Confessions of an X-Medical resident

Medicine is without a doubt one of the most humane and highest paying jobs out there. Physicians are health experts and an integral part of the community and society. They are also members of the community of high social status and are considered people whose opinions are worth money, if not gold.

Having been educated in the field of medicine, I was convinced that medicine is my natural path in life. My medical training began in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which due to the many human and women’s rights issues I will leave out of this talk. But, let’s say it took a lot of dedication and thick skin to finish medical school there.

Finally I was awarded a fellowship in the field of Anesthesiology and I came to Halifax, Canada, for my specialized training. Let me take a step back and mention a fact that I have found to be true, no matter where you go in this world to practice medicine.

– Medicine was, is and will continue to be an old boys club; the degrees of severity may vary depending on the specialties chosen. I remember being told that women who want to have babies and their families shouldn’t become doctors and should be librarians … this is in Canada!

– Medical residency training is in many respects comparable to military training in that it is structured to

challenge the physical body, mental mind, and emotional state in a course that can be as short as 2 years or as long as 7 years.

– Residents are the lowest of the lowest on the scale of the medical profession; they are overworked, underpaid, and ground to the bone. I remember working through the night putting epidurals on women in labor while my staff anesthesiologist slept in the service room while I filled out his billing forms for him to pick them up before going home in the morning while I stayed to finish. the job.

– As residents (training specialists) we are expected to be abused in many strange ways and not many of us are able or willing to speak out without being expelled from the program we are in or at least suffer great repercussions. To say that we have no rights is an understatement.

Having said all that, I should also say that generalization is dangerous and there are exceptions I’m sure. Remember that I am a resident of X, which means that I have interrupted my residency training. Since doing that, I have submitted a report to the human rights commission on racial discrimination, sexual, physical and verbal assault, lack of support, and mental and emotional abuse that I have witnessed and subjected to in my residency training .

Not many people understand what it really means to accept the challenge of trying to become a specialist. In my experience, unless you have a cold heart and an extremely rigid and tough personality, residency training will definitely be a short and traumatizing road.

People wonder why more developed nations are approaching a crisis in the medical profession due to the shortage and shortage of physicians. As a result, the workload doubles and in some cases triples the existing one.

One example that surprised me was the increase in salary for doctors who are willing to work after a full day on the call (24-hour shift). That is, encouraging doctors who have worked 24 hours in a row with little or no sleep to drive and care for sick people and their lives the next day. When a resident tires after a full 24-hour shift and begins to show signs of poor concentration or judgment, they are not sent home, which is against the rules, but rather humiliated and made to feel incompetent and poor evaluations are given, and this is normal and common practice.

Another surprise was the general female-to-female hostility ranging from passive aggressive behaviors of the superior woman (usually a specialist, senior or nurse) towards the younger woman to cases of outright aggression that are hidden under the rug of residency training. In my case, I had failed a full rotation after being verbally attacked by one of the much older and erratic OR nurses in the middle of an emergency situation, the same respected anesthetist (mentor) who witnessed the entire incident.

As residents we are not expected to have a life outside of the hospital, we breathe, eat, sleep and completely choke on hospital work and if your wife is going to have a baby or your child is sick … well, too bad. And on top of that, you’re not allowed to get sick either, but if you do … well, then you’re just a non-dedicated bum.

Hospitals are also known to be some of the most sexually charged and frustrating settings to be in. A typical OR day in my experience includes sexual comments or jokes that come and go as the surgery begins, which I found embarrassing and embarrassing to be in.

My overall personal experience in achieving my honorable goal of helping people has left me jaded and questioning the entire medical profession. Why is this tolerated and why are those who try to explain the flaws viewed as abnormal rather than team players?

I wish I could say that having made the decision to stop taking medicine bothers me, but I can’t. I am very happy to have disassociated myself from the scandal called residency training that ultimately produces faulty and damaged doctors who would only repeat history.

In closing this, I would like to emphasize the fact that I am not launching an attack on the medical world and I am not generalizing in any way. I am only stating the facts that I and many others know to be true, but few develop the courage to speak up.

Training in medical specialties will fail and will continue to produce marginally moral and humane doctors until radical changes occur. Until the powers that be begin to face difficult facts and correct the old man’s thinking, there will always be someone like me who can no longer bear to speak.

In the end, I wish all the medical students and residents luck. May you succeed where I have failed and may you bring the winds of change to life.

Those of you who would like to know what I did for work since I left my medical specialty training, I have started my personal home health and wellness business and I am blissfully happy.