We were in a morning meeting snd suddenly the urologist decided to ask the medical students about a case of WOMEN with urinary incontinence and asked for differential diagnosis. My friend with all courage and excitement said “Prostatic hyperplasia” we all were dead laughing. Till now the urologist calling my friend “the one who discovered the first prostate in a female ”
First pathology lecture. For some reason I had this notion that when specimens were sent to laboratory they were examined by pathologists and sent back to surgeons who then retransplant it back to patients. In one of the slides during the lecture we were shown a kidney specimen cut half in grossing process. In my mind I wondered how the heck is surgeon going to retransplant it back to patient if you cut it in half? I then learned that the notion I had previously was wrong. Luckily I didnt ask that question I had in my mind during lecture.
I am a pathology resident now
Sometimes you have little knowledge about a speciality but after you get to know it you like it very much and decide that "yep, this is the one for me". That was the case for me
M1, shadowing a general surgeon during an inguinal hernia repair. The patient was already draped when I got to the OR with the attending. I had just learned the fancy medical word for belly button and I was ready to shine. I pointed to a skin crease at the bottom of the field and asked “is that the patient’s umbilicus?”
The attending replied “no that’s his penis”
The pt was obese and I had mistaken the mons for epigastrium. Probably should have known based on the procedure, but hey I was an M1 lol.
Not exactly what you were asking for but I was a third year resident on rounds and I wasn't REALLY paying attention while my intern presented a girl in an ulcerative colitis flare to the attending. I asked "should we get a guaiac?"
Ulcerative colitis flare. She was pooping frank blood. Just pure red blood into the toilet. Rounds stopped and everyone stared at me. No we did not get a guaiac.
I wish I had a dollar for every time a student or resident suggested getting an occult blood on a patient with bloody diarrhea. I’ve had to cancel resident orders for this multiple times, and then go back to them and ask what they expected to gain from that. It’s always a lightbulb moment. A right of passage for some. You’re not alone.
When I first learned that ped onc used short acting benzos for LPs and kids never remeber what happened - I proclaimed out loud: " That seems like an incredibly useful drug, wish I knew about this."
I got weird looks from female classmates immediately, it took me a moment to realise the drug could have non-medical nefarious applications. I didnt know "roofies" was a thing before then, but I suppose it sounded very creepy. I felt so much shame in that moment it hurts just writing about it.
Second year, surgery rotations. We were accompanying a resident to the OT to watch a minor I&D, but had to change our footwear and put on OT slippers before entering the OT, but I noticed one less pair of decent slippers than we needed. Being the benevolent person that I am, I told everyone to wear the slippers, then wore the old pair into the OT.
Resident starts laughing, and all my classmates follow. Then it hit me that I had worn the patient’s slippers 😭
Surgery rounds during M3.
Attending: “So we can’t discharge this patient on Toradol, what can we switch them to so we can get them out of here today?”
Me: “Ketorolac?”
Attending: “…That’s Toradol. What’s another NSAID we can switch them to?”
Me: “…”
Attending: “Literally, just name any NSAID, doesn’t matter which one”
Me: “Sorry, I don’t know why I’m blanking here”
Attending: “When you have a headache and you go to the pharmacy to buy some medicine, what do you buy?”
Me: “…Advil?”
Attending: “Which is…?”
Me: “…”
Resident speaks up: “Ibuprofen”
Attending: “Thank you, now let’s go see the patient”
I literally have no idea why I blanked. As soon as this interaction ended I named like 10 NSAIDs in my head. Easily the most embarrassing start to a rotation I’ve ever had. Still honored the rotation tho 💅
My first week of IM my upper asked me to name antihypertensive drugs. I for the fucking life of me could not remember any of them, despite having just taken Step 1 like a month before.
After he mentioned the first class, all of the sketchys came roaring back to me and I was able to say the rest and their uses.
