Things Which We Have Been Repeatedly Instructed To Never, Ever, Ever Do When We Become Doctors*

*All of which I saw one single attending do today

• Stare at the computer screen typing notes instead of making eye contact with your patients
• Enter or exit a patient's room without washing your hands (alcohol sanitizer counts for this, but she wasn't doing that either)
• Order expensive tests that don't change your treatment plans (in this case, loooots of MRIs for people who might maybe have vascular dementia but are already on aggressive lipid and BP meds so whether you see tiny strokes on the MRI isn't really going to change their treatment)
• Never look at the expensive images you ordered; instead only read the radiologist's report (not that you should ignore the radiologist's findings, but you're ALWAYS supposed to actually look at your own images. EVERYONE says that!)
• Document that you checked certain things in the physical exam when you did not actually check them (for instance, I could see in her notes that she always documented that reflexes were intact when I could see from six feet away that she was just randomly hitting the patient in the arm with the reflex hammer a couple times, several inches away from the anatomic locations where you can actually get a reflex response!)

I was pretty mad at what a waste of educational time today was (did I mention that I wasn't allowed to interview or examine a single patient the entire day??? Although I apparently seemed capable of making copies for the stupid attending and relaying messages to her stupid assistant), but at least I accumulated a big list of things that I hope I will NEVER do in my career.

*Generally, third year has been exciting and educational thus far, but this one day was so absurdly bad that I thought it deserved a post.