Lies my mentee told me…

[VacationForever]

I think you can do it. You already have. Seven more months is only a blink of your eyes and then she's nothing more than a memory if even that.

Bill

After that, poor dogs and cats in her home country because here she comes!

 

[easyrider]

After that, poor dogs and cats in her home country because here she comes!

In my experience, business has a way of sorting this out but who knows. The mentee could have other attributes that an employer is looking for.

Bill

 

[Talent312]

I would tell her that, while she can complete the program,
her issues have made it unlikely she can be recommended
for another. Thus, she is simply wasting her own time here.
Unless she agrees to a psychological assessment,in which
case, you'd be willing to reconsider.

 

[chellej]

I work for wa state and we had an individual hired who was Egyptian. Very similar personality as you describe. When folks start as inspectors they have to go through training and accompany an inspector until the trainer feels they are competent to go out on their own. First, she boasted of having all kinds of work experience that was just not possible for someone in their 20s to possibly have. She did not have the knowledge she should have in underlying concepts, had a language barrier and also could not admit or learn from her mistakes. She was very frustrated that she was not allowed to go out on her own and eventually filed a discrimination complaint against the trainer. That caused all of her team members to basically shun her and she left not to long after that to go back to school.

We were very glad she left.

 

[Sugarcubesea]

I don't understand keeping her either. When she is out in the real world, lying her way through life, it will reflect poorly on your university. And it sends the wrong message to the other people that work there that poor behavior will be tolerated.

@heathpack , I so agree with this statement that @klpca posted above.

A former company that I worked for tolerated bad behavior, with the feeling that the person could be re-trained. What really happened is that all of our best talent left that company and the ones that stayed prior to leaving did the bare minimum because they saw that nothing would be done to employees that exhibited bad behivor, they were just talked to over and over again.

 

[heathpack]

I work for wa state and we had an individual hired who was Egyptian. Very similar personality as you describe. When folks start as inspectors they have to go through training and accompany an inspector until the trainer feels they are competent to go out on their own. First, she boasted of having all kinds of work experience that was just not possible for someone in their 20s to possibly have. She did not have the knowledge she should have in underlying concepts, had a language barrier and also could not admit or learn from her mistakes. She was very frustrated that she was not allowed to go out on her own and eventually filed a discrimination complaint against the trainer. That caused all of her team members to basically shun her and she left not to long after that to go back to school.

We were very glad she left.

My trainee recieved advanced surgical training in her home country. Although it was not a formal or rigorous training program, she considers herself a specialist surgeon. She is very much in an entry level training program, one in which she MIGHT, if excelling otherwise and mastering the more mundane tasks, be taught some aspects of neurosurgery. But absolutely no way if she shows no self awareness because without that I know that she has no sense of her own limits. Also even though I would be standing right next to her, I have to have confidence she will do as I instruct. So she’s very very far from me teaching her any neurosurgery. That comes after you demonstrate you reliably read the medical records, can take a history, can assess a case well enough to communicate efficiently, can show up on time, can take constructive criticism, can incorporate feedback and use it to improve.

In one of my face to face mentoring sessions with her, she commented that she feels insulted because we don’t “trust” her surgical skills. I had to remind her that she is not in a position where she should have any expectation of performing independent surgery, or even assisting in surgery until she’s demonstrated mastery of the basics.

So I think she did not come into our training program with the right mindset. She perhaps sees this training as a check in the box to get US credentials for training she thinks she already has, or maybe that she doesn’t need training in the basics but just in the specific neurosurgical procedures. Whereas I am legit trying to train her, plus can clearly see her previous training missed a lot of the basics.

 

[Tia]

Remind me not to ever go to the place where the trainee received the supposed ''advanced surgical training '' seems like it maybe unsafe there.

 

[elaine]

It sounds like keeping a sharp eye on her, not letting her be in a situation where she can do harm, and then not recommending her for future training is the best solution. Given her apparent falsely elevated view of her veterinary skills, I doubt that self-reflection (or therapy) will change her behavior. I am assuming that the new mentor is aware of her issues and will be on the same page with a "no" recommendation?
In the legal field, a friend told me that any constructive criticism to (completely unprepared) in-house corporate lawyers on the county X team to get them up to the company's standards was met with hostility and denial. She said "saving face" and not being wrong (receiving constructive criticism designed to help them) seemed to be the most important thing in that office.

 

[4TimeAway]

Some people are not good fits for you or your organization.

I'm sure the feelings are mutual and I'd not personalize it and if the person sees no interest in changing, what's the point of trying to make it work.

I used to think I could help everyone and that's just not the case and my time, talents and abilities are better spent on projects I feel more compelled to do than forced to endure. Pretty sure everyone is the same sometimes its better for us to let go.

There are always cultural differences, personalities, and fear in all these situations. Hand her off to the next person and see what happens.