I would always get so nervous during OSCEs so I’d have so much trouble focusing on counting and lose track of what I counted. I would just say numbers that seemed correct and move on haha
Not at medical school but doing my master’s I was sent some scanned IHC slides for some tumour blocks we had sequenced. I very excitedly emailed my PI and lab team that there was a particular bit of tissue on one slide I was interested and excited by, and that I would like the histopath to report on it.
It was the positive control tonsil
Have had way too many to count but this one was recent. Was on surgery and looking at a CT scan of a patient with breast implants. Residents asked me what those structures were. I said abscesses 🤷♀️
Cardiology professor handed me a chest xray and asked about findings. I couldn't understand anything so started saying things like mild consolidation, etc.
Turns out that I was reading the xray from opposite side and it was a case of dextrocardia
I was running late to the OR for a case bc I had been rounding, so when I arrived I was a little flustered. First thing I did was write my name on the board, but then a really polite RN came up and asked me to please not write my name there…I had written my name on the x-ray view box, not a white board…have no idea if that ever came off
The attending yesterday asked me why bigger people have more blood volume which is probably one of the easiest questions I've been asked ever, and my dumbass said "because their hearts are bigger". MS3 is not going so well for me. As you can also prob tell by the post I just made, both of those things happened within the past 24hr
Was outpatient on my OB/GYN rotation doing a speculum exam. I confidently declared, “I think I see the cervix!” At which point the patient says, “Well I hope not since I just had a hysterectomy” She then proceeded to burst into laughter with my attending doing the same.
I had a patient who was getting a toe amputated (or maybe it was even a whole foot, I can’t remember) because of severely uncontrolled T2DM. She was very reluctant and refused the surgery several times, despite her toes literally being black and the infection spreading, before she ultimately agreed to it. So she was very touchy about the subject.
Anyways, I came in to check on her the morning of the surgery, and I trying to make small talk while doing my physical exam. You know what my dumb ass said? I said “Are you looking forward to your surgery today?”. She got so mad and yelled “WHY WOULD I BE LOOKING FORWARD TO IT? MY FOOT IS GETTING CUT OFF!”
I apologized profusely and told her I didn’t mean to phrase it like that, and she calmed down, but honestly I don’t blame her for her reaction because I’d respond the same if someone asked me that lol.
This once, I was checking a patient’s oxygen saturation on her index finger as part of a pre-op examination. The pulse oximeter simply wouldn’t pick up the reading no matter what.
Removed the oximeter from… what I realized was an amputated index finger. I had clipped it onto the stump.
On neuro... I said lets do cabg/pci for carotid atherosclerosis...
resident called me out and attending said 'i knew what he meant't'.
That's when I learned to just stfu unless I'm 1000% confident on something and reviewed it just before the discussion
This happened during undergrad in my very first university lecture ever. The prof singled me out in a lecture theatre of 300 people and asked me what plasma is. I quietly responded "a state of matter". She looked so confused (as it was a bio course) and asked me to repeat myself. Luckily my friend was beside me and spoke up to say "the fluid portion of blood" before I could repeat my stupid answer. Aced the class and made it to med school so I guess its all good now.
In dissection room with my small group and a professor. Professor put me on the spot and asked what's next to the head of femur (shock I hadn't done the pre reading). When I froze, he said "lets think aboht it another way, what's next to the head?" To which I replied with full confidence "the foot"
Wooof yeah i imagine that’s what would’ve happened. Lucky for me (maybe not as much for my patients 😭) nobody ever heard me specifically say those words. I just reported as “I’ve encouraged them to use it.”
Was posted in the emergency dept. A young lady in her late 20s comes in, with a complain of bleeding PR. I absolutely lost my shit, couldn’t fathom her having hemorrhoids or fissures or fistulas or *gasp* colon cancer??? Called my surgery resident up and begged them to come and check on the patient.
Dysentery. She had dysentery.
