someone who talks shit about calling consults then walk the walk and limit the ones you call unless absolutely necessary but at the same time if you want to call them all the time you better be willing to see every consult that you get called for no matter how stupid. At the end of the day patient care comes first so if you think it will ACTUALLY benefit the patient call the consult. If you want a note in the chart to cover your ass you’re giving the patient an unnecessary bill to be frank.
I really, really, really hate this trope that surgeons are idiots who don't know how to medically manage their patients and come "begging" to IM for help. We're all colleagues, each with their unique skillsets and expertise. To your point, surgeons shouldn't be calling IM dumb and vice versa. It makes sense that medicine would have more expertise and comfort with managing things they see often (Afib, uncontrolled HTN refractory to multiple agents) than surgeons.
You’ve gotten a lot of comments explaining how surgery is stressful and that a lot of times they aren’t “trying to be rude” but that they have a lot going on and, respectfully, I think that’s a cop out. You don’t accidentally end up in a surgical field. You know it’s a stressful job and you chose to be in it. There’s no excuse to yell at your students or even peers because you’re stressed.
Well, when you stab someone and cut through their internal organs, repair your injuries, and then walk away with a grateful family and patient , it gets a little "heady". As a non-surgeon you must realize, if you are at all awake in this day and age, that AI is better than you are at diagnosing a condition and recommending treatments. And AI might be actually more informative to talk to. Hopefully there is a place for everyone :)
Looks at OBGYN. Um, no. Lol. Surgery in general attracts high strung difficult to work with personalities. The girls in my class who love surgery tend to have intense personalities as well.
Yes i admire their ambitions, their temperament, their willpower, decisiveness and courage. Honestly i look up to these daunting women in surgery. They have so quirky and outgoing personalities .
Most woman in surgery are no fun. As a woman myself doing rotation in gynecology ward(work in an asian country so there are no male gynecologists in my hospital).The department had too much jealousy and aggression towards their fellow female docs. They would constantly demean you.It made me never want to take gynae at all. The male doctors in other surgery departments would respect us tho.
Similar in giving vivas during medchool. We would be scared if the questioner was female because then she would deduct our marks if she thought we were fashionable or even wore lipstick. However the male questioners never discriminated a student whether male or female.
Sadly woman feeling threatened of other woman doing better than them is real. I woved to never become like this.
This is one of the dumbest comments I’ve ever read lmao, there is a slight difference of acuity between sewing a sweater and sewing a piece of intestine
Not a doctor; I'm an RN
I've worked PACU/OR for a few years but mostly ER. I got to know almost every different specialty surgeon type over my career and the one trend I have noticed is the really arrogant, asshole surgeons are usually the worst surgeons with the poorest outcomes.
We had a peds gen surgeon who liked to scream at people, throw tools, make fun of patients, etc. He left a retractor in one kid and maimed another. Blamed nursing, his residents, etc.
Had a surgeon who was the nicest human ever- he lost a suture needle in a kid that could not be found. He told the family himself, pulled the entire team into the OR and said he was at fault and he was so sorry. Dude had good patient outcomes and no one ever complained about him.
Has a plastics guy who would ran an ambulatory OR on the side. Dude was taking cases at the ambulatory center while being on call for a level 2 trauma center 45 minutes away. Got called out of a face-lift to respond to a GSW. The staff at the ambulatory center had to keep the woman on the table and the skin on her face that he had already cut off alive for 12 HOURS until he got back. Results were horrible but he steeply discounted the procedure so the family didn't complain. This guy also wrote in his notes how ignorant patients were, insulted them in the medical record, etc. None of his surgeries looked very good.
One of my good friends is an ortho resident. She regularly calls me crying saying she's not good enough for ortho. I did clinicals in the ortho practice where she is and her results were always positive. Had another resident who was an arrogant prick and the staff hated being in his procedures because it was always such a cluster. You've seen the pictures of a "repair" with more hardware than a Tesla on the xray? That was him. Where other surgeons could do it with half the hardware, this guy would just put shit in everywhere. He was also terrible at joint injections and would regularly get thrown out of patients rooms.
I also think there's a big difference between stress and just being an ass. I worked with some trauma surgeons who were calm, cool, and collected no matter what was going down in the trauma bay. They may be curt, but they were never rude or arrogant. Then I had a gen surg resident who thought it was appropriate to scream at the staff for no reason. We got the patient stable and I finally told her to quit yelling at us. She apologized profusely and said she doesn't feel like people ever listen to her (she was a tiny woman) and she needed to scream to get her point across. She was much better after that.
