This is a theme I've been meaning to bring up on this blog for a long time but haven't gotten around to it until now: is there anyone else out there but me who feels that there is something drastically wrong with the way medicine is taught on the floors? Don't get me wrong, some attendings are fantastic. But there are some who continue to rigidly adhere to the attitude that they are somehow teaching us by not giving us the answer.

"Dr. Pulous, how many days of treatment would you give for a patient with this type of pneumonia?"
"Why don't you look it up and tell me?"

"Dr. Song, in what situations do you give bicarb to an acidotic patient?"
"That's a great question. What do you think?"

Yes, I am an adult learner and I am perfectly capable of looking up the information myself. But, since I happen to be in the presence of someone who knows the answer and whose job it is - at least on paper - to teach me thing about medicine, I just thought maybe you might be gracious enough to share some of that information with me.

One attending's reasoning behind not giving us the answers was, "If I tell you the answer, you won't remember." Well, Jesus Christ! That may be true. But, if you don't tell me the answer, I'm sure as hell not going to remember!

Where did this warped concept of what it means to teach come from? In any other teaching situation, information is supposed to flow downhill - from the people who are more knowledgeable to those who are less knowledgeable. Many readers of this blog will be familiar with the adage - If an attending asks you a question and you don't know the answer, a great response is "I don't know, but I'll look it up. To all learners in the medical community, I now propose a coup. If someone in a teaching position asks you a question and you don't know the answer, do NOT offer to look it up. Stand firm at the gates. There is knowledge is that brain; he can only hold onto it for so long. Hold your patients hostage, if you have to. You're the one writing orders, after all. Make your teachers understand that they can either tell you how to properly take care of your patients, or allow your patients to be subject to your guesses at how to take care of them. Medical learners unite, and we shall overcome!