Please recall that my parents' home burned down when I was on call on May 29th. That means I was post call on May 30th when it was confirmed that this was true. I had attendings helping me find flights home for that afternoon and telling me that I shouldn't bother showing up for my next call because family comes first. One even went so far to say that he'd be disappointed if he saw me in the hospital at all for the rest of the week. I'm thinking, "thank goodness I found that kind of residency"!
Anyhow, I finished my rounds post call on the 30th and came home to pack. I then proceeded to make sure that my next call would be covered by someone (on June 3rd). Once that was done, I let his chief and my chief (for June) know the call situation. I was already scheduled to be off on June 2nd. That meant that I would really only be gone on May 31st and June 1st. We switch rotations on the 1st of every month, so I had only ONE more day on my rotation for May. I called my chief for May to let her know that I was planning on catching a flight home to be with my parents as soon as possible (a flight that my attending had helped me find). For the following day, there were three cases with a really great attending that I had originally been scheduled to cover. These were the ONLY cases scheduled for our whole team. When I didn't hear back from my May chief immediately, I started calling other people that I knew would be around to see if they had any availability (chiefs, other 2nd year residents, etc) to cover the cases I was supposed to cover. I found someone that could help me cover at least one or two of my cases. I then sent a text to my May chief again explaining the situation and telling her that I had done my best to get my work for the 31st covered. I was now EXHAUSTED post call doing all of this and when I hadn't heard back from my chief, I cancelled my flight and rescheduled for the afternoon of May 31st. My June chief had already sent me a text saying that taking the 1st off was no big deal and that he would see me back when the weekend was up.
Later that night, I end up getting a slew of rude text messages from my May chief saying that she fully expected me to come in to round on my patients on the 31st. Good thing I had already rescheduled my flight. I showed up the next morning to round on my 12 patients. I saw all of them except my ICU patients who I knew would be seen by the ICU resident and my attending long before I got to them. My flight was scheduled to leave at noon. I figured if I left the hospital by 11am, I could make it. At 10am, I received a voicemail from my May chief on rounds that was absolutely heartless and rude. She demanded I tell her who all I had seen so that she "could see the rest of my list" and then went on some tirade about how "bad things happen in residency" and she "just couldn't believe this" and that she would "talk to me when I get back". All ending with a loud "UUGGH!" and then hanging up. "What an f***ing b****!" I thought. THIS, coming from a girl that left early on other rotations to take her dogs to get their yearly shots instead of using a day off! (And I'm a veterinarian's daughter so I can sympathize, an ability she obviously doesn't share.) By this point, I was finishing up rounds on my floor patients and had actually been in the process of checking out with my attendings to ensure they were ok with my not seeing my ICU patients for the day, etc. They were, in fact, upset that I had even come in to round at all. I tied up a few things and then left the hospital just before 11am and luckily walked right on to my flight at the airport to make it "home"...only to see the rubble and ashes that was once my childhood home, the place my parents had poured their heart and soul into for 30 whole years...
So back to my evaluation: this chief is the ONLY bad mark I received the entire year. When asked if the resident is dependable (with answers ranging from poor to excellent), she marked poor. This was followed by the comment: "She has a problem with passing work off to other residents as well as not always working well with her team. She has a very "me" attitude."
You know what? Screw her. I don't have a "me" attitude, and obviously the other 36 evaluators didn't feel that way. I rarely, if ever, pass off work unless someone asks me to or I absolutely have to based on work hour restrictions. I didn't like having crap passed off to me, so I try to keep it off others when I can. Other than the vacation I had taken that month (as scheduled almost a year prior) and my scheduled days off, no one ever had to see my patients for me. In that moment, I (and any one else in that situation) SHOULD have a "me" or "my family first" attitude. If they didn't, I, personally, would think less of them as a physician, as a family member, as a human being--much as I do her.
The really awkward part was running into her at a dinner a week ago as she is all smiles with everyone and acting her usual loud, perky, Texan-drawl self. All I could think at dinner that night was "What a fake bitch." Now that she's done with residency and out in practice (and I thankfully can keep my encounters to a minimum), I'm just hoping nothing terrible ever happens to the poor bitch during her career, because IF what goes around really does come around, no one is going to be willing to step up and help her out while her parents or her husband or her kids or her childhood home dies.
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