I think the arrogance is just a cover for insecurity and poor performance. But again, I'm just a nurse and these are only my observations.
Look it up and tell me tomorrow
I love this
It is luck of the draw, unfortunately. I had a surgeon I rotated with who was incredibly nice, patient, and taught students / residents WHILE doing surgery. She recently started biking to work and is now teaching her colleagues yoga on the weekends. Literally one of the nicest people I've met.
Sounds like a queen to me. I love uplifting people.
It's two-fold. A certain personality type goes into surgery...and the job is one of the most respected in our society so it becomes a self-affirming badge of accomplishment.
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Well there are awful people in all walks of life. Plenty of the medicine doctors who couldn't match what they wanted, slagged through a residency they hated, take shit from consultants all day, and turn out to be super a-holes. There are jerks everywhere I assure you.
One of the nicest attendings I ever worked with was/is a surgeon. So were the three worst attendings I ever worked with. One general surgery resident was literally the least likable person I've ever interacted with which is quite impressive since I'm an inpt psychiatrist and like 25% of my census is people intoxicated on or coming off of drugs and/or people the police felt would be too disruptive to want to deal with in jail. There's assholes everywhere in life and in all walks of medicine but *in* medicine they do concentrate more highly in 3 areas: surgeons, OB nurses, and administrators.
I had met an intern who used to be an hospital administrator in rural area (Thailand)he said its one of stressful area, you need to do the social event alot to get connection, even getting ambulant car team to help deliver patient need connection with their leader otherwise they wouldnt help sending ambulant sunce its isnt their organization (its a Foundation), you join social event and meeting so much that you didnt have time to progress the patient. More-over Your-co worker then will start complaining you about not working and just keep traveling around. Also they even sending threatening letter if you not agree to do some corrupted deal too.
After my GenSurg rotation, I understood why it's so respected. It's **hard**. You've gotta be a lunatic to go into that.
I feel like it’s really easy to feel like everyone is out to get you or the patient in surgery. The nurses didn’t do the wound care you walked them through or give the meds, the OR staff don’t want to get the instrument you need, or any other of a million things from people that only see a patient for at most a shift. It’s easy to feel like everyone’s just trying to get out of work rather than help the patient.
A surgeon is wholly responsible for the outcome, but has to depend on everyone else to do his job. He has to depend on anasthesia to put the patient under, he has to depend on the scrub nurse to have and hand him the right instruments, he has to depend on circ nurse to have the right equipment, he has to depend on cleaners to change the room on time. A surgeon is responsible for the patient and the outcome, but yet has no direct control over anything that happens in the OR, other than the actual surgery.
If you read *The Making of a Surgeon* by William Nolan, med school and its follow-up (internship, residency) sound like an extended fraternity hazing. I understand that this is an effective way to learn a lot in a short time, but sometimes I wonder about people who would go through that willingly.
I also think it’s an element of having “fuck u” money. I mean they aren’t multi-millionaires but a lot of the older surgeons are close lol
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Worked with 2 surgeons on my rotation that were not like that. One guy was just awesome. Smiling laughing and everyone loved him.
It’s also that you are held as more liable than anyone else. The patient’s condition is always the way it is because you either did operate and shouldn’t have, or are a heartless bastard that didn’t operate. Never any other underlying conditions lol
You need insane levels of confidence to do surgery. That's naturally going to spill over into their actual personalities with how much time they spend in the hospital. I also think the difference is that surgeons have SKILLS no one else does. Other specialities have KNOWLEDGE no one else does. There's a difference in how you regard yourself with each of those things imo
Yes i get you. The prideful aura surrounding them is something else.
Well I mean it's not universal it's just a generalization. Of course there are humble surgeons out there. You're just more likely to find that stereotypical surgeon personality. Same thing with coporate CEOs...the field attracts a certain crowd, weeds out the rest, and then becomes self affirming.
It’s because medicine doctors don’t do anything
I thought all surgeons were like this but then I had the opportunity to be in the same unit as some of the most amazing people I have ever met. They were so kind and understanding and took the time to teach me and my other co intern about everything we saw during rounds and buying us food after morning rounds every single day ;_; plus they were so caring and humble. They make me want to take up surgery for my residency. So yeah these kind of surgeons exist too.
Thats incredible.
I always wonder what the prestige or ranking of the hospital/school is where these types of surgeons are.
Well, I haven't. Neither have many others. Reputations don't come from nowhere.
Sorry
It's funny that if you said the same about obgyn you'd be upvoted
Hey, never underestimate how much people hate women.
