This hilarious chunk comes from an anonymous physicians group on Facebook, where one supervising doctor innocently asked a simple question about a medical student on her service. What followed was chaos, judgment, self-reflection, and some surprisingly thoughtful discussion, all sparked by one thing: footwear.
Here is the original post that set everyone off:
“I have a medical student rotating on my service. She wears dirty gym shoes, as in looks like she ran through the mud gym shoes. Every day. Talking to patients on inpatient rounds. I’m not sure if I’m being nitpicky but more so curious if anybody would mention this to her? I’m pretty non-confrontational but also surprised at this. She is otherwise a very average med student.”
Within hours, the thread exploded.
“EDIT: Thanks everyone! I have been called misogynist (I’m female), mean, a coward, and lacking emotional intelligence for bringing this up.”
And then came the comments that truly revealed why anonymous physician groups exist in the first place. As one user put it:
“These are inner thoughts that we don’t say out loud. That’s why you’re anonymous.”
When the dust settled, the reactions looked something like this:
“Crowd was about 60/40 in favor of the shoes not being a big deal, rest thought it was unprofessional at least, most agreed to let it go. 25-30 percent would say something.”
Most doctors agreed on one balanced point: competence matters more than spotless sneakers, but patient-facing roles still come with basic expectations of professionalism.
In the end, the real winner of the debate was the mud. It simply refused to leave.
And as one commenter joked, “Medicine may advance, technology may change, but med students will always find a way to stress out attendings.”