What's your biggest fear in a career in medicine/health/surgery/ect.

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Paulz

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We all know the downside of this field. Financial difficulties early on, ridiculously long hours early on, long hours once you've established yourself, heavy responsibility, risk of getting sick, misdiagnosing, surgical mistake, dealing with unpleasant people, lots of schooling/time, lots of research, ect.

But what is the ONE thing that scares you the most about a career in medicine? Please explain.


For me, hands down, it is the fear of misdiagnosing someone, prescribing someone something they're allergic too, forgetting something important, or something that could put a patient in harm.

What's yours?
 
Paulz said:
For me, hands down, it is the fear of misdiagnosing someone, prescribing someone something they're allergic too, forgetting something important, or something that could put a patient in harm.
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thats probably gonna happen at some point in your (and all of our) careers. hopefully it happens at a time when you dont have sole responsibility and someone is there to save your (and all of our) ass(es).

as a surgeon, i couldnt imagine the feeling after realizing you ended a surgery with one less tool than what you started with!!!! you hear about it happening a lot too!!! scary 😡
 
Paulz said:
For me, hands down, it is the fear of misdiagnosing someone, prescribing someone something they're allergic too, forgetting something important, or something that could put a patient in harm.
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Fear of screwing up is probably the healthiest fear you can have. You will kill patients over the course of your career (nearly all doctors in training will make such a mistake, at some point), so you can't let this kind of fear paralyze you, but hopefully you can minimize the number of casualties.
 
Biggest fear: Not finding a good fit after med school. That, or being getting bored.
 
This might sound kind of terrible, but I've pretty much accepted that I will screw up, and while I know that it will be hard to deal with when it happens, that isn't my biggest fear.

I think my biggest fear is not being able to have a family, or if I do have a family, being a bad mother because I'm always work. I'm also afraid of becoming burned out and not really caring about my patients anymore.
 
scrubsaresexy said:
This might sound kind of terrible, but I've pretty much accepted that I will screw up, and while I know that it will be hard to deal with when it happens, that isn't my biggest fear.

I think my biggest fear is not being able to have a family, or if I do have a family, being a bad mother because I'm always work.
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👍
 
Brain Tumor (Dr. Greene style), or schizophrenia, or anything that ruins my mind

The thought of all my hard work, sacrifices of my time and family, not to mention thousands of dollars of debt and at the end of it all, I lose my one most valuable asset.
 
PeepshowJohnny said:
Brain Tumor (Dr. Greene style), or schizophrenia, or anything that ruins my mind

The thought of all my hard work, sacrifices of my time and family, not to mention thousands of dollars of debt and at the end of it all, I lose my one most valuable asset.
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Some doctor shot himself in the head at a hospital where I volunteer. He died in the ER. He had cancer and was facing many malpractice lawsuits. He was about 55 years old. I guess he figured that was the easy way out. I don't know if he was married or had kids, but I believe his family will not collect on his life insurance because he committed suicide.
 
Quickly progressing neurological disease - ALS would probably be #1.
 
Law2Doc said:
They probably wouldn't have anyway, if he was going to lose those malpractice lawsuits. Insurance is used to pay the debts of the estate first.
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Are doctors ever incorporated?
 
BrokenGlass said:
Are doctors ever incorporated?
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Frequently. But you can still have personal liability to the extent the entity's liability insurance doesn't adequately cover the judgment or your actions are deemed outside of the scope of your corporate authority.

But yes, there are certainly estate planning strategies that can protect the family home and net worth, if done before a physician has potential liability, and if the physician is willing to give up a certain degree of ownership and control of his assets to other family members and trust administrators.
 
PeepshowJohnny said:
Brain Tumor (Dr. Greene style), or schizophrenia, or anything that ruins my mind
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I think he had a GBM. That doesn't worry me too much since it kills pretty quickly. A progressive disease would be worse IMO.

Actually my biggest fear in medicine is not being able to pay back my educational debt.
 
For my money, Huntington's would be the worst disease ever.

Back on topic: Picking the wrong specialty. I know you can change, but I'd rather not spend years in one specialty, deciding I hate it, and then having to pick another one. I've met people who've done residency and 2 or 3 fellowships before getting it right. Crazy thing was, the guy finally decided he wanted to do surgery, which is not easy to get to from other specialties. So he's like 40 and still in training.
 
