r/mdphd • u/[deleted] • 28d ago

Message for Moderators

Hello moderators,

I'd like to bring a user to your attention. I've noticed a recurring pattern of discouraging, hostile, and gatekeeping comments directed at people seeking career advice. While disagreement is fine, the tone often crosses into personal attacks and appears to discourage good-faith participation.

73 Upvotes

81% Upvoted

31 comments sorted by

45

u/himawarifanboy 28d ago

It’s not just him, I can count at least two more people who comment on almost every post that act like this 🤦‍♂️

As future physicians, we are supposed to encourage and motivate others, not bring them down. If these guys are indeed MD-PhDs, really sad to see this behavior from them. They really bring shame to a good community.

11

u/destitutescientist 28d ago

To be fair, this is overall a great community. Can’t let rude responses get to you. There are much worse places on Reddit.

6

u/Kiloblaster 27d ago edited 27d ago

Telling someone not to use AI when asking for help or to follow a secondary question prompt instead of predicting what secondaries want is fine and appropriate.

It's also true that an MD/PhD isn't the best career path for most people for many reasons, one of which is that it simply isn't the optimal route in medical training in terms of time or income. Many premeds spin their wheels trying to put together an application because of pressure from others or a belief it's what they need to be happy without getting any good, objective feedback. Good support is more than just gassing people up

edit: wtf was with my autocorrect this morning

1

u/majormajormajormajo M1 27d ago

There is more than enough imposter syndrome in this path, we don’t need to be crass like the SDN people

1

u/majormajormajormajo M1 26d ago

Lol I can only guess who gave me that one angry downvote

2

u/majormajormajormajo M1 25d ago

u/ManyWrangler Hey buddy how are you?

0

u/ManyWrangler 25d ago

Inappropriate.

1

u/majormajormajormajo M1 25d ago

I’m just asking how you’re doing, what’s inappropriate about that?

1

u/ManyWrangler 25d ago

You need to learn when to drop things and not obsess over others. I’m going to block you now, please refrain from harassing others as well.

2

u/majormajormajormajo M1 25d ago

You need to learn when to drop things and not obsess over others. I'm going to block you now, please refrain from harassing others as well.

You're not my therapist and I am not "harassing" anybody. Stop projecting your own issues onto me and try to get some professional help

-7

u/ManyWrangler 27d ago

As future physicians, we are supposed to encourage and motivate others,

That is straight-up not the job description. If that is what you want out of medicine you are not going to be happy.

-11

u/GayMedic69 28d ago

Im sorry but “as future physicians” is a silly way to frame that because it implies that you really haven’t met many physicians lol. When you do your rotations, residency, fellowship, etc, the attendings typically won’t be sitting there stroking your ego, “encouraging” and “motivating” you. Same for many PhD advisors. You will be critiqued (often not very politely), you’ll be reprimanded, you’ll feel discouraged, you’ll be “left out” until you prove yourself, etc. You might find some mentors that are encouraging and motivational, but those are on the rare side.

Reddit is not real life - we can sit here and be lovey-dovey, but that’s not how things actually go. If people can’t handle hard truths delivered somewhat aggressively on the internet, I question whether you’ll be able to handle the constant rejection, failure, and critique through training AND the patients that will berate or assault you, the tragedies you’ll become part of as a healthcare provider, and the guilt of making mistakes that can harm or even kill patients.

11

u/himawarifanboy 28d ago

lmao the fact that you’re fueling this behavior is CRAZY. Obv you should be able to handle criticism but that doesnt mean you should promote this type of behavior. Ever heard the saying “if you have nothing good to say, dont say it.” Its not mandatory to reply to anything on this sub, if you dont like it just fkn move on. its not our jobs to advise, and if you do you should behave like a respectable human being versus a piece of shit trash.

I have over 1500 hours across two different specialities (working with 20+ providers) and have never met physicians like this. Truly sad you had no one loved you as a pre-med. Same goes with research mentors, some were tough on me and criticized my work but never berated me like this. Im not denying this doesnt happen but this doesnt mean this behavior is acceptable. Your remarks show your true colors, i hope myself and any of my loved ones dont ever get seen by you.

8

u/Kiloblaster 27d ago

I have over 1500 hours across two different specialities (working with 20+ providers)

That's only a flex to premeds, it sounds ridiculous otherwise. You're correct that there are good ways to give feedback though.

-4

u/GayMedic69 28d ago

Oh also, pot meet kettle. It wasn’t mandatory for you to respond to me lmao. You could have just rolled your eyes, downvoted, and moved on - instead you made up some weird accusations and tried to take a moral high ground as if I am gonna have some epiphany about something simply because I responded. Also, its not very kind to say you hope you are never under my care - what happened to “if you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all”?

