I continue to think about civility and its importance in how we interact with one another.
And then I hear tales of medical students who feel completely excluded from their clinical teams because the faculty never learn their name, much less anything about them as people, and the residents may or may not include them in patient care and learning. Passive incivility, perhaps, rooted in simply ignoring our learners. Passive incivility that results in dehumanizing our learners.
Y’all…really? We can do better. We have to do better. When this happens in surgery then we wonder why students won’t pursue surgical careers, we have no one to blame but ourselves. Had you been treated like this during a clerkship, would you have chosen that specialty? My gestalt- and some of my older research-tells me the answer is no.
How can we be more welcoming for our learners and help them recognize that we are walking the walk of #youbelonghere?
- Learn names! Introduce yourself to them. And introduce your learner to the patients when they haven’t already met.
- Where is their hometown? Where did they go to college? What was their major? WHY did they choose that? What got them interested in medicine?
- What identities do they have besides “medical student”? Do they have hobbies? What excites them?
- What do they want to learn from you? (Reminder: They’re paying tuition. While our patients always, always come first, we actually are working for the students.) What do they hope to get from their time on your service?
- What are they curious about today?
I wouldn’t expect one of us to pepper a student with all of these questions in the first 15 minutes (in fact, that could have the opposite of the desired effect!), but they provide healthy, welcoming starting places. More importantly, can you share questions with me that you use to get to know your learners and to help them feel welcome?
(Those of you with appreciation for 1970s Country music may get the reference in the title. For those who don’t have that appreciation, or for those who haven’t spent evenings drinking beer at the Dixie Chicken in College Station, the title is “The Perfect Country & Western Song”)