I met a young doctor who used to work under me recently. I had just completed my night rounds in the hospital and I was leaving for home.


And then I saw him. He was unkempt, exhausted and appeared famished. Worst of all, he looked like a man who has totally given up on being a doctor. He appeared hesitant when I asked him what was wrong, but I could not just leave him there.

After much persuasion and insistence on my part he agreed to join me for a late supper. While he ravaged through his first proper meal of the day, he finally opened up. He has started working for the past week in a new speciality. Though the hours are longer, it was not an issue. He was well aware of the sacrifices he was expected to make.

However, the degradation, humiliation and constant harassment have finally taken their toll. He was literally chased out of the ward just minutes before he met me because he could not remember the details of a patient he clerked. He was not allowed to refer to his notes and had to recite the lab results by heart like a trained poodle. The words were abusive, hurtful and condescending. And worst of all, it was said right in front of the patient.

He finished his meal and stood up to leave. And as he left he said this “Please don’t worry about me. I will be fine”. I was not convinced. The shame of being publicly humiliated is not a stain that washes easily.

The doctor-patient relationship often takes centre stage, but the epitome of good clinical practice depends on how the doctors treat each other. The medical profession is filled with fragile and vulnerable egos that often have trouble working with each other in a genuine collaboration of trust and mutual respect.
complete article here http://just9janewz..com/2015/05/my-life-as-doctor-way-i-see-it.html?m=1

Unfortunately, this is the culture everywhere. It's somewhat ironic that medicine is considered to be one of the most altruistic and empathetic professions, yet physicians can be quite unpleasant. I don't mean to play the devil's advocate, but forgetting a patient's information after you've clerked them is unacceptable. Does it happen? All the time. One of the best way of dealing with this is to say that "the information was not asked", I suppose that might be better than saying that the info was forgotten. The one thing I've learned is that confidence is key, once an attending senses your lack of confidence, you're toast, and it doesn't matter how knowledgeable you are. I wish hospitals place more emphasis on improving attending-resident/intern relationship, it might help alleviate these problems. I read an article a few weeks back regarding how to address this issue, it may be useful to the troubled physicians that come your way.

Strategies to help you deal with difficult attendings - http://www.acpinternist.org/archives/2004/01/attendings.htm