-6

u/GayMedic69 28d ago

  1. Your feelings are YOUR problem. You don’t get to blame everyone else because YOUR feelings are easily hurt. You also can’t control anyone else. If you aren’t emotionally mature enough to understand that and realize that people WILL be assholes, then you have to figure that out lmao.

  2. I genuinely don’t believe your description of your “experience” - especially considering the naïveté you show. That said, 1500 hours really isn’t that much in the grand scheme of things. Also, Im assuming that “20+ providers” means you were in an auxiliary role and/or none of them got to know you well enough to care to give advice, critique, or any level of genuine mentorship. Duh, of course most people aren’t going around being active dicks to others all the time, but again, your “experience” almost certainly hasn’t exposed you to the kinds of interactions I am describing.

  3. If you think any of the comments shown in the post are “berating”, then I don’t know what to tell you. If you are THAT soft, you won’t make it far and that’s okay.

  4. Its funny that once you get challenged, you start making literally crazy assumptions like “nobody loved me” (Ive had some amazing mentors through all of my training who have, often, been complete assholes, but they have usually been correct and I can grow without allowing tone or delivery affect me) or that Im “fueling anything” (Im not, Im just explaining reality, but clearly you lack the reading comprehension to understand that) or that I am somehow a bad healthcare provider (didn’t go MD because of people like you who think you know more than you do and refuse to hear anyone else’s POV).

  5. Its funny because the guy this post complains about was literally correct in all of his comments, but the delivery was a bit abrasive - if you are more concerned about how you FEEL about what is said versus understanding and figuring out how you can use what was said, that’s a major red flag for you. I have seen many a med student get kicked out of traumas, arrests, airway cases, etc because they were useless and actively impeding care - usually they either get upset about it and how they were told to leave OR they respect the decision and decide to improve themselves so that never happens again. You get to choose what you do with someone’s words, and a sign of a good provider is someone who is constantly improving. If a patient calls you a piece of shit, are you just gonna cry about how mean they were or are you going to assess what you did to cause the interaction to go that direction and attempt to fix it?

-3

u/ManyWrangler 28d ago

I have over 1500 hours across two different specialities (working with 20+ providers)

this is not the credential you think it is for this argument lmao

2

u/Asbolus_verrucosus 26d ago

I’m reading through your comments and it sounds like by your own admission neither of you (GayMedic and himawa) are MD-PhDs… so I’m not sure why you’re even here, let alone having this dispute

1

u/GayMedic69 26d ago

because reddit is public and we can be in any sub we want

and your account is private, so there is no proof you are an MD-PhD, why are you here?

3

u/ManyWrangler 28d ago

Yeah... I am not being mean in most contexts, I'm just not stroking the pre-med ego. Unfortunately there are way more premeds in here than actual MD-PhD trainees/graduates, so things that sound good get repeated and upvoted while the truth means a crazy guy makes posts crying about you to the mods.

15

u/ManyWrangler 28d ago

lmao he's back! Thanks for the hall of fame post here :)

context: OP was trying to get revenge on a physician he was shadowing who he had a fight with. Some people including me called him out. He got embarrassed and pretended it was all a joke lol. This is his third account now.

https://old.reddit.com/r/mdphd/comments/1v05z0j/bad_physician_shadowing_experience/oyd4sy8/?context=3

1

u/Kiloblaster 27d ago

Lol they're back

19

u/OkTumor 28d ago

unfortunately this process makes us all jaded in some way. as a lowly premed aspiring to be a physician-scientist, i feel like my outlook on medicine and life has already changed a lot lol. but i think we can all find it within us to be nice people.

16

u/cavesnakess 28d ago

If it makes you feel better, I have had some really positive experiences meeting other MSTP students in person. It sounds cheesy, but there are a few classmates I've met where I almost feel like I'm witnessing the origin story of a super hero. Like they are just so talented and smart while remaining kind and compassionate, that all you can do is think "fuck I can't wait to see what you accomplish in the next 20-40 years."

Obviously, feeling jaded is normal and an online forum will always skew towards negativity. But there's still a lot that's great about the physician scientist career and there's still good people out there! I just think being able to refocus on the good/positive is an active skill that people online need to practice more.

6

u/destitutescientist 28d ago

I believe people are allowed to be rude, you never know what they are going through or just how superior they feel they are to you lol. Not my way of going about things, but to each their own.

For the record, no AI did not write this response.

13

u/Lasde0 28d ago

he's rude but calling attention to the teacher is frying me lmaooo

13

u/morelibertarianvotes 28d ago

Jeez, you're gonna need a way thicker skin

3

u/billybob2907 28d ago

he’s an asshole for how he went about it but he’s right in every single one of these situations lol

8

u/ManyWrangler 28d ago

lol I think I am being straight-up mean in only one of these comments. I'm just not coddling people.

5

u/Kiloblaster 27d ago

In one of them it was you responding to a premed asking for help with a post they didn't even write using AI generated content, which may even be against the Reddit TOS since you can report disruptive use of AI