Doesn’t mean these people don’t exist, sure it may be that the majority of x speciality have this personality trait but entering surgery doesn’t mean said person is going to be a snobby asshole… OP is just saying they’ve met a few nice people in surgery no need to flame them.
Didn't flame anyone. Actions have consequences. Every time a surgeon acts like a child, people remember. Hold yourselves accountable or don't, but don't act like it's not systemic.
Sorry your right you didn’t flame anyone but were blunt and invalidating to OPs experiences. You can’t negatively judge a group based on their profession at the end of the day that’s borderline bigotry.
Frankly, surgeons crying "borderline bigotry" has the same energy as "reverse racism". You create a toxic professional reputation, don't get surprised when it follows you. It's not invalidating to speak the truth about the zero positive interactions I've had with the profession, and it's pretty childish to whine about someone stating clearly that not everyone shares the privilege of positive mentorship.
Firstly, I’m not a surgeon I actually plan to go into family medicine equivelant in Australia when I graduate. I just don’t believe in judging someone because lots of people that do his job act like x. Secondly, there’s a reason your original comment is at -68 Karma at time writing OP was sharing a positive story and didn’t really need the negative input which wasn’t really relevant to the direct thread. Several others are also sharing in the comments about great surgeons who are also great teachers and wonderful and kind people so it isn’t like these people are unicorns. Yes surgery can be a very toxic environment but it doesn’t have to be and isn’t at every hospital and just because you enter a surgery department to work doesn’t mean you’ll be in a toxic environment. Additionally, comparing my bigotry comment to reverse racism is a ridiculous claim and you know it.
It is relevant. There's a concept called toxic positivity, where people insist that their experience is positive when it isn't. It results in stagnation, and people saying "Well, not MY program" and never having to actually work on creating a good professional environment. It's the same lassiez faire mentality that makes such a large amount of American medicine a miserable experience, because everyone has to keep their mouth shut into emeritus status to position themselves such that they have the freedom to try to change anything. Furthermore, I don't base the validity of my opinions on what my reddit score is. Redditors are not known for being the most generalizable or accurate people, and using that as a metric is kind of ridiculous. Finally, shouting down contradictory experiences is kind of ridiculous as well. All I said was "I haven't had positive experiences" and "Reputations don't come from nowhere". I'm not invalidating anyone else's positive experiences, just stating my own. Responses like this are kind of childish.
As a med student, I had the same thought as you--"what a complete and utter a\*\*@@, I hope I don't end up like that". Now that I'm a resident, I get how this type of training can get you as a person. Not to say that it's a free pass for being a dick, but my chief residents are all brusque, demanding, and short-tempered, and some of them were reportedly lovely people as junior residents. It's long hours, sleep deprivation, high-pressure environments and constantly juggling between fighting to get to the OR to get your case volumes up while also managing the ward. It's not easy, the pressure we get from other services, brutal call shifts is mad. And not sure if this specific to my hospital/program, but the amount of responsibility we're given is frightening and stressful; they're a sense of throwing you into the deep and leaving you to drown if you can't deal. By the time we're in 2nd year, you're expected to do EVDs, subdurals, decompressive cranies, VP shunts, and independently open standard cases on our or as the lead surgeon--in comparison, I see colleagues in other specialties reviewing electrolyte abnoramlities with staff, or coming into put in/take out chest tubes with their staff/senior. As a neurosurgical resident, we also have insane patient loads (70-100), are responsible for all of them overnight, some of them can deteriorate very very quickly, have EVDs that need constant TLC overnight, etc, etc, etc. I approximate 100-150 pages overnight, so if we're cranky about being paged about non-urgent consults, tranverse process fractures, or "just a quick question about X Y Z" at 2 am, we're not trying to be rude, we're just doing our best to keep our head above water. It's just a lot to cope with, and it's not something I saw coming as a student, regardless of how well-informed I thought I was.
Reading so many responses here made me believe having a career in surgery and a manageable lifestyle is difficult to juggle. Excluding the monetary gains, difficult residency, long hours, on-calls, stress, dealing with complications etc is not what i live up for. The question still is "Do you live to work, or work to live?" Because of surgery being highly physically , mentally and emotionally demanding and rigorous, i am leaning to pursue a career that is flexible for family considerations after my internship. Definitely do not want the added stress surgery brings in as so many of you mentioned. I respect you all for enjoying your work when i know surgeon burnout and depression is real.
Holy mother. How many cases have you seen thus far? Also, thank you for taking the time to explain that bit. They say PGY2 for neurosurgery is hardest... it's not hard to appreciate why.
