Doctors Make the worst Patients

So I went to the Doctor Today.... And I tell you what, it is good to remember what it is like to be in the opposite seat. I don't like it, but it is useful to remember. It really makes you think, do used car dealers ever put themselves in the same position? Do they ever become a customers who is attempting to haggle down the price and get the floor mats for free? Probably not. They don't have too. They just order the car they want at cost and away they go with dealer plates. I don't even know why there are dealer plates. Just so they can advertise that they didn't have to put up with the rigmarole of talking, haggling, and financing and they just get to drive a new car off the lot every couple of months. So long story short, they don't always have the most personal perspective when it comes to the buying experience. I think the very same thing comes into play when they say "Doctors Make the worst Patients."

Doctors do tend to make the worst patients. All of us seem to go through a stage in medical school where we become hypochondriacs and are convinced that we or someone we love has had the latest disease that we just learned about. In fact it was common enough that the doctors at the campus health clinic would always ask what we were learning when we came in to have an ailment evaluated. "No I don't think you have Tropical Spastic Pareseis just because your legs have been a little more 'twitchy' lately." Nevermind that we weren't eating monkeys in the jungle in order to get the virus which can cause tropical spastic paresis....At least I hope we weren't. It was just that we would learn part of the story of a disease and we could match it up with a few symptoms that we saw. But then after awhile, as we see more patients and learn what these sicknesses really look like, doctors start to feel immune and invincible to what they witness everyday and don't even consider that they could be at risk for the myriad of common ailments that afflict most people as they age. The next time you go to the doctor, ask him or her if they have had their annual exam lately. Heck, when was the last time they had their blood pressure taken? There is a certain fallacy that we should see in medicine when it comes to practicing what we preach.

Now granted many of the doctors I see are incredibly fit, eat well and have good emotional support systems. But then they go to med school and that flies out the window. They become overworked with little time for their own health, they eat crap when they can and they sure don't have much time for sleep. (note I continue to speak of them as a group, but all of this is most certainly applicable to myself.)

But the real reason that they make terrible patients is the fact that now the tables are turned and they are vulnerable. There is an inherent power differential in the room between doctor and patient, and while there has been great strides taken to equilibrate this differential and place more decision making power in the hands of the patient, there is always a certain amount of social power that the doctor wields in the exam room. Take for instance that the patient could never ask the doctor to drop their trousers and bend over, but it is completely legitimate for a physician to ask the same of the patient. It is simply a built in social scheme that lends more power to the doctor than the patient. Much of it is very necessary in order to have the relationship be a functional one where the doctor can be of service to the patient, but it is still quite important to bear in mind that the majority of the power in the exam room lies in the physician's role. Therefore, it is an unpleasant and humbling thing for many doctors to have this turned around for them and they are now the patients. They are going to have to undergo the same humiliating tests that they put their patients through. Colonoscopy, pap smears, prostate checks.... These are not fun tests. And that is exactly why doctors should undergo them. Of course their own health is in mind, but also, they shouldn't be like used car dealers and they should know first hand what they are putting their customers through. They should also have to fill out all the paperwork and wait 3weeks before they can get an appointment. That would be a good lesson for them too...

What has happened up until now...

I WANT YOU! (To be poor, rack up debt and then have to give up a good chunk of your 20s.

What was I expecting? A cakewalk? Hardly! So here is the quick and dirty about Medical Education.

1. What you learn in Medical school is easy!
-but-
2. It is damn near impossible to remember what you did learn though!

Medical education is an exercise in stamina more than anything else. It is proven by the fact that they use the MCAT to choose who gets in. Here is a test full of stuff you are not going to need to know to be a successful medical student!!! I did not use Organic Chemistry, the physics of friction or my ability to read a paragraph about post modern existentialism and then answer a multiple choice question that says Suzy really was not herself but a being about herself at all so far. But I had to know it to get here. That stuff is completely irrelevant, but a huge hoop to jump through. Which is what medical education seems to be....A series of hoops to jump through. Its just when you get to the hoops that are on fire and decreasing in diameter that panic sets in. So let your stamina push you through and you are good to go.


That being said. Med School is fun at the same time. Everything from the Ron Burgundy mustache contest first-year to the Horrible Holiday Sweater Party second year. ( I won the sweater constest by having to stay plugged into the wall all evening to power the massive amount of christmas lights I pinned on to my sweater!) Plus you get the opportunity to do things that the vast majority of the populace does not. Take cadaver dissection, which is an enormous privilege. You are given permission by a person to learn real human anatomy on their body and it is one of the most beneficial learning opportunities that I have ever been given. I recall most of my anatomy in the clinic from my time spent with the cadaver and I greatly appreciate the privilege I was given.

So if you are interested in pursuing a medical career, be sure that you are able to enjoy the ride to get there. It is fun. You just have to let it be fun for yourself and be able to set up some boundaries.
Check back here to learn more about what I am doing in my clinical rotations.