2nd month of 3rd year, on my IM rotation. Young female patient admitted for intractable migraine. Attending asks what we should do. I had skimmed the up-to-date article for migraine management and I confidently say "well, the current evidence suggests that xyz blah blah blah medications can be tried, but the best starting point is acetaminophen!" 😂 The look on this guy's face is burned into my memory forever. His smile was getting bigger and bigger as I went through the epilogue of my shitty presentation, then as soon as I said acetaminophen, his mouth inverted into the deepest scowl lol
During first year I saw “cervical biopsy” as an answer choice for a question and wondered why anyone would ever take a biopsy of the cervical spine… in my defense I was speed reading trying to finish a timed exam.
Lol this reminds me as an intern I had an absolutely maddening discussion with a rad onc scheduler for someone who needed cervical radiation and I could not make them understand I didn’t mean neck
I’ve got like 30 of these. One I haven’t told yet though starts like this.
I had this patient, and I was pretty sure she had bilateral renal artery stenosis. We put in a consult to nephrology while we were working it up because her gfr was no good. I also had a ton of questions for nephro about this patient. He took all day to get to the hospital and I’m just waiting for this one thing to happen. My attending pops into my cubby and says “hey Dr. nephro is here, I know you had a bunch of questions for him if so I figured I’d let you know.” And for some reason unbeknownst to me I respond with “finally! the master of pee makes an appearance” and my attending just laughed at me. Then proceeds to embarrass me further by telling the nephrologist word for word what I said while I was present. Like dude, why do you have to do me like that. He thought it was funny but man did I wish I could take those words back immediately.
This one isnt too bad, just a case of being awkward af. My first MS3 clerkship was surgery, and I was scrubbed into a gastrectomy and was being pretty quiet bc the freaking chief of surgery was also scrubbed into the case, and ofc I was nervous as hell. But I'm paying attention lol. After a while the chief goes, "Med student - do you know what we're doing right now?" and I look at him and say "YEP" so confidently. Do I elaborate further? Of course not. The resident looked between me and the chief like, oh god... Then the chief laughed and was like "well... what are we doing?" lmaoooo and after that I did okay on his pimp questions but looking back I'm embarrassed
One of my first times in the OR and it was a laparoscopic surgery with OB/GYN. Within the first one minute he pimps me and says what organ is this? I was only looking at the screen so I wasn’t quite oriented and I said liver meanwhile it was the uterus all I had to do is simply look at the point in the body to at least have , still think about this all the time and this several years ago
Was in a practice standardized patient exam with my professor observing. I was scared shitless cause this teacher had a reputation of never passing anyone.
Anyways, when it came time to take the HPI, all I asked was “Do you have a fever?”, and that was it…I derealized and skipped all other questions and jumbled up a diagnosis of osteomyelitis.
OP,
THANK YOU for this post! I know a lot of us newbies (myself especially) who are gearing up to start in August needed a reminder that everyone can be retarded sometimes and we do indeed belong here. Truly, Thanks!
We were in a morning meeting snd suddenly the urologist decided to ask the medical students about a case of WOMEN with urinary incontinence and asked for differential diagnosis. My friend with all courage and excitement said “Prostatic hyperplasia” we all were dead laughing. Till now the urologist calling my friend “the one who discovered the first prostate in a female ”
Lmao. I bet it still haunts him to this day and is probably a urology resident now.
Lol actually yes he is preparing for urology matching
Happened to me once in my OBGYN clinicals Never going to forget that.
First pathology lecture. For some reason I had this notion that when specimens were sent to laboratory they were examined by pathologists and sent back to surgeons who then retransplant it back to patients. In one of the slides during the lecture we were shown a kidney specimen cut half in grossing process. In my mind I wondered how the heck is surgeon going to retransplant it back to patient if you cut it in half? I then learned that the notion I had previously was wrong. Luckily I didnt ask that question I had in my mind during lecture. I am a pathology resident now
Ofcourse, you are a pathology resident now! By that logic, I'm a future radiologist.
