This is why I knew she had gotten to me, and that my sanity was
at stake.
So I was on L+D (labor and delivery) and had to wake up at like
3:45am so that I could get to work on time (and I never got
there on time.) The evil resident was the senior in the unit, and I
was the only student there. (Which had me believing that I had
offended some deity, because everyone else got to work with
another student and had someone to share their misery with.) Now, I
had the pleasure of working with her for a couple of weeks on the
Gyne service. Despite being briefed by classmates who had worked
with her previously as well as by people in the class before me, I
did not appreciate the extent of her malignancy until I met her in
person.
OK, I admit it, so I wasn't exactly in top form. I mean, I'm not
a surgical person. A lot of things are not within my abilities, and
I don't have a second sense for anticipating what is required of
me. And yeah, I wasn't on top of the books like I was when I did my
surgery rotation. There were certainly a lot of things I
should've known from reading, although I have to say, it
wasn't like the residents were exactly doing a lot of teaching. And
for some reason, most of our lectures thus far were on obstetrics,
not gynecology. So basically I didn't know jack-shit about
gynecology. The evil resident hated me from day one. It was
excellent.
So by this point, on L+D, I figure she thinks I'm a worthless
piece of shit, and I'm simply just too tired to fight the
perception. I can only go on four hours of sleep for so many days
in a row, and it's really hard to study when you are delirious from
sleep-deprivation. (Yes, yes, all you old-schoolers, I will
cry you a river. So what if I'm a whining bitch.)
It wasn't so much the actual yelling (although there was some of
that.) It was the way she would roll her eyes, sigh in greatly
aggrieved exasperation, and then give me the nastiest look I've
ever seen on a still-living person. No, actually, what
really pissed me off was the way she would yank the
instruments from hands because I obviously didn't know what
I was doing. And, oh yeah, the way she would shake her head at my
obvious idiocy when I would try to answer her pimp questions.
Despite the fact that the intern was nodding. I mean, I was
partially right. I figure I knew the basic principles. I wasn't
going to kill anybody, and if I ever had to call a consult, I think
I'd have a basic idea of what the hell was going on. I sure as hell
wasn't going into OBGYN. What more did she want of me? (Yes, I
realize there is no point in reasoning with the unreasonable.)
Anyway. I hated her because she was evil, she despised me
because I was apparently incompetent. What more is there to
say.
But the story:
So. I get on the road around 4:45am or so, and I already know
I'm going to be late, but what can I do? So I drive into the
intersection of Division and Ashland on the way to the expressway,
and, when it is much, much too late to brake, I suddenly discover
that there is a sawhorse barricade
in the middle of the intersection. I slam headlong into the
barricade as if it wasn't there, and I pull off to the side of the
road, stunned, incapable of any rational reaction. After making
sure I didn't kill anybody, I hop back into my car and head off to
work, worrying that the next thing I'd probably run into would be
the back of a semi-truck.
I relate this experience to my classmates who are having a grand
ol' time on this rotation because they have managed to avoid
working with the evil resident. Oh, sure, they pity me, but they
just don't know the extent of my misery. They comment, however,
that my mood has changed drastically since I began working with the
Evil One.
But one of my classmates quips: "Are you sure you didn't run
over the barricade because you weren't hallucinating that [the evil
resident] was in the middle of the intersection?"
I answer, deadpan (and maybe even dead serious): "No, because if
I had, I would've backed over the barricade after hitting it. And
then I would've gotten out of my car and stomped on it. And then I
would run over it again."
Yes. The point at which I expressed homicidal ideation was the
point that I knew I was pretty close to the edge. So I decided to
take the next day off, and try to gather my wits. Apparently, one
day wasn't enough. I am still in recovery.
But yeah, that woman was evil. My friend worked with her the
next rotation, and my friend also discovered that the evil resident
was as bad if not worse than they say she is. This woman was so
evil that she wrote a terrible midterm eval for someone she didn't
even work with at all. The attending who read the evals was
completely appalled, although not the least bit surprised.
Whatever. Fuck her. May all the evil that she creates return to
her a million fold.