Multi-Update II: Not protecting my school anymore, Part 2

Thanks to those of you who actually took the time to read the first part; this conclusion is an easier read, but it’s so unbelievable that it needed to stand on its own. (and for ease of printing, as you shall see) When I met with Dr. M., as you might recall, I got this line about how, in spite of my solid performance on the Kaplan final and my overall grades, student record, etc., the committee said in no uncertain terms that they were there to discuss my absences, and nothing else. While Dr. M. personally took up my cause because of those factors, he maintained there was nothing he could do to simply overlook the situation. But it was never about overlooking the situation; it was about objectively and appropriately applying the established factors to honestly reduce the total to the real number that didn’t deserve sanction.

Given this, it should shock you almost as much as it did me, that in the second meeting I wrote about, he pulled out printouts of various blog posts from this site, saying, “I got these today [same day as meeting], and I had no idea you wrote about these things. Why would you say this, [quoting from an underlined section of the page]?”

My brain was a short-circuit of various neural firings, but among them was the statement, “Holy shit, I’ve been Butterflied!!” As I started to make sense of the situation, though, it was obvious that those printouts were calculated moves on the part of someone in administration to subvert the “fairness” of this disciplinary process. I say that because the posts in question were within the last week or two of the meeting; it was not an exhaustive collection of postings over time. Obviously, the timing of their submission had an obvious intent. Since up to now I haven’t “unprofessionally” ranted about the school, there was nothing, honestly, to defend. I was asked why, in my post about ending 2nd year, I referred to the “hell of basic science curriculum.” HELLO!?!? There isn’t a med student on earth that in their 4th year says, “You know, I’d really like to be back in that genetics class…it was so much more interesting than all this clinical crap.” How blind can one be?

He then proceeds to read two of the posts in front of me, even pointing out things that are funny (“Why thank you… *eyeroll*…”) and asking pointless questions about why I said this or that. After two or so questions, I finally said, “That [pointing to printout] has absolutely nothing to do with why we’re here. I’m not going to discuss why I wrote this or that on my own time. It’s my online journal; I say what I want from my perspective, not claiming to be any official voice of the university. It’s my experiences from my point of view, and I don’t have to justify them to anyone.”

Not expecting such a firm response, I suppose, he put the papers back in the manila folders from whence they came, and defensively said, “No, no, we aren’t saying you can’t say these things, just–why didn’t you come to us first? [You mean like trying to get an honest answer of why the first two years of med school suck?!? LOL!] He took umbrage that I insinuated that the school didn’t have problem-based learning (PBL) because it wasn’t progressive enough, because they apparently did try it a while back, and gave me a long history of curriculum changes…

What the Sam Holy Hell does this have to do with my Kaplan absences!?!?

He also made mention of something else in the committee which will shock and amaze you. I suffer from iron-deficiency anemia; I’ve mentioned it here in passing before. With our cover-nothing-other-than-broken-bones student insurance, I don’t have money right now for a thorough workup and get roto-rootered from both ends, which will inevitably need to happen, since a guiac was negative x3 (and false negatives are common). In my “meta letter” to the committee summarizing the other letters, I mentioned my fatigue due to anemia, etc. by request of Dr. M., since it had bearing on why I missed some days, given all the other stuff was going on. I provided lab values in the letter to show long-standing, marked iron depletion.

Do you know what this one person said on the committee? “These numbers are false. There is no way he could have a Hgb of 10.8 and an MCV of 66, because he’s an adult.” In spite of having a table full of MDs (including Dr.M.), since apparently this proclamation came from one who had more of an authoritative background on this subject, Dr.M. said they all just shrugged their shoulders and left the subject alone, not knowing what to make of the situation.

“I’ll provide the labwork if you want!” I protested.
“No, no, that’s OK,” he said.

Ok for you, maybe, but since when is it OK to make an accusation against a student of essentially fabricating medical data, therefore eliminating that “asset” to my defense, and then wave your hand and say, “No, no, you don’t need to defend yourself; we didn’t pursue the matter further.” Thank God whoever that ignoramus is, he’s not my doctor. I’d probably exanguinate myself and he’d sit there denying it, “No, no, this isn’t possible for an adult.” I’m a medical student and I know better.