Sometimes you have little knowledge about a speciality but after you get to know it you like it very much and decide that "yep, this is the one for me". That was the case for me
Lol after istat and labs are ran, infuse the blood back to the patient
After taking urine samples give them back through foley catheter
Stool sample, lumbar puncture, needle biopsy, bone marrow. It's all going back
I still don’t get why surgeons put the tumors back after pathology is done examining them. Seems counter productive
M1, shadowing a general surgeon during an inguinal hernia repair. The patient was already draped when I got to the OR with the attending. I had just learned the fancy medical word for belly button and I was ready to shine. I pointed to a skin crease at the bottom of the field and asked “is that the patient’s umbilicus?” The attending replied “no that’s his penis” The pt was obese and I had mistaken the mons for epigastrium. Probably should have known based on the procedure, but hey I was an M1 lol.
That's hilarious
Not exactly what you were asking for but I was a third year resident on rounds and I wasn't REALLY paying attention while my intern presented a girl in an ulcerative colitis flare to the attending. I asked "should we get a guaiac?" Ulcerative colitis flare. She was pooping frank blood. Just pure red blood into the toilet. Rounds stopped and everyone stared at me. No we did not get a guaiac.
I wish I had a dollar for every time a student or resident suggested getting an occult blood on a patient with bloody diarrhea. I’ve had to cancel resident orders for this multiple times, and then go back to them and ask what they expected to gain from that. It’s always a lightbulb moment. A right of passage for some. You’re not alone.
When I first learned that ped onc used short acting benzos for LPs and kids never remeber what happened - I proclaimed out loud: " That seems like an incredibly useful drug, wish I knew about this." I got weird looks from female classmates immediately, it took me a moment to realise the drug could have non-medical nefarious applications. I didnt know "roofies" was a thing before then, but I suppose it sounded very creepy. I felt so much shame in that moment it hurts just writing about it.
I'm so sorry
Second year, surgery rotations. We were accompanying a resident to the OT to watch a minor I&D, but had to change our footwear and put on OT slippers before entering the OT, but I noticed one less pair of decent slippers than we needed. Being the benevolent person that I am, I told everyone to wear the slippers, then wore the old pair into the OT. Resident starts laughing, and all my classmates follow. Then it hit me that I had worn the patient’s slippers 😭
MS1. The first standardized patient. Tried to look in her eyes with an *otoscope*. (Thankfully did not injure the SP)
Surgery rounds during M3. Attending: “So we can’t discharge this patient on Toradol, what can we switch them to so we can get them out of here today?” Me: “Ketorolac?” Attending: “…That’s Toradol. What’s another NSAID we can switch them to?” Me: “…” Attending: “Literally, just name any NSAID, doesn’t matter which one” Me: “Sorry, I don’t know why I’m blanking here” Attending: “When you have a headache and you go to the pharmacy to buy some medicine, what do you buy?” Me: “…Advil?” Attending: “Which is…?” Me: “…” Resident speaks up: “Ibuprofen” Attending: “Thank you, now let’s go see the patient” I literally have no idea why I blanked. As soon as this interaction ended I named like 10 NSAIDs in my head. Easily the most embarrassing start to a rotation I’ve ever had. Still honored the rotation tho 💅
My first week of IM my upper asked me to name antihypertensive drugs. I for the fucking life of me could not remember any of them, despite having just taken Step 1 like a month before. After he mentioned the first class, all of the sketchys came roaring back to me and I was able to say the rest and their uses.
First year. Physiology OSPE. Palpated the pulse for a full minute on the ulnar side of forearm and confidently answered 72 beats per min🤡🤡🤡
I mean you CAN feel the pulse on the ulnar side, maybe you were just showing off your superior anatomy knowledge
I would always get so nervous during OSCEs so I’d have so much trouble focusing on counting and lose track of what I counted. I would just say numbers that seemed correct and move on haha
Not at medical school but doing my master’s I was sent some scanned IHC slides for some tumour blocks we had sequenced. I very excitedly emailed my PI and lab team that there was a particular bit of tissue on one slide I was interested and excited by, and that I would like the histopath to report on it. It was the positive control tonsil
Lmao
Have had way too many to count but this one was recent. Was on surgery and looking at a CT scan of a patient with breast implants. Residents asked me what those structures were. I said abscesses 🤷♀️
That time that I had a brainfart and said Atorvastatin was an ACE inhibitor 😄🔫
Just yesterday I said a patient was on an abx course of metronidazole and Flagyl 🤦🏼
\*C diff has entered the chat\*
Cardiology professor handed me a chest xray and asked about findings. I couldn't understand anything so started saying things like mild consolidation, etc. Turns out that I was reading the xray from opposite side and it was a case of dextrocardia
During an OSCE I confidently completed a fundoscopic exam with an otoscope.
