On Medical Professionalism.
Physicians sometimes do a lot of really stupid shit, like walking into surgery drunk. Medical schools are fed up with this kind of nonsense, so they have become obsessed with teaching their students about the finer points of “professionalism.” Essentially, medical schools assume their students are totally moronic when it comes to professional behavior, and treat them like Eliza Doolittle from the play Pygmalion. There is plenty of hand-holding, down-talking, and wrist-slapping involved. This kind of treatment is usually helpful for the students who have been asleep for the last twenty to thirty-odd years, or for those who have had the self-esteem portion of their brain surgically removed.
Consequently, this also means that medical schools have zero tolerance when it comes to “unprofessional behavior.” Even the slightest mistakes are blown to intergalactic-planetary-sized proportions. For example, forgetting to wear a tie to any scenario where a patient is present is the equivalent of calling the patient’s mother a penis-slurping whore to his or her face. Even if you have a good and proper reason for not wearing a tie, like being female, not wearing it once will likely garner you a “Note of Professional Concern” at the minimum. In fact, the first time you will even hear that a professor has a problem with your behavior is when you receive a such a “Note” from them. If you find yourself in this situation, your first reaction will probably be that your professors are acting in a hypocritical manner by accusing you of unprofessional behavior when they themselves do not properly express their concerns to you in a respectful, timely, and empathetic manner. However, remember that an important part of professionalism is accepting that your professors can make up rules whenever they feel like it.
Being on time is another big aspect of professionalism. Medical schools like to operate via the maxim of “early is on time, and on time is late”, except that this maxim applies differently to medical students and professors. For medical students, the maxim should read: “Early is acceptable, on time is embarrassing.” However, for professors and administration officials, the maxim now reads: “Early is pretty close to the time I said I would be there, and on time is up to fifteen minutes past the designated time of arrival.” If you keep these principles in mind, you should have no trouble figuring out what you need to do to keep off your medical school’s shit list.
Most medical schools have to worry about this professionalism stuff because they know that the field of medicine treats their doctors like garbage. In response, physicians turn to things like alcohol and codeine in order to feel less shitty about their lives. Medical schools don’t really care if that’s how you deal with your issues; they just want to teach you to keep it to yourself and not let it affect the way you treat patients.
