Feeling under appreciated

Since I now qualify as the world's worst blogger, I have way too much to say. But here's one for starters: I am feeling very disenchanted with my program. I'm really starting to feel that nobody, in general, gives a shit about how hard we (I) work. I sacrifice for this training. I'm away from N, I put in long hours, and I try to keep a smile on my face. Lots of us do this, some with varying levels of success. But to work so hard and have...nothing in return? I've had a string of attendings lately who just don't care. And I feel like I'm falling victim to a culture of a program that blames the residents for being stupid and doesn't put any responsibility on the attendings to teach us. Over the winter, for example, we got multiple reminders that our attendance was low at special workshops. Evidently, on the special medical training survey we have to take every year, the residents in my program rated education on the part of the attendings very low. We all received a scolding, harsh email from our program director and chief residents telling us that our attendance at these events was poor (I am always there, by the way) and that we have no right to rate the program poorly when we don't go to educational events. Here is what I have to say about that. Most of us go into medicine because we're relatively bright and want to help people. We like the science of medicine and have humanitarian hearts. THAT is why we DID this to begin with. We like to learn. We freaking spent 8 years post high school learning so we could be where we are now. I promise you, this has not changed, espeically since we are now all in the speciality of our choosing. What I can tell you is that when you take a group of awesome people and teach them *just* enough so they aren't dangerous, then treat them like work mules who should be grateful for a 30 minute lunch break once a day and shut up, they're not going to be happy. I can count on one hand the number of attendings I have (there are certainly at least 90 or so of them in the hospital) that will actively teach, answer my questions, or tell me of articles I should read. Most of them don't answer the phone when I call at night, and if they do, I feel like they're not listening. When I work so damn hard, the least you can do is TEACH me. And yes, the extra workshops are nice, but 2 annual workshops do not make up for the fact that educational endeavors are NOT valued. For example, I had to take two post-call days this month to collect data for a research project. Could I have been afforded a day off for such purposes? Uhh. No. Actually not. See what I mean? I practically had to beg people to participate in my study. They were most unsupportive. It was disheartening. I guess what I'm getting at here is that, oh residency program of mine, if you're going to talk the talk you'd better walk the walk. You want to blame us for not knowing things? Don't tell us we need to be "adult learners" and do it ourselves. Don't tell us we're lazy. And for heaven's sake stop blaming us for not being at events when, actually, we are in the operating room, being the work mules you need us to be. Argh.