Resident “wellness” and eating dogs: A mandatory counseling session gone hilariously wrong

In response to complaints of work-hour violations, work environments which thrive on the belittling of trainees, and overall discontent among residents, residency programs have come up with a “solution” to the problem. No, it does not involve fixing broken schedules or providing real change to toxic environments. Instead, they’ve focused on this vague idea of “resident wellness.”

What does cultivating resident wellness entail?

Apparently, it involves giving out free water bottles once a year (to be fair, I still use mine from last year). But sometimes, their idea of “help” becomes more intrusive and confrontational.

Enter the disastrous mandatory counseling session that we had during my third year of residency.

One day, I received a foreboding text message from our chief resident: “Resident wellness lunch! NOW!!” (Her text messages were a combination of frightening and oddly effective.) At noon, I headed over to a room with an appointed counselor and the two other residents who were able to make it to this session.

The counselor starts out by asking us about how we’re “enjoying” residency. We described feelings of loss of self, as well as burnout on rotations which were mired by paperwork and other scut. We spoke about how our job often involved telling families that their child was brain dead, and the toll that these experiences took on our personal lives.

Her response? “Well, if it’s that bad, maybe you should look into doing something else.”

Whaaa?? We looked at each other in disbelief. I remember cracking a smile at the absurdity of this notion, that our program director would have a counselor convince us all to quit simultaneously at a “resident wellness” lunch.

It got worse, though, somehow. She wanted to show us how much she could relate to our plight. What began as a quasi-counseling session for us turned into a soliloquy from the counselor, about how she had long considered becoming a veterinarian due to her love for animals. She ended up eschewing the profession, however, when she found out who it was that had to “put down the dogs.”

“So I understand what you all are feeling.”

Let me get this straight:
1) One time, you merely *thought* about taking on a job with an ethical conundrum.
2) Then, you chickened out and didn’t pursue that line of work.
3) Now you get to tell us how much you can relate to being a physician.

I wasn’t having it. For all of the mandatory therapy that I’ve had in my life, this was unbelievably bad. My co-residents felt too uncomfortable to say something…so I did:

“Seriously? SOMEBODY HAS TO KILL THE PUPPIES, like if they’re going to die anyways. I mean somebody has to do it.”

I was mad, so I just kept going:

“You know what? There’s Chinese people* who eat dogs. Dogs and people are not the same thing. We, as physicians, have to break the bad news to families that their kid is neurologically devastated and pull the plug on ACTUAL CHILDREN, not dogs.”

The counselor let out an audible gasp. My co-residents just stared at me. One of them sputtered “My wife is Chinese and doesn’t eat dogs.”

The counselor was flabbergasted. She stammered something about “Now let’s not make cultural judgements about people…” and was basically at a loss for words.

That was it for our “resident wellness” lunch. We didn’t have any more mandatory counseling sessions after that; they were cancelled for the rest of the year. I managed to convince our program to use the money instead for a monthly happy hour, at a bar of our choosing. These happy hour events were well-attended, and everyone got a chance to rant and tell stories in a truly supportive environment.

I consider my outburst at this “resident wellness” event, and the subsequent funding for monthly resident happy hour, to be one of my greatest achievements during residency.

Defiant Bitch, MD
*Of note, I am half Chinese. Whether or not that gives me the right to talk about Chinese people eating dogs…well, I guess that point is debatable.