All week I have been in the Cardiac Care Unit (Cardiac ICU). What an experience.
Medicine culture is really silly. By law, you are not allowed to listen to anyone "below" you. Good example: my PhD is in Exercise Physiology, where one of the things you do ALL THE TIME is measure gases that people breath during exercise testing. You might have heard of VO2max- the max amount of oxygen your body can use. Thus the equation is just VO2 = bloodflow X difference in arterial and venous blood oxygen. Thus, you know how much oxygen was used by the body. It is that simple. In the resident room a Cardiology Fellow (has been a dr for several years now) was trying to figure out cardiac output of a patient. Use that (VO2max) equation someone says.
"Yeah, VO2max - what does that mean again?" he asks.
They google it.
I sit smiling, thinking "really guys??"
"You must be able to estimate it from body surface area" he says.
I cant take it anymore "you definitely CANNOT estimate it from body surface area" I say.
They dont even turn around. "yeah, maybe not" one says.
"No, you definitely cannot," I say. "the variability is huge."
they ignore me and move on.
They go on to discuss what VO2max is. It is funny to me b/c this is my bread and butter. And it aint like I "Studied it as an undergrad" or even "did a thesis on it" as many young doctors like to say. (e.g. "yeah, my masters thesis was on heart failure"). My PhD is in this stuff AND i taught it for 4+ years at a University.
Sadly, in medicine it's all about ego. Why would i ever be able to teach them ANYTHING, i'm below them!! It's a sad sad culture.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Not that it's any consolation, but any time Andy and I are discussing his training, lactate thresholds, VO2 Max, etc, etc, etc...upon a conclusion or decision about his training regimen, we always seem to say something along the lines of "I wonder what Matt would think, he knows all about that stuff..." - anyway, interesting to hear what the culture is like for you...strange. :)
Post a Comment