Law2Doc said:
Well, that's just another way of saying your biggest fear is screwing up, except that you are more concerned with the impact on you than the patients. :laugh:
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not really. there's a big difference between getting sued over a minor mistake than messing up a prescription and putting someones life at risk.
 
Being bad at it. I've never been a doc before, what if I'm bad at diagnosing? I'm sure during the career of most/all physicians they will miss a diagnosis, but what if its a chronic problem?
 
My patients finding out that they dont need to strip naked for me to diagnose them? 😛
 
Piyush said:
My patients finding out that they dont need to strip naked for me to diagnose them? 😛
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"Can I put my pants back on?"
"Right after I examine your ears."
 
A toss up between the money and satisfaction of the job. Initally you wont make much, but when I do make money, will my greed interfere with my work? The last thing I really want in a job is for money to be my only motivator in the job. As for satisfaction, its near the same thing. I'm just hoping that I dont become some asshat doctor that is only fueled by money.

My biggest fear now? Crashing my GPA, again.
 
Sucking at it.
 
Law2Doc said:
Well, that's just another way of saying your biggest fear is screwing up, except that you are more concerned with the impact on you than the patients. :laugh:
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Actually its not the same. Many lawsuits have nothing to do with 'screwing up'. Negligence need not occur for a lwasuit to be filed. You only need an angry patient. You don't need malpractice to win a lawsuit, you only need to convince a an uneducated ignorant ( as in no knowledge of the subject and no experience working in the field) jury there was malpractice. If all lawsuits were truly the result of physican negligence, there would be far fewer lawsuits and much less lawyer loathing.
 
macgyver22 said:
Actually its not the same. Many lawsuits have nothing to do with 'screwing up'. Negligence need not occur for a lwasuit to be filed. You only need an angry patient. You don't need malpractice to win a lawsuit, you only need to convince a an uneducated ignorant ( as in no knowledge of the subject and no experience working in the field) jury there was malpractice. If all lawsuits were truly the result of physican negligence, there would be far fewer lawsuits and much less lawyer loathing.
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haha, exactly; i'm not worried about screwing up; i'm just worried about someone being able to convince a jury that i did :laugh:
 
shiftingmirage said:
Being bad at it. I've never been a doc before, what if I'm bad at diagnosing? I'm sure during the career of most/all physicians they will miss a diagnosis, but what if its a chronic problem?
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Then do something like plastic surgery or bariatric surgery, where diagnosing patients is REALLY simple.
 
Law2Doc said:
Well, that's just another way of saying your biggest fear is screwing up, except that you are more concerned with the impact on you than the patients. :laugh:
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People sue over hot coffee. What makes you think a patient wont sue becuase they aren't satisfied?
 
I was always really afraid of Schizophrenia. I still remember a story my mom told me about a kid who was in the middle of his medical education when he had his first psychotic episode. How sad 🙁

Biggest fear in practicing medicine though is killing patients. Also, failing to find a healthy balance between personal and professional life.
 
Drogba said:
I was always really afraid of Schizophrenia. I still remember a story my mom told me about a kid who was in the middle of his medical education when he had his first psychotic episode. How sad 🙁

Biggest fear in practicing medicine though is killing patients. Also, failing to find a healthy balance between personal and professional life.
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There's a great book out (can't remember the name) by a guy who had his first psychotic episode shortly after finishing his PhD in mathematics. It's a great read - wish I had the name.
 
A Beautiful Mind?
 
Arc said:
People sue over hot coffee. What makes you think a patient wont sue becuase they aren't satisfied?
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Oh, you will absolutely get sued. And sometimes it won't be your fault. And in virtually all of those cases the case will either be dismissed, or your insurer will settle for some modest amount. It's an unfortunate cost of doing business and not really something you should live in fear of. You will get sued, your insurance will pay some money out over the course of your career. And your practice will go on. The big suits that you actually need to worry about are those where you screw up, or the patient is horribly harmed. And in such cases the patient, not the lawyers should probably be the initial concern.
 
I'm with the guy towards the top. The thought of a needlestick or some other form of contamination that I can't control or prevent scares me.
 
