Integrity?

My husband posts at the Student Doctor Network and brought up something that he experienced at and interveiw and I could not believe the response that it got. I was surprised to see how many people think that lying during a med school interview was NOT a big deal. Or any other time it seems convenient for that matter.
My question to all of the unseen masses on this message board is "How do you feel about honesty? Is it really the best policy?"

[BonBon]

Re: Integrity?

"How do you feel about honesty? Is it really the best policy?"

Absolutely, unequivically(sp) YES. That doesn't mean you can't decline to answer something you don't feel comfortable answering. To deliberately deceive though is completely WRONG. (you wouldn't believe how many idiots assume that since I'm an atheist I must have no morals )

[bony00]

Re: integrity

Honesty is the best policy. Lies always have a way of catching up with you. As my mother says.."everything is the dark eventually comes to light"

I'm not trying to say that I'm better than anyone else (to each his own) but I believe that deceiving someone else is deceiving yourself. The senario was thus (In my husbands words)...

"I interviewed at PCOM this week. A second year student gave us a tour of the campus. During part of the tour he asked one of the interviewees what area of medicine he was interested in. The interviewee responded that he wasn't yet sure. The 2nd yr student then said something along these lines:
"When I interviewed I told them I wanted to go into family practice. D.O. schools are big on that, it helps you get in. I didn't really want to but they didn't know that. Besides, they don't have any way of enforcing it."


This is not that big of a deal, on the other hand it's not okay to say something just to get what you want. And if you can't be truthful about the little things how will you react to something major?

[DCJenn]

Not being truthful in interviews of any kind is wrong- not just for the psychic drama it inflicts on the liar (gotta remember who was told what version of which lie) but also because the schools or jobs or whatever, build a mental list of where people will go- It can really mess them up- moreso when it's an actual job- I think the med schools and colleges, etc expect people to change their minds-

The problem is that in this culture, it's not OK to say "I don't know" for some reason. We're all petrified of admitting mistakes because mistakes can be seen as weakness. (I call it the Donald Rumsfeld approach to life...)

Jenn

[migirl]

I'm told that 3rd and 4th years it's standard practice to tell your supervisors in every clerkship that THIS is the field you plan to enter. > Apparently the superiors tend to pander to the people interested in their specialty.

This happened to my DH quite a bit during his 3rd and 4th year rotations. In particular, there was one girl who - no matter what the rotation - told everyone that that was the field she wanted to go into. DH could never bring himself to lie like that, which I think ultimately proves that you don't need to resort to that since he ended up getting great marks in all of his rotations.

"How do you feel about honesty? Is it really the best policy?"

Honesty is always the best policy, no matter how much it hurts, or how hard it is to be honest.

"When I interviewed I told them I wanted to go into family practice. D.O. schools are big on that, it helps you get in. I didn't really want to but they didn't know that. Besides, they don't have any way of enforcing it."

That sounds terrible on many levels.....DO schools do angle to keep docs in rural and underserved areas and thus tend to have a focus that seems more family practice oriented. But there are many DO's that are at the highest level of medicine that didn't have to tell their med school that they wanted to do family medicine just to be accepted. Seems that the "tour guide" needs their integrity checked.

To tell someone a dishonest statement, be it known by others as such or only yourself, can do nobody any good.

I'm told that 3rd and 4th years it's standard practice to tell your supervisors in every clerkship that THIS is the field you plan to enter. > Apparently the superiors tend to pander to the people interested in their specialty. My husband for one disapproves of that practice. Among other things, these people aren't stupid -- most of them can smell a rat.

This is the case at DH's school as well. He's seen it a few times now. The attendings always ask, and the students who say they want to go into the specific field they are rotating in are (sometimes) treated differently. Sometimes slightly, sometimes more obviously. DH doesn't like lying either, but he also doesn't like being at a disadvantage, no matter how slight. So is saying you are thinking about a certain speciality being dishonest or just making sure the playing field is level?

Kind of along these same lines (though I don't mean to hijack), DH was telling me about an attending on one of his rounds who on the first day asks all the students about their religious and political backrounds. If you answer Catholic and Republican, you have a FAR easier time on the rotation. In fact, this particular attending will invite these students (the Catholics/Republicans) out for dinners on numerous occasions throughout the month. DH didn't answer "correctly" and was very obviously excluded from these outings. ("Its just a bunch of Republicans getting together, you wouldn't have any fun" and so on.) I was really surprised. I can't imagine this kind of thing taking place in the workplace.

DH has only run into that once, and I know it is NOT the norm, but it sure is a pain. I'm sure he'll do fine on the rotation, but it creates such a different atmosphere at the hospital. I agree, stating that you have wanted to be a _____ since you were three is very different from saying you've thought about whatever speciality. Especially since DH HAS thought of EVERY speciality. Numerous times.

I believe there's a lot of gray area here. I do believe honesty is generally a good policy, but I think you lose professionally if you're too forthcoming. For example, if you interview for a job when you're pregnant (but not showing) and you know the interviewer really needs someone longer-term than you plan to be there, isn't that deceitful? Of course you're not "lying," but I think it's misleading-- but I don't think it's wrong. Or, how many of you have been college students looking for a summer job-- if you applied for something that wasn't a "summer position," did you tell them you're going back to school in 3 months? I didn't.

I'm not saying these are parallels to the med school example, but I do think sometimes you have to play the game.

I didn't at all mean for this to be a reflection on the school. PCOM is a great school and we are seriosly considering it. (Got the acceptance letter Monday) We just aren't sure how we could afford to live there and if we would want to raise a family there. So the race is between PCOM and KCOM.

I was surprised at how a question that really has no right or wrong answer (since the student will probably change his/her mind five times anyway) should need to be lied about. I just find that weird. I hate lying. But in such a trivial thing it seems ridiculous...

....if you interview for a job when you're pregnant (but not showing)...

Interesting point, and this maybe a little off the beaten path of the thread, but... When DW was interviewing for her residency, fresh out of med school, she was torn between IM and Peds. Even though she had dreams of becoming a pediatrician since she was little. During the interview process, she was faced with a panel of attendings from the local affiliated hospital. One of the attendings was an IM doc(was male, and head of the interviewing process) who had pushed to have DW enter the field. The position she was interviewing for was a Pediatric spot. During the interview it was brought about that DW was, at the time, pregnant. That was followed up with questions about how committed she was to the whole field of medicine and the rigors that it required. Was a line crossed in the interview process, when she was asked about her pregnancy? Most certainly, even though it was widely known that the peds program was a "lifestyle" choice and didn't make any money for the hospital, IM is what provided the majority for the hospital.
DW could have said whatever it took to make them happy with the realms of "truthfulness", but I agree there is lots of gray when it comes to choosing and make the statement of what specialty "you want to be when you grow up".