No One Wants A Doctor Who’s A Slacker
When my boyfriend and I were medical students, we had to do rotations in surgery. We were assigned to teams of two students, and once a week, we would be on call all night long, followed by a full workload the next day. It was brutal, but having a partner helped some.
[Boyfriend] unfortunately got stuck with a partner who was irresponsible. She wasn’t very helpful when on call and was a slacker even when she wasn’t on call.
One on-call night, [Partner] never showed up. No call, no text, nothing. [Boyfriend] texted me, asking what he should do, as he had her phone number and could text her to ask where she was.
But the night was young, and he decided to just wait for her to show up, assuming she was running late or had unforeseen circumstances. He was expecting her to eventually show up or contact him with a flimsy excuse, but it never happened. Instead, he ended up doing double duties all night because he had no partner.
In the morning, [Boyfriend] asked me what he should do.
Boyfriend: “Should I text [Partner] to ask why she didn’t show up?”
Me: “Instead, you should go directly to the secretary who coordinates students in the surgical office. If a student is sick or has an emergency, they’re supposed to contact the secretary.”
So, he went to the secretary and expressed his concern that his on-call partner had not shown up and had not contacted him to say why. He asked the secretary if the student had contacted her instead, but she had not.
The surgeon who was in charge of the students heard from the secretary that the girl had been AWOL the prior night, and he was livid. He chewed her out in front of everyone until she cried.
Her friends, also medical students, complained to my boyfriend that he should have reached out directly to the student instead. But if she didn’t have the decency to send him even a text message, she didn’t deserve anything better.