Intern/Resident Crisis + Upscale Cut-Throat Competition

[thushan]

Med school is already competitive from my experience, even quite cut-throat competitive. Now with this intern/resident crisis, I can only see this cut-throat competition getting uglier.

What examples of cut-throat competition have you guys seen in Med and how does one avoid getting one's throat cut? Figuratively.

[Russ]

What the hell are they doing to you across the river that its cut throat competitive? I haven't seen anything like that at all, its been relatively chill.

Could be a graduate vs. Undergrad artifact though

[thushan]

In my year it's not so bad - yet, but I've had some experience (people psyching others out before exams, some taking as much as they can but subtly not helping out etc). But the following is coming from a highly reputable source - during 5th year there are quite a lot of incidents of sabotaging other students by stealing their case presentations and making them miss tutes, for instance. In Deakin, my sister told me that there are students already sabotaging others by borrowing every copy of certain textbooks and holding them so that no one else can borrow them. Just some examples.

[Stick]

Wow, great to see the health custodians of our future really care about the welfare of other people.

[pi]

Our year is pretty chilled, it's just a little intense at the top end with a few people and others they perceive as "threats".

The people I study with are usually in the middle range so we all have good fun when studying haha

[thushan]

Yeah, concur with that.

Same here - myself and the people with whom I'm studying are around middle range as well.

[pi]

You're not middle range -_-

[thushan]

You're not middle range -_-

Yes I am...

[paulsterio]

That sort of behaviour is disgusting, I would rather not get an internship than play dirty to get one, how could those sorts of people live the rest of their lives knowing that they're cheating, dishonest scumbags...seriously, to think that the qualities they're looking for in the entry interview include "honesty", "team-work", "understanding/compassion" and "caring about others". It goes to show that even though all meddies like to say they're altruistic, not all truly are.

[thushan]

Yeah. I know.

[Tomw2]

Apparently problems with this sort of behaviour was what lead to the change in assessment during the early year at the University of Adelaide - they made all assessments in the early part of the course pass/fail competent/not competent to discourage the corporate psychopath lurking within many students.

[ItsSKC]

Wow I Haven't seen any behavior like this yet, maybe it's more common in later years. Worse I've seen is someone jump in and answer a question in tute when the question was asked of someone else, but the person didn't mind as apparently they didn't know the answer anyway.

[Tomw2]

Wow I Haven't seen any behavior like this yet, maybe it's more common in later years.

I think the 'phenomena' is exaggerated - the vast majority of medical students I know are extremely helpful (even to their dent colleagues ) and many only get through the degree by working closely with their peers.

[Russ]

Actually since you mention dentistry, there's a story I heard from a colleague of an intra-school sports match between the different faculties.
Med vs. Dent football match and one of the med guys got knocked to the ground and was hurt etc. Some of the dental students gathered around because they were worried and were dismissed with shouts of "go away, his teeth are fine"

<3

[Tomw2]

That is GOLD!