The residents go through three years of residency. In the first year they are junior residents. They are believed to know hardly anything, and their operative abilities are also quite limited. The second year residents are senior to the first year residents, and junior to the third year residents. That I suppose is pretty obvious. But there are a few things in between lines that prompt me to state the obvious. The main thing is that the residents of each year are acutely conscious of this fact and they behave accordingly. We do not notice anything is amiss when we are working along with the residents. But when we are not around, they behave differently. A number of third year residents behave like kings and queens, and treat the juniors as underdogs. They order them around. They want to be called sir and Madam by residents who are just a year or two junior to them. They shout at them for minor or even nonexistent mistakes. The second year residents in turn treat the first year residents in the same fashion. The first year residents suffer silently and await their own turn. Unfortunately they do not get even with the seniors who treated them badly. They treat their own juniors badly. Some of the juniors cannot handle this maltreatment well. They develop anxiety neurosis, depression and some of them even attempt suicides.
Here is a short story of a couple of them. Anparna (name changed) was a first year resident. She could not adjust to residency and kept on crying and disappearing from duty. She required psychiatric help. When she joined duty after an apparent recovery, Ajyokti (name changed) was second year resident started bossing over her. An episode went somewhat like this:
“Anparna, do my two patients’ dressings,” Ajyokti said, “I am going to my room.”
“I won’t do your work” Anparna said “I still have to finish my work.”
“You won’t do my work?” Ajyokti said threateningly, “Don’t you know you have to spend two years as my junior?”
Anparna threw a fit and went to her psychiatrist again.
This same Anjyokti was treated rather badly by her senior resident Ashrukti (name changed) and another second year resident Ashrakdha (name changed). The two harassers broke open Anjyokti’s locker and removed her register containing all records of her dissertation for MS examination. Anjyokti was quite upset. Breaking open someone’s locker is a criminal offense, for which the two could have gone to jail. Unfortunately Anjyokti did not lodge a police complaint, but remained dependent on Hospital authorities to take appropriate action. They just made verbal inquiries and dropped the matter. Ashrukti had a good hold on her boss, who strongly supported her even if she was dead wrong. The boss even made a statement on Ashrukti’s explanation to the administration that the lockers were not allotted to anyone. It was a wrong statement, because e the lockers had been allotted to the residents of that unit. Today I happened to go to the unit's outpatient clinic. The boss was away as usual, and Ashrukti was the Queen. She had no idea I was there, and did not even expect that, because I was not expected to be there as the head of the department nor as a clinician (my outpatient day being different). I overheard the following dialogue.
“Anjyokti! Anjyokti!!” Ashrukti shouted. “Where are you?”
“What happened?” Anjyokti asked in a civil tone.
“Why have you not got anesthesia fitness for this previous cesarean case? Don’t you know in our unit we get fitness done at 36 weeks, so that they can undergo cesarean section again any time they need?
“But it is already done,” Anjyokti protested.
“No. You will not go off call,” Ashrukti ruled. Then she stormed out of the room they both were in, and I think she saw me then. She went away without a word. As a third year resident, Ashrukti does not have the authority to mete out punishment o a junior resident, that too without a fair inquiry. I will ask her tomorrow the reason for such behavior, but I have a gut feeling it is unlikely to improve her attitude.
