Coming in, I had feared most that I wouldn't be able to manage the actual academics. The coursework though, has been really manageable. In contrast to undergrad, all the professors want us to succeed and work to make things clear and graspable. It's been pretty effortless to do well on the exams.
The overall BCMS organization is really confusing though. There's a daily class calender on our homepage but there are three other websites with pertinent info that we need to be constantly up on.
For example, a couple of months ago, we had a meeting listed on our daily calendar about a mandatory project. The group of us went and during the meeting discovered that we had been required to watch a video beforehand. I had looked around the lecture hall and saw the same WTF faces on everyone else. Afterwards, I spent 45 MINUTES hunting for any clue about the prereq or the video itself. Finally, after discovering, thru a link on a link, I found the assignment. Crap.
During that same hunt, I had stumbled on a service requirement that's due this coming week. Fortunately I made a note then and there and have been assiduously keeping at it. The assignment suggested going to two school departments for assistance but when I went, the folks there had no clue what was required. It seems the project is brand new to our particular class. But there has been no other mention anywhere else. Yesterday, I posted on our class facebook page reminding people about it and immediately received dozens of responses. It seemed that no one else had even known it existed.
It's been a reoccurring nightmare that I overlook something and fall into serious trouble with the school.
Well, this morning, I received THE EMAIL. For every completed course, every individual student is required to complete evaluations. The powers-that-be even send out email reminders. There's even a tab on our homepage leading to the evaluation forms. Believe me, remembering all 20 lecturers for a particular course in order to evaluate them individually is a chore but I pushed through it. Well, it turns out that we're also responsible for evaluating the course in its entirety, link found on a different previously unknown website. Oops.
It burns me that I first hear about this requirement through an email telling me that I didn't complete them and my permanent record has been tagged with a 'concern for professionalism'. I can't help but wonder how many BCMS graduates have been 'tagged for unprofessionalism' because of the insane, confusing way the school HIDES the requirements we are supposed to fulfill. I hope if most of us get a tag here or there, it doesn't make a difference overall. It almost makes me regret letting my classmates know about the service assignment. I could have had lots of company in my unprofessional behavior.
I guess it's an augury for what my future as a physician will be: lot's of weaving unnecessary dangling threads (insurance, paperwork, bureaucracy etc) into a blanket while trying to improve patients' health.
ARGHH! I want to SCREAM!!
You have an impressive vocabulary - I learned assiduously and augury from you today!
ReplyDeleteAs for the hidden requirements, I'd forgotten about that aspect of medical school. It sounds like your school is way worse than mine ever was. Is there some method of giving feedback/making change with how information is delivered? We had curriculum review sessions after every exam, and it was a good way to make changes to both the curriculum and administrative issues, even though it benefited the next class far more than it every would us.