All these letters, all these meetings, eradicating up my USMLE timing…what has been the whole point if they aren’t going to take each case individually on its own merit? My outcome would have been no different than if they had just rigidly, universally applied the rules to everyone, regardless…except that a good number of students whose absence % was technically below the threshold, but whose total number didn’t raise any flags, went home happily to enjoy their vacations. I, on the other hand, had my grade in one class, in effect, erased, and need to take an exam to replace it. And one wonders why I’m almost paralyzed with stress, anger, grief, injustice, etc.?!?

And a special message to the professor (I assume) who turned in my blog posts to Dr. M.: you embarass yourself by showing how much time you have on your hands. Since you have an office, title, salary, etc. what does that say to your superiors about your having so little to do, so little worth to justify your paycheck, that you have stooped to monitoring external websites of students? I don’t know if this was a one-time dig or the start of an FBI-watch-list-like monitoring protocol, but for the love of God, please grow up and find something better to do. Like your real job.

Multi-Update II: Not protecting my school anymore, Part 1

[ed note: Strike-throughs placed a week later due to new information not had at time of original posting]

I have no problem blogging as myself under my real name, and a few times, things I’ve written about the school have drawn fire from an associate/part-time prof, alums, or others irrelevant to my education. Especially indicative was the backlash to when I hosted Grand Rounds. As a general rule, however, I refrain from outright bashing my institution. I just stick to what I think I would want to remember however many years from now.

As of now, the gloves are officially off. I am staying true to my intent–I will only write about what I specifically have experienced and do it from my POV, but I am no longer “censoring” myself so as to not bring embarassment on the school or problems for myself. Why the musketeer-like glove-accross-the-face? Because my school has totally and completely screwed up my USMLE timing, which has a more-than-direct impact on my future. In other words, my school–the entity that should be nuturing, educating, and forming me as a physician, is and has been blocking my path for no other reason than grotesque laziness and ineptitude. Although it has not been intentional, the incompetent lack of communication, especially by secretaries who should never wield such power to affect our futures by their laziness, has left me no choice but to postpone my USMLE to an unknown date in the future with an unknown plan to prepare for it, given that it will mean juggling unrelated classes as well.

It all started with absences. As you’ve read here, I have had major events go on in my life this last year, specifically 6 months. Car accidents, wife w/knee surgery, having to go back to the states for a few other reasons, etc. all had an impact on my attendance. However, the attendance we’re talking about is Kaplan. Kaplan!! As in review. That I paid $2,000 for. (By the by, we only had 6 weeks of courses, yet we still paid our full $9,000+ of tuition before we had to shell out the 2K for Kaplan. Yes, I know the school paid for most of the course expense, but a chimp can see it doesn’t add up. Also, QBank/QReview was not included–we paid for that out of pocket). Never able to give up its obsessive need to control, our school recorded attendance hourly during this time. Like fucking children who needed a hall pass, if we were out of the room more than 10 minutes, it was an absence for the hour. Weren’t in your seat when the lecture began and attendance was recorded? Might as well sit outside and enjoy some sun for 55 minutes because you just got an absence. I am NOT. KIDDING.

So with all the problems of the semester, I racked up the 2nd highest number of absences in the class in raw-total absences, but I had already turned in justification letters to the “committee” (with quotes, because no one really knows what goes on or who attends) to decide my fate. Basically, they had already approved almost everything, and once one took into account the excused absences, the number dropped to a far more more reasonable level. The assistant dean, Dr. M., however, couldn’t wrap his head around the total number, stubbornly insisting that it was “too much.” I got called into his office just after the end of Kaplan, as most people are getting ready to leave for break. We just had our Kaplan final, a mock USMLE run-through, and I scored a 65% raw score (easily passing when converting to USMLE score)–more than enough to show that in spite of missed classes, I know what the hell I’m doing. I wasn’t expecting a cigar and a pat on the back, but was it enough to ameliorate the administrative bullshit at all? Of course not! The first meeting lasted 1.5 hours and was spent watching him exhaustively calculate every goddamn hour of this or that since Kaplan began, to finally arrive at the conclusion that yes, my absences were high, but once worked out, amounted to about the same as many other students who weren’t being disciplined, so leave me the fuck alone, thankyouverymuch. He said he’d go back to the “committee” and, I quote, “take care of it.”

