Clinical rotations are a big part of Medschool. The hospital is your hood and you gotta be able to live it up no matter what.
A couple of years ago on the first day of clinical rotations, the sub-dean gave a lecture and said:
“the most important skill you will learn as a medical student is how to make a cup of tea/coffee for your senior colleagues”
The comment was sarcastic but I sensed a level of seriousness. My first thought was “f*ck that”. Being rather naive on the wards I believed that making a cup of tea/coffee might actually be a good idea and I would gain respect from senior colleagues. I quickly learnt this wasn’t the case. Being a coffee maker was an inefficient use of my time and was perceived as suckin-up. This is the opposite of the Thugway.
The cup of coffee is only an example but it goes to show that trying to perform menial tasks to please senior colleagues in any form isn’t going to generate the necessary respect to build a successful career. Instead, finding a way to be a useful member of the clinical team is the way to go. Clinical competence gains clinical respect. Never forget, your aim is to learn not serve drinks. Sometimes this is easier said than done but it takes more effort to assume an active role on wards. The thugway involves serious assertion!
So how do you deal with a situation where people ask you to make a cup of coffee? Most of the time if you appear assertive enough you’ll never get asked, but it might happen occasionally. Under these circumstances the ThugMed recommendation is feign incompetence – “I don’t drink coffee, I’m not sure if I can make it”. If your colleague insists, proceed to make the worst cup of tea/coffee possible. When you serve the ThugMed style coffee/tea, the issue will never present itself again.
Staying street = assertion = respect.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
dragonfly 02.10.09 at 9:41 am
Ah, that must be what my hospital cafe is doing. Seriously, $3 for a cup of soapy froth with a burnt milk taste. Yerk.