UCLA Journal of Radiation Oncology FALL 2023 - Flipbook - Page 30
UCLA RADIATION ONCOLOGY JOURNAL
THE INEVITABILITY OF EMBARRASSMENT
IN MEDICAL TRAINING
BY MATTHEW J. FARRELL
In medicine, there are many gray areas but at
least one certainty: it is impossible to complete
medical training without horribly embarrassing
yourself.
“I, uh . . . I’m not sure.”
He turned to me. “What surgery are we
performing right now?”
I felt heat growing at the back of my neck. My
eye shield began to fog. “I’m sorry. I don’t know.”
Personally, I feel I have overachieved in that
department.
“Well, what’s the patient’s name?”
Take my surgical oncology rotation in medical
school. It was my first week, and I had been
scheduled to assist with a mastectomy. I read
about the patient, procedure, anatomy, and
techniques. I was ready. But at the last moment,
the surgery was canceled, and I was ushered into
another operating room for a different surgery
on a patient I knew nothing about.
I glanced around the room for help. The fellow
looked at his hands.
“I got moved here at the last minute,” I said. “I
wasn’t able to prepare.”
The attending stared at me. “This is your surgery
rotation. Bare minimum, you need to know the
patient’s name.”
I would figure things out as I went along,
right?
He returned to operating and explained what we
were doing: a Whipple procedure for pancreatic
adenocarcinoma. He had first been pointing
to the tumor itself and then to the normal
pancreas. He ended up being helpful. In fact,
I found myself admiring him for his technical
skill and teaching ability.
The surgery had already started, and I shuffled
up beside the attending and fellow, who were
hunched over a man with his abdominal cavity
exposed.
The attending asked me, “What’s this?” He
pointed his forceps at something in the
abdomen that resembled a cauliflower.
He wasn’t trying to humiliate me, but I still felt
momentously embarrassed for the entire day,
the whole week, and occasionally, at random
times, until this very day, whenever the memory
surfaces like a buoy above a wave.
“I’m not sure,” I said.
He moved his forceps to a nearby yellowish
structure.
The Association of American Medical
Colleges (AAMC) sends out a questionnaire to
graduating medical students every year, which,
among other things, asks students whether they
have experienced various forms of mistreatment,
including physical harm, sexual harassment,
discrimination, and public humiliation.
“Okay, what’s this?”
“I don’t know. Fat?”
“No,” he said. “What are the indications for this
surgery?”
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