ABSTRACT

This chapter shows that the nature of the response has a significant effect on a resident's experience in a residency program. It looks at the overall risk of attrition in surgical residency programs. The chapter explores what effect a good response to criticism, an honest owning up to mistakes, has on a resident's risk of attrition and on his or her ranking on honesty. The terminated resident is considered unredeemable within the normal work setting. The reason for taking such a drastic measure as termination underscores the faculty's lack of faith in the resident's potential for improving his or her poor performance. The medical faculty admits some international medical graduates into residency programs fully aware that their training will have been less rigorous and thorough than their American counterparts. This may actually lead the medical faculty to view the problems that the foreign-trained residents have with more forgiveness than they view the same shortcomings displayed by the American graduate.