Photo courtesy of Rachel

Walking into Dr. Smith’s office (she's my Obstetrics-Gynecology rotation director), I was a little nervous.

It was midterm feedback day, meaning half of the rotation was over, and each student was scheduled to meet with the rotation director to find out how we were doing—like a report card day.

For personal reasons, the past three weeks had been emotionally difficult for me. Physically, I was also exhausted, because this hospital’s Ob/Gyn rotation required a week of Night Float (shifts from 7:00 pm to 7:00 am). On top of that, Nancy, one of the Ob/Gyn interns I’d worked with, had left a bad taste in my mouth—she wasn’t actually teaching me anything, and incessantly complained about how much she hated her job and missed her (not very) long-distance boyfriend. Nancy’s behavior irritated me more than a spoiled teenager’s; it took a lot of effort to be around her.

“How do you think things are going?” asks Dr. Smith, as I seat myself across from her.

“Um, I think it’s going all right… I’d like to get more comfortable with pelvic exams and vaginal exams in pregnant women,” I reply. While I'm not having the greatest time on Ob, I still want to learn.

“I’m so glad to hear that!” Dr. Smith exclaims. “I don’t have much feedback from those who’ve worked with you, but what I do have said you appeared very ‘uninterested’ during your Labor and Delivery week.”

Dr. Smith continues, “Your body language during my lecture the other day also had me very concerned. In fact, if you hadn’t walked in here smiling and looking so bright, I was going to bring it up with you.”

Uncertain what Dr. Smith means, I ask her to elaborate. “Well, you weren’t really smiling at me or looking at me much during the lecture I gave last week,” she replies.

It was a PowerPoint lecture, I mention; I was looking at the projected slides! “You were acting quite differently from the other students in the room,” Dr. Smith responds gravely.

There is some truth to the statement; I remember being emotionally drained that day, wanting to be any place other than sitting in class.

At the same time I am shocked. Is the rotation director actually telling me that I needed to be SMILING more during a LECTURE?! THIS was the focus of my midterm review?! Not how I interacted with patients? Or whether I knew how to take an obstetric or gynecologic patient’s history? Or do a physical exam? You know, things that might be important to being a doctor?!

The meeting ends, and I am beyond frustrated. Running into some friends, I vent to them, using several four-letter words in the process. They’re thoroughly amused. Believe it or not, I’m one of the more “smiley” medical students around. Everyone, however, can relate to the experience of getting absolutely bizarre feedback because they were caught not being a devoted medical student that day.

Third year of med school is all about being “on.” On top of your game… on the ball… on call… Being “on” all the time is exhausting, especially when there are things other than medical school on your mind. With residents and attending doctors constantly evaluating your performance, having an "off" day due to stress, life, or whatever, sometimes just isn’t an option. Times like this, I really look forward to the day when I can just be “medical” and drop the whole “student” part.

ODDS CHECK: The odds a recent graduate of a US medical school will apply to a residency program in Obstetrics and Gynecology are 1 in 14.25. More popular programs are Internal Medicine (1 in 2.23), General Surgery (1 in 6.37), Pediatrics (1 in 7.7), and Family Medicine (1 in 8.84).

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