No, I'm asking for real.
This is a story about someone not liking me and what I've learned from it. It's finally over and now, in an effort to put it behind me, I'm going to try to tell the story from her point of view instead of mine.
Well first of all, to put it politically correctly, we had a miscommunication. I actually don't know her true feelings toward me and frankly I don't really care. Well, now I don't care. I cared a lot at the time, since she was my preceptor and she got to evaluate my performance. This is what I wrote about it in my weekly journal. We submit these for a grade. I tried to be as humble as possible, but to give you a little background: she had called my internship director earlier this week after I cried because she threatened to fail me. After a very long tearful meeting with my director we decided it was a personality mismatch and that I was to move on from it. My director reminded me however, that I needed to address it in my journal and in doing so I was amending the evaluation Monica did of me. Here's what I wrote:
With regards to what happened early
in the week I think what I was up against, was a big miscommunication. I think *Regina George* got the wrong impression of me
early and it spiraled from there. She
assumed that I was not taking my own learning into my own hands by not asking
questions when the reality was, that when questions arose she was simply
absent. When I would come across
something that stumped me, for example estimating calorie needs in tricky
patients or where to mention things in my charting, I would give it my best
attempt then keep moving in the interest of time management, which I was told I
needed to improve upon. We would then
review my charting and end up needing to discuss the issue that I came across,
giving the impression that I was lacking clinical skills. I am aware that bringing up an issue like
this would have been beneficial and it is something I will work on. I was, however told at the beginning of this
week that I was expected to work more independently so I was trying not to stop
her work flow for a simple question on where to put something in the chart. I received my evaluation and it wasn’t as bad
as I thought but there is room for improvement.
Through it all I learned a tremendous amount from Monica, but unfortunately
I actually feel like she had more to teach me.
I know it doesn't sound like I'm taking any responsibility for what happened but if you had been a fly on the wall during our meeting you would hear me wonder if it was all my fault at that time.
Now here's how I see it from her point of view. And just as a warning this is my blog so I can portray her however I want. (name's have been removed)
Hi, my name is *Regina George*. I just spent 2 weeks with an intern named Lisa. I've had interns in the past, 5 or 6 of them to be exact and I thought they were the shit. I rave about them so highly that it makes anyone that can't live up to the expectations they've put into place feel terrible. When Lisa first started with me she was nervous. I probably couldn't tell that she was terrified of her first day of her clinical II rotation, even though it's to be expected given how intimidating a hospital can be. I started off sweet and nice but would switch and project a very strong, authoritative energy at the drop of a hat. I informed Lisa that I was amazing and that during my internship I could do no wrong and was offered a job at the hospital... but I turned it down, because of how amazing I am. I like talking about how hard my preceptors were on me to prove once again, how awesome I was. Anyway, Lisa's first day I brought her up to speed on how she will be perceived by the other health care providers, how professional she is expected to look, and that cell phones will not be tolerated for personal use during the day. By the way, that doesn't mean that I can't use my phone to text my husband and friends all day, because... well, authority. So I dragged Lisa along to morning rounds but didn't expect her to pay attention or gather any information so when she did I was pleasantly surprised. I showed Lisa around the floor I work on and we went to see a patient. I charted on him in front of her and explained to her where everything goes. I know everyone talks about how complicated our computer system is but she had training back in August so she should be fine. Alright, one patient down, I think she's ready for her own. She talked to the patient well, asked the right questions and was starting to draw the right conclusions. Her charting was a mess though. She couldn't get anything in the right place. Since she was to quiet to talk to me about it though, I'm just going to assume she isn't understanding the patient. A shaky week goes by and everything seems to be progressing at a snail's pace. She's not offering to take all my patients, even though interns in the past were able to handle all of that. I guess she's doing some things right, but definitely not enough for me to be happy. Tuesday rolls around and she remains quiet, maybe it's because she's just a private person and not because I intimidate her. I'm going to tell her that she has to work independently this week because if she's going to be a dietitian one day she's going to have to work alone, and even though this is still her internship and she's still learning, she's going to have to figure it out sometime. Jeeze, first day back from the weekend and she screwed up the calculations on one patient. This definitely doesn't seem like it could be a learning opportunity, and she's definitely not going to kill them or anything, but I'm going to scare her a little and threaten to fail her on Friday. I'm being so nice about it though by warning her now and buy her cake when she almost cries because, well, I don't want to be a terrible person. Tuesday was rough, but it seems like today she is coming out of her shell a little more, she's asking me where things go in the chart and what I think about calculating certain needs. When she asks me about calculating needs, something I've been trying to get her to speak up about since day 1... I'm going to tell her that I don't know enough about the patient since I haven't looked them up. I not glad that she was able to swallow her own pride enough to ask me these questions and I definately don't see that as her taking learning into her own hands though, because I've already formed my opinion of her and that doesn't fit with my preconceived view. She just told me that she's pretty hard on herself and puts a lot of pressure on doing well but she started crying again while she was saying it. What is with this girl?? I'm just going to call her internship director...
Well her internship director seemed like she really likes Lisa. She said it was impossible that we were talking about the same person. She even read me some of Lisa's journal from last week and it seemed like she was learning?! Well either way, I don't want to deal with her so I'm going to send her over for a meeting that lasts all morning. Then I'm going to get on her case when her time management skills are off for the day. Speaking of time management, I'm going to make myself unavailable to her most of the day so when she finishes on time it won't seem like it. But every so often, I'm going to breeze by on my way to see a patient and ask if she has any questions, to make it seem like I care. Then while we're going over her first note of the day I'm going to waste her time so it takes longer to move onto the next patient. I'm going to stop and answer my phone, I'm going to talk to the PAs on the floor, and I'm going to chit chat with the other dietitian when she stops by. I'm also going to keep reminding her that I need to leave the hospital early everyday for personal reasons. Oh, and when I do her evaluation I'm going to give her bad marks on the section for professional behavior for crying, even though I was the reason.
Phew! I needed that. Now that portrayal may seem a little harsh, but like I said... my blog! My opinion doesn't have to be your opinion. And while, maybe her train of thought was different, each of the specific examples in there actually happened. So to go back to being politically correct, I do agree that some issues probably could have been handled better. I could have stopped her and asked more about the questions I had. I could have spoken up more earlier when I was unsure where everything in the chart went. I could have had thicker skin when she was coming down on me. It was like a daily occurrence though.. I think she just liked bullying me. And I felt like I need to sit there and take it since I was her intern and she does know more about the field than I do. Don't get me wrong, I did learn a lot from her and from working with her patients. And I'm sure she thought she was just making me a better dietitian. And I'm sure one day I will realize something extraordinary about her or myself or something, but right now all I can do is try to move on from it. We need challenge in life to keep it from becoming to boring. Everyone runs into obstacles on their way to their dreams. People are always going to get in the way. They are going to tell you that you aren't good enough, strong enough, bright enough, ____ enough to do, whatever it is that you want to do. The only thing we can do is, learn from it, write bitchy blog posts about it, and move on.
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