MINNEAPOLIS, MN – After an onslaught of honest evaluations about several rotations from outgoing 4th years, a local medical school admissions committee decided to fix the problem by altering the way the school accepts applicants.
“We say all this crap about how we want to cultivate humanistic doctors who come from all walks of life,” said committee member and IM attending Dr. Richard “Dick” Dorkwadder. “The truth is, we want students who can shut up and know their place. We don’t have time for these hippie turds when we have several patients to make the residents care for while we sit in our offices.”
The new format is designed to mimic a day on the IM wards. The following is an account of one group of applicants’ experiences with the new model:
The night before the interview, the applicants received an email with an “interview day syllabus” that informed them to report to the 5th floor hospital workroom at 6:30 am.
When they arrived on time, they were yelled at by the 3rd-year secretary for not being there at 6 am for interview morning sign outs. The secretary then assigned each applicant 4 patients to present at 6:45 am rounds with the admissions director.
After bumbling through rounds and being chastised by the director for not arriving early enough to pre-round and form an assessment and plan for their patients, they were given a packet of graham crackers for breakfast.
During breakfast, applicant Kaylee Fontanelle, asked the director how to formulate an assessment and plan.
“She told me to look it up and present it to the group tomorrow. I won’t even be here tomorrow,” a confused Fontanelle confessed later that day.
The tour started when the director disappeared and the secretary scurried off to write notes. The applicants wandered around the hospital until one-on-one interviews started. An intern took pity on them and told them about the instant coffee in the 11th floor patient lounge.
“There was only decaf left, but at least there was non-dairy creamer!” remarked Anthony Torkelson, another applicant who was trying to stay optimistic, “I mean, this cannot be what I have to look forward too for the rest of my career, right?”
The one-on-one interviews consisted of an IM attending pimping an applicant for 2 minutes on aspects of the applicant’s life. The attending would then interrupt with a sigh and walk away while loudly proclaiming the applicant’s incompetence. A hidden camera in the room showed if the applicant started crying or showing any sign of a human emotion. If they did, they were rejected. If they reported the incident to the admissions director, they were referred for a psychiatric evaluation.
Written evaluations were given at the end of the day. According to applicant Kevin Gonzalez, “They wrote that I was not performing at the level of a medical school applicant, that I needed to read more, improve my clinical skills, learn how to do hand-offs properly, and learn how to write progress notes,” he continued. “How could I access the chart to write a progress note when I’m not even enrolled in this school?”
“This method is an efficient way to select for someone who knows that they don’t matter and who takes crap with a smile,” Dr. Dorkwadder proclaimed.
One applicant, anonymously reflected on the experience, “They weren’t overtly abusive to me, but for some reason my heart hurts… not in a ‘heart attack-y’ way, but in a ‘soul crushing despair-y’ kind of way.”
