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What type of personality is a good fit for medicine in general? Laid-back? Easy-going?
What type of personality is a good fit for medicine in general? Laid-back? Easy-going?
What type of personality is a good fit for medicine in general? Laid-back? Easy-going?
(6) I think you have to be a person who isn't serious. (See what I did there.) You will be faced with far too much disease, death and despair to take everything seriously. If you do, you're going to burn out rather quickly.
Nice list FutureDrB. I feel like I fit the mold of all of those, but the one above will be the most tricky for me. I've heard a lot of doctors who get lost in bottles of alcohol after dealing with the death of a patient, or other bad times. I don't drink (not for religious reasons... I just feel strongly against it), but I have dealt with death many times before just fine. Over time though, I'm concerned it will all catch up to me, especially if it's MY fault. I also take things seriousley sometimes... especially if it's my fault. Time will tell I guess.
To answer the OPs question... I think you just have to love what you're getting into. A life of science means constant learning. It's exciting!! But also tiring after a while. If you love what you do, more often than not you will automatically become the type of person who fits whatever mold necessary to be successful in what you do.
Three things.
1. I don't drink either. Also not because of religious reasons, just totally against it as well. Plus, I can't intake that much liquid. I've never understood how people can drink 16+ oz. of liquid in a sitting.
This is ok, this is only a prereq for graduate school.
Haha. Well, I've been through graduate school twice already. Does that mean I fail??!!
No, but I think amount of drinks a day is strongly correlated with dissertation defense success.
No, but I think amount of drinks a day is strongly correlated with dissertation defense success.
What type of personality is a good fit for medicine in general? Laid-back? Easy-going?
I will throw in a few thoughts here about the desensitization to death issue. I work in the funeral industry, I am not a funeral director specifically, but I have a lot to do with the retrieval and preparation of remains. The first few months, being alone with the bodies in the middle of the night left me feeling a level of paranoid that I can not describe adequately. But after a while, you adjust and really do become desensitized. You stop worrying about the zombie apocalypse starting with you and become more focused on your work.
That being said, even after years with this job, there are still things that get to me. i.e. Infants always make my eyes water a little and I feel sick to my stomach. Anyone highschool through college age really makes me stop and reflect on myself. And sometimes people die in tragic ways.
So you do learn to adapt, but I am personally proud that I have not become numb to the world after being around death 60 hours a week for the past 4 years.
I think that a "good" doctor needs to be able to be strong for the family. It doesn't do any good to go to tell the family the news if you are sobbing uncontrollably. But if you ever just stop caring, I think you've come to a place that I wouldn't want to go to.
I've seriously become so jaded already. I used to be so dewey eyed and idealist and only a few months in clinical education have already taught me that being compassionate and caring is only good business practice, not good medical practice.
In that they make you a "liked" physician, but have nothing to do with being a good one and have to be thrown to the side now and then in order to do your job. The sickest patients frequently are the ones who want the treatment the least. The ability to make the healthiest 80% happy makes you popular, but the top and the bottom of the class can both treat those people roughly as well. Its the ability to treat the sickest 20% that make you an exemplary physician and *sometimes* that requires hurting your patient, motivating them to change their convictions or sedating them enough so their complaints dont shake you to the core.
Note: I'm not advocating anything that might be construed as assault or ignoring patient refusal. I'm speaking about the dual facts that the most life saving techniques are exquisitely painful to the patient and many patients will refuse treatment that can greatly increase their odds of recovering unless they are properly persuaded. sometimes that takes on a moral grey zone where the consent is gained when the patient is partially sedated or a procedure is sold with an apparently (false) dilemma. "Its this or big health problems"
And death will shake you. It will for a long time. Its different than being around dead bodies. This is knowing that someone who entrusted their life to you died and it may be directly your fault. If you're in surgery it *will* be directly your fault. Thats the nickname the IM residents call the surgeons when they bicker. Murderers. Not that they actually are, but that they know damn well that people die in their arms and it is due to their mistakes.In ever case. Even when you argue death is inevitable, unless the patient is dead before you touch them, there was always something you could have done to stave it off for a while longer. something you didnt do. It doesn't matter how well adjusted you are, unless you work in pathology you're going to run into patients that die because you didnt do enough.
I'm sorry to be so dark and morbid here, and I am *over representing* it on purpose. To make a point that all of these bright and fluffy idealistic thoughts are "good" things to have, but are absolutely not required or even core "should haves". They make you a liked doctor. but a good doctor? no.
You want to be a good doctor the personality you want is one that is never satisfied with what you know and can accomplish. Its the only way to be the physician your patients "need", regardless of what they "want". Being obsessed with perfection is a positive thing here. Perhaps another necessary quality is someone who can sacrifice. Sacrifice free time, social life, family, whatever it takes. You're serving a higher cause. If you want to stop sacrificing you also have to take your foot off the gas pedal of your career. Trying to do both at the same time is cheating your patients (though its totally fine if youre at a point where you can back off and have others fill in for you).
you're certainly right, we're just focusing on different aspects. I'm being much more specific as to what personality is actually required vs simply nice to have. I dont want to stretch my point out too much beyond this addendum: I understand everyone wants to be a compassionate and loved doctor. Its something to aspire to. I'm just commenting that those who actually become the best physicians are the ones who make sacrifices and are strongly motivated to always be better, and the people who fail are (almost) exclusively the ones without this drive. Not that those without the quality always fail, but that those who fail always lack the quality.
But again, i was just commenting that being compassionate and patient and x, y, and z is all icing on the cake. And all of these can be done while still being motivated by success and victory. Its just that, when you want to measure what makes a good physician, actual performance, being a well liked physician, a caring physician, or a personable physician doesn't rank up there at all. It matters in your heart (and that counts), but it doesnt impact your performance positively or negatively beyond making you feel good about yourself. It's something to aspire to once you know your motivation for success is on track.
And this is coming from a guy who is squishy and soft and loves to chat at length with his patients to make them feel more comfortable. Just being reasonable and stating that its definitely far from required.