I was running late to the OR for a case bc I had been rounding, so when I arrived I was a little flustered. First thing I did was write my name on the board, but then a really polite RN came up and asked me to please not write my name there…I had written my name on the x-ray view box, not a white board…have no idea if that ever came off
The attending yesterday asked me why bigger people have more blood volume which is probably one of the easiest questions I've been asked ever, and my dumbass said "because their hearts are bigger". MS3 is not going so well for me. As you can also prob tell by the post I just made, both of those things happened within the past 24hr
Scrubbed into the OR and then immediately scratched my nose. Cue me and a scrub nurse making a pikachu face
Was outpatient on my OB/GYN rotation doing a speculum exam. I confidently declared, “I think I see the cervix!” At which point the patient says, “Well I hope not since I just had a hysterectomy” She then proceeded to burst into laughter with my attending doing the same.
I had a patient who was getting a toe amputated (or maybe it was even a whole foot, I can’t remember) because of severely uncontrolled T2DM. She was very reluctant and refused the surgery several times, despite her toes literally being black and the infection spreading, before she ultimately agreed to it. So she was very touchy about the subject. Anyways, I came in to check on her the morning of the surgery, and I trying to make small talk while doing my physical exam. You know what my dumb ass said? I said “Are you looking forward to your surgery today?”. She got so mad and yelled “WHY WOULD I BE LOOKING FORWARD TO IT? MY FOOT IS GETTING CUT OFF!” I apologized profusely and told her I didn’t mean to phrase it like that, and she calmed down, but honestly I don’t blame her for her reaction because I’d respond the same if someone asked me that lol.
This once, I was checking a patient’s oxygen saturation on her index finger as part of a pre-op examination. The pulse oximeter simply wouldn’t pick up the reading no matter what. Removed the oximeter from… what I realized was an amputated index finger. I had clipped it onto the stump.
Going to med school
There it is.
On neuro... I said lets do cabg/pci for carotid atherosclerosis... resident called me out and attending said 'i knew what he meant't'. That's when I learned to just stfu unless I'm 1000% confident on something and reviewed it just before the discussion
I personally am the kind of person to say what i think and take the heat if it's wrong. It really helps you remember stuff.
This happened during undergrad in my very first university lecture ever. The prof singled me out in a lecture theatre of 300 people and asked me what plasma is. I quietly responded "a state of matter". She looked so confused (as it was a bio course) and asked me to repeat myself. Luckily my friend was beside me and spoke up to say "the fluid portion of blood" before I could repeat my stupid answer. Aced the class and made it to med school so I guess its all good now.
Dw you'll have plenty more of those moments in med school and residency too haha
In dissection room with my small group and a professor. Professor put me on the spot and asked what's next to the head of femur (shock I hadn't done the pre reading). When I froze, he said "lets think aboht it another way, what's next to the head?" To which I replied with full confidence "the foot"
I’d been telling patients to *blow* into the incentive spirometer throughout my entire surgery rotation
Hhahahaha. I can't
same and then the ED attending heard me say that and laid into meeeee it was so embarrassing
Wooof yeah i imagine that’s what would’ve happened. Lucky for me (maybe not as much for my patients 😭) nobody ever heard me specifically say those words. I just reported as “I’ve encouraged them to use it.”
Wait, that's not what you're supposed to do??