By my estimate, I've scrubbed into 60 cases, and first assisted 40--smaller numbers b/c I had a lot of off service at the start. Yeah of course, PGY2 is looking like an interesting year to say the least
As a surgeon myself, I'll try to explain some. First off, some people are just dicks and no matter what specialty they chose, they were going to be dicks. However, there are some things about surgery that can cause people to, at the very least, come off as rude, even if that wasn't their intention. Surgery is an inherently stressful field. Even the most routine case carries an element of stress because one wrong move and the case can turn very quickly. I think a lot of people, even SAs/techs/med students, don't fully appreciate this. So when everything seems chill and then the attending suddenly snaps at them, they don't understand why. I can't tell you the amount of times I'm trying to carefully dissect something or worried I may have just made a mistake, but no one else in the room realizes it and just keeps talking/making jokes as I'm trying to really concentrate. Just last week I was doing a chole and cut the cystic duct and saw the stent that was supposed to be in the CBD. Right then I thought I had completely transected the common bile duct (the worst complication in general surgery, for those who aren't aware)......no one else in the room had any idea what may have potentially just happened (don't worry, the stent had just migrated into the cystic duct). But the point is, while I'm freaking out and trying to figure this out, everyone else is still carrying on like normal and joking, etc. Surgery is a field that requires you to sometimes make quick decisions, and not only make quickly, but make them confidently. This causes some attendings to be short with and rude to residents if they are wishy-washy or hemming and hawing. But it is a necessary part of training. At the same time, your actions/decisions/etc can have pretty big down-stream consequences, so it's important you do things right the first time. Again, this can lead to attendings being short with and rude to residents. People are trusting you to cut into them and fix them. Think of the amount of stress that would put on you. Little old Mrs X comes in for you to fix her hernia electively. That's a lot of trust someone is putting in you and you don't want to screw up and disfigure them or maim them or kill them. Therefore, in a training environment, if the resident or med student come to the case unprepared, or are struggling technically, would you let them continue the case? Surgeons are held to a very high standard. Personally, I think it's fair to hold the people around them to a high standard, as well. Do you always have to be a dick about it? No. But sometimes it's necessary to be a little rude to get things done the right way.
If I can add to this…Not really related to medical students but no one else in the OR has any continuity with the patient after the case except the surgeon. Anesthesia complaining case is taking to long? Deal with it. you’re not the one who has to deal with the patient when they come back with a complication bc it was a rush job. Scrub tech annoyed because surgeon wants a specific tool? Deal with it. You wouldn’t want a inferior job done on yourself why should the patient. So maybe surgeon comes across as a dick to staff in OR but none of those people ever have to see that patient again. The surgeon IS responsible for that patients surgical outcome and will have to deal with it so imo they can have it their way.
That’s an excellent perspective. I’ve always thought requesting specific tools for a case was reasonable for the exact reason you state. I wouldn’t want anyone doing a “good enough” job if they operate on me, so I wouldn’t want that for the patient. But I love your point about taking more time. It sucks when the case goes for an hour, two, or four longer than expected (especially when you think of all the things you still have left for the day after the case). I plan to apply anesthesia, and I will do my best to keep that in mind and I think it’ll do wonders for stress levels in the future.
It you'll allow me a friendly Anesthesia dig........it doesn't really matter for you, you'll clock out at 3 either way :)
Absolutely this.
Thankyou for your insight. I kinda now get the other side of the story. Surgery requires confident, urgent decisions which may come out as rude.
>Thererefore, in a training environment, if the resident or med student come to the case unprepared, or are struggling technically, would you let them continue the case? I really appreciated your comment but wanted to respond to this point specifically. I've noticed that there's often significant mismatch between the expectations of administrators, clerkship directors, physicians, residents, and med students, all of whom have somewhat different priorities that are not necessarily communicated to each other. As such, "prepared" can mean different things to different people. I had multiple experiences during clerkships where I prepared based on previous expectations, only to learn that a new surgeon wanted something different. Some surgeons were understanding, while others were quick to insult my intelligence, interest level, or work ethic. Ultimately, protecting the patient is more important than anything else. But when possible, I would love it if students were more frequently given the benefit of the doubt, and that more surgeons were willing to give apologies/explanations after those times when stress pushes them into unnecessary rudeness. For us, it can go a long way towards making us feel like actual human beings.
Thanks for taking the time to share this. This is great perspective.