Two days later, I’m in his office again and he says, “I’m sorry but the committee didn’t want to hear about your excellent performance in Kaplan, or your top-10% standing in the class, or any other positive comments professors had to say–they insisted that this was about Kaplan absences–period. Everything else was beside the point.” So much for “taking care of things,” eh? I won’t go into what is to happen now in detail because it’s still pending (and I have SOME sense of self-protection), but let’s just say it involves taking finals the school gives for class(es) I already passed–scored well in, even–months ago as pure punishment for absence. Let me repeat: I have to retake final(s) for class(es) THAT HAVE BEEN OVER FOR MONTHS, and the grade I get on said final(s) will replace the one(s) I already earned. For absences. I shit you not. Since one of these courses was systemic pathology, I thought, “Well, it’s a major USMLE topic; ok, I’ll do the song and dance,” but I was concerned about waiting until weeks from then for the school to certify my test. (Board tests need to be certified by a medical school; you can’t just walk in off the street and take them, no matter how smart you are) He said not to worry, he’d treat the USMLE and the stuff at UAG separately, and that such a sanction was really just to appease the committee and make things fair for the other students with high absences, because what would happen if they knew I got off scott free? (nevermind the documentation was there to justify the outcome…)

Now here’s the 1st part that chaps my ass, that made me take the gloves off. My application, which the school has had for weeks but was being held up because of all this absence bullshit, needed to be received by the ECFMG by the 25th of June. A couple of days prior “Friday Fedex Day,” I find out that they still haven’t certified my app. I called the lady responsible (“E.”) and she said that it was because I hadn’t taken those segundo (2nd-chance) final exams. I said that Dr. M. and I had an agreement, and that this can’t wait for that (the timing of those exams is posted when the semester begins). The conversation went like this:

Me: So can you check with Dr. M, please, because I know he’ll confirm what I’m saying.
E.: It’s not written here, so you need to go talk to him so he can tell me.
Me: (after days of meetings with Dr. M.) Let me get this straight. You want me to drive over there, to tell your boss’ boss’ boss, who is in the next office, to talk to you about this matter? [ignoring grossly reversed chain-of-command here] Why can’t you ask him yourself?!?
E.: It’s because he isn’t in right now.
Me: (speaking through clenched teeth) And what’s the problem with simply waiting until he’s back to go ask him, since your 10m away and I’m 10km away?
E.: Um, ok. Yeah. I can do that.

How much more fucking lazy can a person be? It is exactly this laziness, this ineptitude, this “mañana” syndrome that drives us American students–particularly in times of American deadlines (USMLE, financial aid loans, etc.) which are not flexible–almost to go postal. In the end, in spite of this, I was shocked to find out this last week (ie, days after the deadline), that Dr. M. didn’t approve the application and maintains we never had such an agreement. And of course, why didn’t I come see him right away? Because I have a life. Because my wife and child were in town for their final days and leaving. And because, with any time remaining, shouldn’t I be studying instead of constantly shuttling to meet “face to face” for things that should take <5 minutes? Shouldn’t you be making it easier for me to concentrate on my studies instead of being the #1 obstacle to my progress?

I won’t even go into honor or keeping one’s word. Let’s just say this matter is still unresolved, but until July 25th rolls around, it really doesn’t matter because the deadline has already passed. UAG has screwed up my USMLE timing, and now the entirety of my study drive, motivation, and focus has disappeared. I am in the middle of a foggy lake not knowing what to do.

All because of absences for a review course not even a part of this school’s curriculum that I paid out of pocket for.