 

[Fiona1]

Thanks for your input everyone.

I understand the consensus is to get rid of her but that’s not realistic at this point. The types of lies she tells are mostly everyday discrepancies that happen commonly but happen so frequently with her that you know she’s lying. When did the seizures start? “Um, uh, um. Owner can’t remember.” Did you look in referring veterinarian’s notes? “They didn’t send them.” Then I open the dog’s medical record and the ref vets notes are there. First seizure was June 25. Then I ask owner and they immediately say “June 25”. So I know she forgot to ask. This happens all the time. Most trainees say “Jeez, I can’t believe I forgot to ask that!” and next time they ask that.

This individual will try to say that we didn’t have the referring veterinarian’s records when she looked and she asked reception to call and get them. This would be something that very well could happen, so it’s a great lie. However I’ll find out it didn’t happen, the records were there all along. This also happens all the time, to the extent that on the first lapse, I’m not even annoyed. I just tell them to they have to read the record.

Then I’ll go in the exam room and ask the owner when the seizures started. “June 25.” This happens with maybe 30% of clients. The first time they’re asked they don’t know the answer, but they think about it for a few minutes and when I ask, they’ve remembered. But for this trainee it happens so often that you know she didn’t ask the question.

So none of these lies are lies over which we’d fire someone. They are just completely unnecessary and out of the norm. A trivial mistake is made, I have seen this mistake 1000 times, it’s no big deal. Most people you mention it and move on, they successfully learn from their mistake and thats the end of it. This individual needlessly lies about why the mistake happened (or tries to make you believe if never happened), then tends to compound the issue with a second lie. It’s exhausting.

99% of her lies are not something you’d write her up over, they go into her performance reviews (which obviously aren’t great). The structure of her training program is such that she doesn’t have the opportunity to make more serious mistakes because we won’t allow her the additional responsibility until she masters the “safer” tasks.

@DaveNV she is a fully licensed veterinarian in her home country. Nothing I can do about that. Her goal is to become a specialist veterinarian. The public is actually MORE protected from harm if she stays in our program, because the lack of a letter of reference from me as she applies for future programs would be so glaring as to exclude her from consideration from any program that’s vetting their candidates. The trainee we fired last year actually DID move on to another training program, because she neglected to tell them that she was in our program at all. Let alone that she was fired. It also does not damage our program for her to stay, because if she does not get into the next-step training position in the States, she goes back to her home country. Based on two lying trainees from that country in two years, it’s doubtful we’d consider someone from that country in the future.

Her missed shifts due to a “miscommunication” has been documented in a meeting with the wider committee that is in charge of this type of training program- including my response that her explanation of how this was a “misunderstanding” does not ring true and that I suspected she no-showed because she had something better to do. Also she is chronically late and this is documented as well. These are the type of thing she could get fired over. But mostly the biggest consequence to the trainee is whether they can get good recommendations for the next level of training, which is so competitive that there’s very little chance of success without strong letters of recommendation from the specialists who have been involved with your training. Being fired isn’t really the issue and is actually the easy way out for the trainee who isnt on track to get the letters of recommendation they need.

My hope was advice as to handle the casual, needless lying. Her biggest issue actually is that she also lies to herself. She doesnt own mistakes, so she can’t address them, and grow/move forward. It’s frustrating for me because my job is to help her find the path to progress her career, but also frustrating because of the petty lies.

A veterinary internist here. I am no longer involved in training since I am out of patience for it ..... My last straw was an ECC resident with a similar cultural background as mine (me being a bit more Westernized than she is...). She is rude and a liar, but everyone just kept saying that it might just be a cultural thing (being very blunt to the point that it was just rude, not understanding the language, etc), but she is just incompetent and no one fired her since her direct supervisor cannot deal with having difficult conversations and we were short-staffed She told everyone for the whole 3 years that she had every intention to go back to her country after residency, but she ended up staying in US after her residency. She has no business treating patients as a specialist in any countries and I wish someone had fired her before she finished her residency.

Anyway, back to your problem. I am not sure if the lying is even the biggest problem here. If she is lying about un-important things, but at least able to do the job, eg get a proper history and show up to her shifts, it wouldn't be that big a problem. It is aggravating for sure, but at least the patients are not at risk. However, it seems like she is just incompetent and not trying to improve. Put everything in writing (eg. make her write in the medical note/ discharge note indicating what tests were recommended, but declined, so she can't go back and said it was recommended, although I realize the mistake may be caught immediately during the consult) and yes, get the other faculty members on board, but keeping her around is just going to make things worse and it is demoralizing for the other interns/ residents/ clinicians and probably setting bad examples for your students, not to mention, not beneficial for her long term goal.

Sorry that you are in this situation. Teaching is hard. All of you in academia have my full respect.