Posts 2022-02-12
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2022-02-12

Medicine has a bullying problem. The structure of medical training is highly hierarchical, and trainees are wholly dependent on a small number of often randomly assigned higher-ups who then evaluate them. A scathing evaluation, from the wrong person, can mean that a trainee gets locked out of a desired field. Given this, we’re told to be deferential, obedient, restrained.

Throughout my training, multiple residents, fellows and attendings have taken advantage of this power dynamic to be demeaning or verbally abusive. The pattern is almost always the same: they are annoyed by a situation, react to it by being abusive toward me, and retroactively declare that their behavior was actually an effort to “teach” me.

I’m a grown woman, & an African one at that, so I don’t let people talk to me “anyhow” anymore. My method of dealing with these situations is to take a little time to cool off, and then loop back to confront that behavior. These conversations have never ended in the other party apologizing, & I don’t go into them seeking an apology. I go to force them to reexamine their behavior under a microscope, which typically encourages them to police their emotions in their future interactions with me. I do this with some professional risk, however, & wouldn’t necessarily encourage a med student to do the same.

How do you deal with your professional bullies?

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This post is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by the author.