The Med Student Game

A couple weeks ago, I had a series of small group classes intended to teach Psychiatric interviewing skills. As part of the assignment, we had to interview a patient with a Psych issue, and write a formal note about the information we got from the interview. We have to write patient notes fairly often, but this one was a different format than I was used to, so it took a little extra effort (though they were nice enough to give us an example that we could copy from). After I did my interview and wrote my note, I emailed it to the Psychiatrist who led the group. A short time later, I got this email response from him:

Abby
you are both very good at playing the "med std game", that is making it easy for me to check off that you have done all parts of the required interview, and also you did a very nice interview--even though that is less a part of the formal scoring it is the most important of being a physician.
nice job

Every time I read this, I don't know quite what to think. The part about being good at the "med student game" gives me pause, because, while it's technically a compliment, I don't want to be the kind of student who just plays the game, and ignores the things that are actually important in learning to become a doctor. I'm pretty sure that's not what this doctor was saying, given the second part, complimenting my interview. Plus, this doc is the kind of guy who is enough of a pragmatist to know that we students have to play the game, at least to a certain extent.

But there are some people, I think, who only play the game, either because they don't want to worry about the actual important stuff, because they care so much more about grades and being "perfect", or because they don't have the skills to get through without "playing the game". I can't really say that these people are going about it the wrong way, because I certainly prioritize "the game" over learning for its own sake, like when I decide not to study a certain topic because I think it's unlikely to be tested, even though I can see how it might be important to practice someday. Med school is rough, and I'm not sure it's even possible to get through without learning to play the game well. So I guess I should be glad to hear that I'm good at it, but it is still an unexpected compliment.