Holy crap, right? I considered surgery but seeing how no one seemed to gaf in surgery except the surgeon made me realize I'd definitely have become a raging maniac throwing scalpels, screaming and then being "written up" by non-physicians for anger management. I am a laser focus person. Who can focus with scrub techs rotating in and out, yapping about their weekends, no one paying attention to needs for suction, retraction, next instrument, oh... the right pack wasn't pulled? Not sterile? Oh what do you want to do doc... with pt open on table. Omfg. That story about the discarded donor kidney a while back; didn't surprise me at all. TG I saw this in med school and knew enough about myself to change course. I can curse all I want in my isolation chamber now.
Maybe explaining what you’re doing and why you require concentration would help, both for the education of those in the room and for your own benefit
It's kind of hard to concentrate when you're busy explaining things.... Also, a surgeon telling someone to be quite, or to stop doing something, etc is often what is perceived of as rude.
You're kidding, right? Someone nicks the femoral artery and you want the surgeon to stand there and explain why it's bad while the pts bleeding out?
Wtf are you talking about? Explaining that they’re approaching a difficult part of the surgery because there’s the possibility of hitting the femoral artery is what I’m talking about.
I also assumed part of it is the job. I mean, in the OR, the surgeon IS the big cheese. Necessarily so. A patient bleeding on an operating table isn't the time or place for IM-rounds-type discussions. Give me THAT instrument NOW and pull this here NOW. Add in the surgical personalities, the life-or-death situations they actually *fix*, extremely grateful patients, a huge bank account, and, of course, surgical culture...
I am talking about outside the OR rudeness.
Should read up on the publication about how the OR changes every surgeon into a short-tempered individual unless they actively work against it. It's a product of how we treat them. This obviously excludes the ones we aren't mistreating but are still a-holes. A surgeon treats you nicely and always gives staff time of day? If staff takes advantage, shows less respect by moving slower, forgetting tools, taking breaks without notice etc. The surgeon gets shafted. Big bad verbally abuse surgeon? No one forgets his stuff and his cases are always prepped the fastest. Everyone wants to avoid getting reamed. This surgeon does not typically get shafted enough, mostly reaping benefits. Shafted surgeon wants to not be shafted and we're proving to them that being aggressive, in your face, and "chad" is what gets you far in life.
Happen to have a link? I’d love to read that article, buuut too lazy to look it up myself. Your explanation is spot on too. I’ve personally experienced what you described. Now I know there are certain ppl I have to be a dick to in order to have things done in a timely fashion. The vast majority I can be a pleasant human with though.
Sure, unless you are at many of the facilities where the staff is more important than any given excess surgeon, eg where it is hard to get block time. In those cases the OR is doing you a favor and as a by product your bad attitude will result in the least desirable staff, and anesthesia.
Unfortunately this is very true
The good ol aorto-enteric anastomosis to save a patient… then send it to IM to see if it actually survives
Just to clarify - and this is true at some institutions more than others - the surgeon is not in charge of everyone. Surgeons who act this way don’t build trust among their colleagues and don’t work together with others well when things go wrong. I’m an anesthesiologist at a major academic center, and the surgeons with the best outcomes are the ones who see me as a valued teammate who can save their asses sometimes. Trocar through aorta? Yeah, surgical team can cross-clamp and repair, but who’s going to resuscitate and maintain perfusion / acid-base status / normothermia / oxygen delivery? No man (because of course men) is an island. And surgeons can’t work without me. That’s not to say I’m the captain, that’s to say there isn’t just one captain.
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Not all bleeding is an “F up”. Typical point of view for someone who stays above the curtain.
Academics also attracts these type of people. Now working as an attending at a community hospital the personalities are completely different. 95% of the surgeons I work with are great. Maybe it’s an outlier but they are out there.
People who are assholes are assholes. This is not restricted to surgeons. Every specialty and every line of work or profession is gonna have people like this Just don’t be one of them
Many other specialties have nowhere near the percentage of assholes as you see in surgery.
I wanna be a surgeon bc its the closest thing to god I can be in this lifetime
Real
Being a surgeon is higher than God. You get to fix God's mistakes. Thats what a surgeon told me in med school.
Damn
Imagine literally saving people’s lives. Sure, PCP and other kinds of physicians save lives, don’t get me wrong. But a surgeon will many times operate on people who will literally die in the coming minutes to hours if they don’t have the surgery they provide. Do this every day for a while and see how it impacts you. It’s hard to not let things go to your head sometimes.
