Terminated during PGY7 - AMA

[Guest]

it is nearly impossible to fire a resident now. just look to Dr Death, even he was untouchable.
my guess is that there is much more to this story.

[Guest]

Dr. Death shows the opposite. Make the right friends and you’ll sail through.

[Guest]

Anybody know what program this is?

[six_and_done]

In response to Post #29
“I don’t understand this — if your issues in PGY1-4 were due to relationships with seniors, shouldn’t they have already graduated? At the very least, they should have had issues with other trainees that you could have pointed to in discussions with your program leadership. No one gets “surprised” by probation either, particularly when starting their chief year.

You sound lost. I hope you find something good, perhaps not directly patient-facing. Best of luck.”




An important observation. Maybe this can clear it up:

1. Due to bad luck, I was a “PGY2” for the first 4 years of residency and took a disproportionate amount of junior call. This was the result of adjacent PGY residents having prolonged absences due to illness and one of them quitting. The small program size meant that I was by far the resident taking the most junior call during PGY1-4. There were no other juniors to compare me with given the programs very small size.
2. During PGY1-4, the program underwent a complete change of faculty twice. This included chairman and program director position changes. There were 3 sets of faculty during these years. I wasn’t getting into the OR at all due to the shortage of juniors and me needing to cover the pager. This made it difficult to develop meaningful mentoring relationships with any faculty.
3. Despite good performance in my senior operative years, the only remaining attending from my junior years had an unfavorable view of me. This stemmed from an unprofessional interaction with that attending my PGY4 year. That attending was originally the program director. He subsequently took the role of chairman after the previous chairman unexpectedly resigned.
4. The third set of attendings that I began interacting with in the OR explicitly stated that they were unaware of the details during my PGY4 interaction (even as I was a PGY6) with the chairman. However, they frequently referenced it as a reason why I was in trouble – i.e. it appeared to be a personal issue. No attending really wanted to defend me in the end, despite their good evals of me – no one wanted to question the neurosurgery chairman. They claimed ignorance of the PGY4 incidence, and let the chairman apply whatever punishment he saw fit.

In short: there were no other trainees that I could be compared to and program leadership was in a position of bias against me.


Obviously, this is my experience of it – there is undoubtedly some emotional injury that could be clouding my understanding of my situation. It may or may not be accurate enough to come to the conclusions that I have. I hope it at least brings some clarity to the question you brought up.

[Guest]

What was the PGY4 incident?? Seems to be the root of your woes. Please explain what happened in more detail

[six_and_done]

The incident was during the routine 6 month evaluation meetings. It was an inexcusable and disrespectful show of disagreement regarding my PGY4 evaluation - that I directed at the chairman.
Post #4 has more info.

[Guest]

(03-23-2024, 10:03 PM)six_and_done Wrote: 2. During PGY1-4, the program underwent a complete change of faculty twice. This included chairman and program director position changes. There were 3 sets of faculty during these years. I wasn’t getting into the OR at all due to the shortage of juniors and me needing to cover the pager. This made it difficult to develop meaningful mentoring relationships with any faculty.

This is shameful. I hate that this sort of thing happens and organized neurosurgery allows it. A PGY-4 not getting into the OR because of pager duty...

[Guest]

There must have been an incident in PGY-6 and again in 7 that led to the ultimate firing. Your work appeared integral to the function of that department. A demotion despite “excellent operative performance” and firing due to an “intra-op argument” is extremely abnormal.

The events surrounding this and your subsequent firing appear to be highly concerning. Good luck in a different field.