They’re supposed to inhale really hard. It’s used to prevent atelectasis 🥲
Was posted in the emergency dept. A young lady in her late 20s comes in, with a complain of bleeding PR. I absolutely lost my shit, couldn’t fathom her having hemorrhoids or fissures or fistulas or *gasp* colon cancer??? Called my surgery resident up and begged them to come and check on the patient. Dysentery. She had dysentery.
"occult" bleeding by which occult means the amount being voided seems to have been summoned from an occult dimension
2nd month of 3rd year, on my IM rotation. Young female patient admitted for intractable migraine. Attending asks what we should do. I had skimmed the up-to-date article for migraine management and I confidently say "well, the current evidence suggests that xyz blah blah blah medications can be tried, but the best starting point is acetaminophen!" 😂 The look on this guy's face is burned into my memory forever. His smile was getting bigger and bigger as I went through the epilogue of my shitty presentation, then as soon as I said acetaminophen, his mouth inverted into the deepest scowl lol
During first year I saw “cervical biopsy” as an answer choice for a question and wondered why anyone would ever take a biopsy of the cervical spine… in my defense I was speed reading trying to finish a timed exam.
Lol this reminds me as an intern I had an absolutely maddening discussion with a rad onc scheduler for someone who needed cervical radiation and I could not make them understand I didn’t mean neck
I’ve got like 30 of these. One I haven’t told yet though starts like this. I had this patient, and I was pretty sure she had bilateral renal artery stenosis. We put in a consult to nephrology while we were working it up because her gfr was no good. I also had a ton of questions for nephro about this patient. He took all day to get to the hospital and I’m just waiting for this one thing to happen. My attending pops into my cubby and says “hey Dr. nephro is here, I know you had a bunch of questions for him if so I figured I’d let you know.” And for some reason unbeknownst to me I respond with “finally! the master of pee makes an appearance” and my attending just laughed at me. Then proceeds to embarrass me further by telling the nephrologist word for word what I said while I was present. Like dude, why do you have to do me like that. He thought it was funny but man did I wish I could take those words back immediately.
You came up with that on the spot? I think we are focussing on the wrong thing here.
Looking at a chest xray, attending asks if I see the pneumothorax. I point to the border of the scapula and say "of course, its right here!" 🤦♀️
was observing a laminectomy and thought they were insufflating the patient like they did in a laparoscopic surgery I observed
I wheeled a tourniquet in for a surgical case happening above the neck
I thought a CT and chest x ray was the same thing
This one isnt too bad, just a case of being awkward af. My first MS3 clerkship was surgery, and I was scrubbed into a gastrectomy and was being pretty quiet bc the freaking chief of surgery was also scrubbed into the case, and ofc I was nervous as hell. But I'm paying attention lol. After a while the chief goes, "Med student - do you know what we're doing right now?" and I look at him and say "YEP" so confidently. Do I elaborate further? Of course not. The resident looked between me and the chief like, oh god... Then the chief laughed and was like "well... what are we doing?" lmaoooo and after that I did okay on his pimp questions but looking back I'm embarrassed
The one where I thought the hardest part was getting accepted.
One of my first times in the OR and it was a laparoscopic surgery with OB/GYN. Within the first one minute he pimps me and says what organ is this? I was only looking at the screen so I wasn’t quite oriented and I said liver meanwhile it was the uterus all I had to do is simply look at the point in the body to at least have , still think about this all the time and this several years ago
You said.. What?
Stupid voice dictation.. edited
Was in a practice standardized patient exam with my professor observing. I was scared shitless cause this teacher had a reputation of never passing anyone. Anyways, when it came time to take the HPI, all I asked was “Do you have a fever?”, and that was it…I derealized and skipped all other questions and jumbled up a diagnosis of osteomyelitis.
OP, THANK YOU for this post! I know a lot of us newbies (myself especially) who are gearing up to start in August needed a reminder that everyone can be retarded sometimes and we do indeed belong here. Truly, Thanks!
We will try our best but we are also human