The Epidemic of Senioritis

"Senioritis", you might have heard this word if you went to high school in the US or Canada. Senioritis implies decreased motivation toward studies displayed by students who are nearly done with studies, especially at the end of the year or semester and is usually seen in high school or college students. In some severe cases, students' grades drop down quite significantly due to such behavior and may lead to a negative effect on their future career plans.

In the land of medicine, you can see it everywhere, look around and you probably know what I mean or have someone in mind while reading this. Although this phenomenon has been seen frequently in high school students, it can still affect any of us during medical school, residency or fellowship training. But to make it more interesting, such behavior is augmented, amplified and comes in with a whiff of horrible attitude.

"You checked out?", this is how residents ask each other when they are nearly done with their residency and starting fellowship soon. In other words, it's as if you are asking "have you become careless and not working as hard as you have showed your supervisors on the day of the interview?". In some extreme cases, interns could be prematurely suffering from senioritis, unfortujantely outcome is very poor.

Signs and symptoms of senioritis can be temporarily managed by getting called to your chief's office or supervisor for a small chat, but recurrence risk is high especially after the first few moments you leave their room. Senioritis usually goes through rapid worsening and progression peaking at the last day of work and is ultimately treated by starting a new journey somewhere else. Senioritis is highly contagious and is transmitted easily by looking at your colleague who is facing such phase.

Those who suffer from senioritis in the medical field are probably happy and comfortable, but their colleagues are bothered by their actions and behavior. Bad things may happen as physicians are taking care of sick patients and carelessness would end up with a bad outcome and sometimes catastrophes. Put yourself in your patients' shoes, "would you like your doctor to be careless when you are sick?". I will leave the answer to you....