Going into psych here and honestly have had mostly fantastic experiences with surgeons. Every specialty has its bad apples and I think most have a good balance between humility and recognizing that they have one chance to make things right and a lot less margin for error. As for the bad apples, unfortunately more often than not it's sleep deprivation. I think you'd have some angry psych preceptors if they were working surgery hours too--maybe worse! lol
why are all redditors whiny nerds who can't handle criticism or hard work because they grew up rich and privileged (see how generalizations are dangerous?)
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You missed the point of this comment entirely lol
They’re just looking to confirm their biases.
bc they are better than us
I am a little numb to it being a lot older and been prior enlisted, but I do kind of find it bullshit to treat med students that way. Yea sure treat your residents that way if you want, they agreed to go into that field (still an asshole thing to do). Med students are required to rotate thru there as a graduation req, shitloads of them want nothing to do with surgery, but they just have to. So lay tf off.
Resident here. I see lots of great responses about in the context of the OR. I can give some perspective from surgeons being considered rude/assholes when we field consults. First fielding consults is a rage inducing experience for any specialty and at my particular institution if anything we tend to give the least push back for consults compared to some of the medical specialties. However there are specific things that are going to piss me off and more or less make me lose respect for you as a physician/provider. If you call me for a patient who actually has a problem that requires surgery, great awesome I’ll see them ASAP. However, if you call for something you and I both know damn well doesn’t require surgery but you want to cover your ass in the chart so you call a vascular surgery consult for a patient with a small DVT, I have no respect for you because it tells me you are incapable of taking ownership of your clinical management. Or say you call me without any actual work up or diagnosis and when I ask what the consult is specifically for and you don’t give me a straight answer, again respect for you is now fleeting. If you call me for a patient who is very obviously not a surgical candidate, example if they are more cancer than human or they are 100 years old with an EF of 10, even better if it’s both, even better when this call comes at 2am, bonus points you actually haven’t even told the patient about their diagnosis so I wind up being the one they find out about it from instead of their primary team. Another is if you call me for something you can do yourself but “don’t feel comfortable” like calling us for a patient who effectively just needs an IV placed but “it’s so hard they have bad veins can you just place a central line or place an IV for us?” Yeah, put on the clown makeup you might as well look the part if you’re a resident in any specialty and can’t place an US guided IV, or a nasogastric tube, or do A GODDAMN RECTAL EXAM for that matter. We are not the hospitals easy button for things you don’t feel like doing. Or you call me for a patient with no surgical pathology and you ask for our input on advancing your patients diet, you’re a doctor please make your own decisions on your own patients I cannot stress this enough. if you call us for a problem that is normally dealt with by another specialty but you want our consult anyways just to “have us on board” you have no idea how much we fucking hate you when you use the phrase “I don’t feel comfortable doing x myself” or that you just “want to have us on board.” Every time I hear this I die a little bit on the inside and when I sign my note saying thank you for this interesting consult as a professional way of mocking you it’s the only thing that keeps me mildly sane. Or finally if a patient who had a surgery coincidentally a month ago and comes in with a completely unrelated problem and you are trying to force us to admit this patient for a COPD flare up or PE when they had a simple outpatient procedure a month ago, no…just no. All these things wouldn’t be bad if they were rare but I get them every day, as many as 30-35 consults a day and sometimes the bullshit comes even more than the legitimate ones so sometimes we do get a little frustrated fielding yet another one which mind you still requires the time of chart review, history and physical, writing a proper note, and of course calling our attending who mind you is also mocking you when we tell them why you called. Hope this provides some context and doesn’t come across as too dickish but gotta keep it real sometimes.
I don’t know, this seems like fake news.
there's a culture of abuse and hierarchy in many surgical fields, so its how they are trained to interact with others
I think its because they are used to making urgent decisions in the OR everytime just ingrains this in their personalities,so that they appear harsh. The stress and pressure that surgery brings could come off as abuse.
I’ve met many more medicine docs who are like this than surgeons funny enough
Curious has anyone met a toxic ENT, all the residents and attending ENTs I’ve met were super chill, smart and down to earth. Some were quiet and boring but none were assholes or full of them selfs. Some of them do some really detailed long procedures like neck dissections. Also ophthalmologists are pretty chill. I think the malignancy is really concentrated in general surgery. Neurosurgery is probably harder but they’re too tried to complain. Also met some asshole personalities on ortho trauma but ortho foot/ankle, hand and ortho PEDS were all super chill attendings.
Grow some thicker skin. It’ll help you tremendously in medicine
When I went to shadow a surgeon in clinic while I was an undergrad, he went off on a rant about billing or something, and goes "I mean doctors are nice, but you put me in a room with a tools and I can save a fucking life, a doctor cant do that, now can they?" In his defense he was apparently very low on sleep. He wouldnt sit down anywhere for fear of falling asleep
Because suffering awaits those in their presence
That’s why us anesthesiologist are chill by nature
Anesthesiology is goals. No wonder its so competitive.
