Day 166 THIS IS SPARTAAAAA !!!

Wow, what a day, or shall I say morning. Today I was post call after being in the unit and we ended up getting into an emotional noon conference. Geesh, it got a bit “ugly” kind of. Basically yesterday while we were in the unit one of the rounding attending suggested to us that we should have a physician advocate. It all started when I saw him log on to his computer from the icu floor. He has a program which was gotomypc. He was able to log on to his computer in the office. We were all standing their and we were pretty surprised. (we are not giving email access in the hospital for security reasons since someone downloaded a virus to the hospital main frame, but we have hospital email) he asked us “why you guys can’t check your emails?” We were like, not really. He then kind of laughed at us and said “man, you guys are getting cheated!” He said it in a joking way. It didn’t seem to come of mean spirited to me. He was like “you guys should have a physician advocate. We told him we have the chief resident, and he said that we needed someone who is independent. An outsider to fight for you- someone who is not linked to the admisinstration.” Well the seniors felt it sounded like a good idea. Anyways, we didn’t think anything of it. The seniors said they were going to discuss it amongst themselves. And yesterday at the noon conference one of the seniors brought it up to the chief resident. Right away the tone of the chief change.- I’ve known for some time now, and it looked like he was pissed. He answered to the senior “why what happen? What do you need now?” the senior right away just stayed quiet. We then told him that the idea was to have an independent outsider that would go to the administration with complaints without fearing retribution. It didn’t seem like it was a problem to me. But, man the chief took it personal. I think he took it to mean that he wasn’t doing his job. The guys was kind of pissed. It was debated for a few minutes, and he went on to defend some of the fundings that the program had given us. Anyways, it didn’t seem like it went to well with the chief resident, and I thought that it was over, but then today, the program director was at noon conference! Damn, felt like I was in a soap opera. So much emotion. Needless to say she was pissed. She was like “ok, so why is it that you guys want a physician advocate?” Man her tone sounded pretty pissed off. It was like she was sayng “Ok… now what are you guys complaining about?” A bit of background on this. She has been working really hard and has been under a lot of stress this year. This is her first time in as program director, and has had to deal with a lot of issues and drama. ( I think I wrote about this previously. A lot of the first years wanted to leave the program) Anways, seems like she was pissed off at the unit residents. The seniors and me!! or she was pissed off mostly with the attending who was “feeding” us these suggestion. I was in shock. I was thinking to myself “what da hell?” How did I get involved in all is?” even one of the assistant directors was like “this is really bad. Its pretty disrespectful. There were even people that went to the program director nd had suggested to her to make changes to the program etc..” and she went on to say that its unacceptable. This is not the way you do it. One of the seniors was their, and she was trying to explain the conversation, but it really was not well received. The program director was obviously emotionally hurt. I think she definitely took it the wrong way. I don’t think anyone meant any disrespect to her or the chief resident. I even try to explain they those in the unit love the program and always defend the program. We feel they were doing a good job. Anyways, I can’t believe I somehow got in the middle of all this. I’m really dumbfounded for words. She said at the end she just wanted to clarify everything. One of the other seniors try to cool the situation and told her that it wasn’t meant in any harm.. It was only a suggestion to help everyone out, and burden the load. Anyways, man I’m still in shock. I tried to talk afterwards with the chief, but it seemed like he was still pissed off. Too!!
Man, and I thought I knew people pretty well, but I guess we are all human after all. We all have flaws and feelings get hurt. I think from this second on, I’m just going to mind my business, stay low- key. And do my “time”. It’s tough trying to please everyone in the program. Must be a very stressful job. I will try to find the time to talk to her and thank her for all that she does in the program. I think I’ll write her a personal letter through email. But today was the last day I get involved in hospital politics. I’ll let someone else deal with it. Don’t want to be in fights or hurt relationships with people.
God bless. Got to get some rest.
For those still going through interviews- good luck !!
Dr. Mike