1. “I’m sorry, but we’re really busy today.” We know you’re busy. Everyone is busy. We won’t find one doctor in the entire hospital that isn’t busy… unless perhaps they’re a rare disease specialist on an off day. We’re not expecting you to hold our hands and talk us through our syllabus, but you can take one minute to point us in the direction of an interesting patient or even pull up some blood results for us to look over. If we’re not completely useless we can even save you time … you can let us clerk patients further down the list before you get to them (the worst that will happen is you have to do it yourself fully anyway) or even set us to taking blood/doing cannulas (but please, not every day!). 2. “What do you want to learn?” This one grates on me when it comes from someone I have timetabled clinical teaching with. You should know I’m coming, you should have at least some idea of what year I am in and the rotation I’m on, and therefore the kind of thing you might be going through with us. I also know that you’re getting paid more for teaching me, so the least you could do is think about it for a few minutes sometime before I arrive. I’m not asking for a ready-made powerpoint presentation complete with handouts and details of 3 patients with relevant signs (although I’d probably cry with joy if you had that), but hitting me with “what do you want to learn” smacks of laziness. I’m not sure really, as you’re the expert. Asking a group of students divides us into the one who saw a rare condition and wants to know all about it, the one who hasn’t quite understood basic anatomy yet, and some vague responses from the others. Best answers to this question: All of this rotation? How to cure cancer? All of medicine, ever? 3. “Will you fill out my feedback form?” I once got asked this by a hungover F1 who spent half an hour explaining the SBAR phone message system then went back home for a nap. (Not sure why he was even in the hospital to be honest, probably just came in for something he left and seized an opportunity). If you’re honestly going to go to the effort to give us a decent hour of your attention and some good concept/bedside teaching, sure. We’ll be happy to help you out, write some nice things, and it becomes a good reciprocal relationship. If you’re just going to point at an orthopaedic patient’s swollen knee and hand me a tick-box sheet, it becomes you taking advantage and I don’t like it. 4. “You can’t see so-and-so, they’ve got a psych problem/are dying/have a genital complaint.” I’m not for one second suggesting that there are situations where it isn’t appropriate to bring un-needed extra people into the consultation. I understand that. But I am also painfully aware that one day I’m going to be the DOCTOR having to see these people, maybe before they see anyone else, and keeping me away from as many of these patients as possible makes me even more nervous and unsure about how to handle the (already sensitive) situation when I’m without backup. It also feels a bit backwards when, for example, I’m happily invited into a psychiatric hospital to clerk patients, and then a few months later I’m kept away in A&E. You can always ask us what we’ve already done and we’ll tell you if you’re unsure. 5. “Get out while you still can!” A favourite of stressed F2’s and early year middle-grades, this only serves to use us as someone to vent your current frustrations on. It doesn’t inspire or even warn us. Either we’re pre-clinical, in which case we’re still amazingly optimistic that we’ll always be happy being a doctor and we’ll NEVER get grumpy folk, or we’ve seen enough medicine to realise what the lifestyles are like and are carefully planning our careers around what we can cope with. Alternatively, you could take me to the pub and start your rant, as I’ll happily listen to you moan for a while for a free drink (not only have I completed psych, I am also very poor). Source