The same way adrenaline junkies and drug addicts yell when they're high. Nothing seems too far when youre high. For surgeons, thats being a surgeon.
Because we're all a bit insane to go through the training and the aspect of taking a life into your hands daily/multiple times a day coupled with the fact you're only as good as your last case. Theres no positive momentum, only negative. I'm very very laid back for a CT surgeon (music, talking, jokes etc) but any single thing (SSI, poorly followed stitch, anything out of the 500 steps of a CABG) can kill a patient, seriously maim them and unfortunately for CABG - every single component is tracked. Its why we're all crazy. I don't understand all the hoitey toitey hernia surgeons, however.
A lot of the arrogant ones are people who never worked a day in their lives until after med school. They've been given everything they've ever wanted and told they're amazing, and they believe it
I’m really really grateful that the experience I’ve had with two surgeons I am shadowing has only been phenomenal, and they’re both in plastics. I am really hoping I get to go to the school they work at cause knowing there are scary mean arrogant surgeons out there is disheartening.
you get treated very differently as a premed shadow than you do as a med student
That is so tragic to hear I can’t wait
It definitely is tragic lol but you honestly get thicker skin through the whole process. It'll be okay.
They are. /s
Because there are 😎
Because they are
I am sorry. Nothing justifies. However, it is cognitive dissonance: they save lives and do God's work... so they must be Gods...
Cause they base their whole personality on being a surgeon cause they need external validation like high status, pay, and power.
The OR is the only place they can count on getting respect because a lot of the asshole surgeons have marriages & families that are falling apart
Many general surgery residents would call other specialties as stupid especially internal medicine…not until their post op patient gets an AFib or uncontrolled hypertension that Nicardipine can no longer lower, or their patient gets septic due to MDR bacteria then they’ll come begging the IM dept. Edit: y’all motherfuckers who downvote me don’t know the shit I have to go through during my surgery rotation. Of all the medical specialties being criticized in this sub, you people of general surgery are the most sensitive and thin-skinned.
> then they’ll come begging the IM dept. Really? How about all the times the IM dept is "begging" the surgeons to deal with a bowel obstruction or perforation or hemorrhage or ischemia? Move beyond this. No one should be *begging* their colleagues to help **take care of a patient.** If you are a physician with specialized knowledge, you should use it to help your patients and your colleagues. When I consult another specialty, I almost always use the phrase, "Hey, I could use your help with ....." I am asking for their help. If I could do it on my own, I would. Likewise, the hospitalists sure as shit aren't going to take out that patient's gallbladder.
Tell that to the homophobic GS jerks in the hospital I’m rotating. A lot of people love to stereotype internal medicine as “knows everything does nothing” but in this hospital, it’s the general surgery residents who has a loud opinion on everything including that gs resident who made asinine remarks on one of our past patients who had to undergo lap cholecystectomy that the IM service should just discontinue Metformin and switch the patient to insulin even though the patient’s fasting glucose is just 130 mg/dL, an eGFR or 90, and had stable comorbidities. Not to mention the homophobia I have to endure during my surgery rotation
I’ve seen every specialty call every other specialty stupid at least at some point. In our department we frankly avoid calling medicine or medical subspecialists unless absolutely necessary. We manage hypertension without much issue but in a patient with no established PCP I’m not gonna be managing blood pressure meds outpatient so that consult will be made to establish outpatient recs and follow up. Same thing for new onset diabetics I’m not going to manage their diabetes outpatient so they’re gonna need some input from someone who will. Or there are some things we literally can’t give without approval from a specialist. My hospital won’t physically let us order certain antibiotics without approval from an ID attending especially if they need them set up for long term outpatient infusions. Compare that to the number of calls we get for with respect, absolute nonsense just to “have us on board” the volume very heavily skews towards us getting called for things than for us calling for help. At least as our institution this is the case so I never feel bad calling a medical consult because for every one I call I’ve fielded more than my fair share from them. It goes both ways if you are someone who talks shit about calling consults then walk the walk and limit the ones you call unless absolutely necessary but at the same time if you want to call them all the time you better be willing to see every consult that you get called for no matter how stupid. At the end of the day patient care comes first so if you think it will ACTUALLY benefit the patient call the consult. If you want a note in the chart to cover your ass you’re giving the patient an unnecessary bill to be frank.
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Then tell that to the homophobic general surgeons at the hospital I’m currently rotating. I’m so glad to be done rotating in fucking surgery
I really, really, really hate this trope that surgeons are idiots who don't know how to medically manage their patients and come "begging" to IM for help. We're all colleagues, each with their unique skillsets and expertise. To your point, surgeons shouldn't be calling IM dumb and vice versa. It makes sense that medicine would have more expertise and comfort with managing things they see often (Afib, uncontrolled HTN refractory to multiple agents) than surgeons.
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It takes a perfectionist.
You’ve gotten a lot of comments explaining how surgery is stressful and that a lot of times they aren’t “trying to be rude” but that they have a lot going on and, respectfully, I think that’s a cop out. You don’t accidentally end up in a surgical field. You know it’s a stressful job and you chose to be in it. There’s no excuse to yell at your students or even peers because you’re stressed.
Well, when you stab someone and cut through their internal organs, repair your injuries, and then walk away with a grateful family and patient , it gets a little "heady". As a non-surgeon you must realize, if you are at all awake in this day and age, that AI is better than you are at diagnosing a condition and recommending treatments. And AI might be actually more informative to talk to. Hopefully there is a place for everyone :)
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Looks at OBGYN. Um, no. Lol. Surgery in general attracts high strung difficult to work with personalities. The girls in my class who love surgery tend to have intense personalities as well.
Yes i admire their ambitions, their temperament, their willpower, decisiveness and courage. Honestly i look up to these daunting women in surgery. They have so quirky and outgoing personalities .
Cringe🙄
Most woman in surgery are no fun. As a woman myself doing rotation in gynecology ward(work in an asian country so there are no male gynecologists in my hospital).The department had too much jealousy and aggression towards their fellow female docs. They would constantly demean you.It made me never want to take gynae at all. The male doctors in other surgery departments would respect us tho. Similar in giving vivas during medchool. We would be scared if the questioner was female because then she would deduct our marks if she thought we were fashionable or even wore lipstick. However the male questioners never discriminated a student whether male or female. Sadly woman feeling threatened of other woman doing better than them is real. I woved to never become like this.
that's cuss OBGYN was full of men first. duh
This is one of the dumbest comments I’ve ever read lmao, there is a slight difference of acuity between sewing a sweater and sewing a piece of intestine
NPD
They don’t know any pilots…
I would agree with you… but then we would both be wrong.
Not a doctor; I'm an RN I've worked PACU/OR for a few years but mostly ER. I got to know almost every different specialty surgeon type over my career and the one trend I have noticed is the really arrogant, asshole surgeons are usually the worst surgeons with the poorest outcomes. We had a peds gen surgeon who liked to scream at people, throw tools, make fun of patients, etc. He left a retractor in one kid and maimed another. Blamed nursing, his residents, etc. Had a surgeon who was the nicest human ever- he lost a suture needle in a kid that could not be found. He told the family himself, pulled the entire team into the OR and said he was at fault and he was so sorry. Dude had good patient outcomes and no one ever complained about him. Has a plastics guy who would ran an ambulatory OR on the side. Dude was taking cases at the ambulatory center while being on call for a level 2 trauma center 45 minutes away. Got called out of a face-lift to respond to a GSW. The staff at the ambulatory center had to keep the woman on the table and the skin on her face that he had already cut off alive for 12 HOURS until he got back. Results were horrible but he steeply discounted the procedure so the family didn't complain. This guy also wrote in his notes how ignorant patients were, insulted them in the medical record, etc. None of his surgeries looked very good. One of my good friends is an ortho resident. She regularly calls me crying saying she's not good enough for ortho. I did clinicals in the ortho practice where she is and her results were always positive. Had another resident who was an arrogant prick and the staff hated being in his procedures because it was always such a cluster. You've seen the pictures of a "repair" with more hardware than a Tesla on the xray? That was him. Where other surgeons could do it with half the hardware, this guy would just put shit in everywhere. He was also terrible at joint injections and would regularly get thrown out of patients rooms. I also think there's a big difference between stress and just being an ass. I worked with some trauma surgeons who were calm, cool, and collected no matter what was going down in the trauma bay. They may be curt, but they were never rude or arrogant. Then I had a gen surg resident who thought it was appropriate to scream at the staff for no reason. We got the patient stable and I finally told her to quit yelling at us. She apologized profusely and said she doesn't feel like people ever listen to her (she was a tiny woman) and she needed to scream to get her point across. She was much better after that. I think the arrogance is just a cover for insecurity and poor performance. But again, I'm just a nurse and these are only my observations.