Law2Doc said:
Frequently. But you can still have personal liability to the extent the entity's liability insurance doesn't adequately cover the judgment or your actions are deemed outside of the scope of your corporate authority.
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Why is this? If you work for a company in any other industry, there is limited liability. What is it about the law, such that in healthcare, they can take your house away from you if you get a bad judgment??
 
Kikaku21 said:
Why is this? If you work for a company in any other industry, there is limited liability. What is it about the law, such that in healthcare, they can take your house away from you if you get a bad judgment??
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I'm curious about this too. I would assume it's a way to prevent people from just making corporations and bankrupting them each time they get sued. Unless you work for a hospital, does the suit name you or your practice?
 
Why do doctors get f***ed every step of the way by everyone? 🙁
 
my biggest fear about medicine right now
- not getting in
 
This is a good thread. We all know medicine can be a difficult beast, and it's good to discuss some of these things. I have various fears ... suppose I will share a few:

-Needle pricks used to be my #1. Especially for Hep C. However, I'm hoping this is something that you eventually get over, and learn to just accept that is could happen, and move on.

-My biggest fear right now is poor payouts to certain primary care fields. The nation already has a huge shortage of primary care doctors, and I feel that the probably is only going to get trickier and worse until there is a real big problem (However I really don't care for a lot of dramatic plans such as Clinton's).
 
JaggerPlate said:
-Needle pricks used to be my #1. Especially for Hep C. However, I'm hoping this is something that you eventually get over, and learn to just accept that is could happen, and move on.
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You don't ever really get over the fear of needle sticks. You need to always have some fear of it, or else you start getting sloppy.

Having already been stuck once during my surgery rotation, it's not a fun experience. But it can always be worse. One of the plastic surgeons, during residency, was on his trauma surgery rotation when someone came in with serious knife wounds. He accidentally got stuck while suturing her back together. It turned out later that she had the "trifecta" of hep b, hep c, and hiv. Fortunately the surgeon was fine, but it still spooked me.

My biggest fear? Getting nudged out by nurse practitioners, CRNAs, mid-wives, etc. There are nursing groups fighting for prescription rights, which scares the crap out of me.
 
smq123 said:
My biggest fear? Getting nudged out by nurse practitioners, CRNAs, mid-wives, etc. There are nursing groups fighting for prescription rights, which scares the crap out of me.
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Then support PA's, we want to work with you, not against/without you! 😉
 
cool thread. My biggest career related fear is that I won't find a specialty that I can be at least satisfied with. After all, I'm doing all this because I think the journey and job sounds worth it.

My personal health related fear is losing my mental capability to any of the myriad threats like cancer, neurodegenerative ailments, infection, TBI, etc.
 
As someone planning to go into Ob/Gyn I'd have to say lawyers as well. 😡 To think that more than half of the population will need us at some point or another and for some reason they all insist on driving our malpractice rates through the roof anyway!
 
The probability that a single needlestick will result in disease is 3 to 5 chances in 1 000 for HIV [0.3-0.5%] , 300 chances in 1 000 [30%] for Hepatitis B, and 20 to 50 chances in 1 000 [2-5%] for Hepatitis C.
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http://www.icn.ch/matters_needles.htm

for those interested in the risk of needle sticks.

Getting AIDS from a needlestick is pretty difficult. I'm surprised at that high hep b risk though. Of course fear rarely is as rational as a probability calculation and I think I'd be pretty shaken up by a needlestick myself.
 
Drogba said:
http://www.icn.ch/matters_needles.htm

for those interested in the risk of needle sticks.

Getting AIDS from a needlestick is pretty difficult. I'm surprised at that high hep b risk though. Of course fear rarely is as rational as a probability calculation and I think I'd be pretty shaken up by a needlestick myself.
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Hep B is vastly more infectious than HIV. Which is why, as a healthcare worker, you need to be vaccinated against Hep B.

The biggest fear about needlesticks is Hep C. Hep C is also more infectious than HIV, and harder to treat. There's no vaccine against Hep C, and it's a very high likelihood that you develop chronic Hep C and will eventually develop cirrhosis (and need a liver transplant) someday. Hep C scares the &*it out of me.
 
smq123 said:
Hep B is vastly more infectious than HIV. Which is why, as a healthcare worker, you need to be vaccinated against Hep B.

The biggest fear about needlesticks is Hep C. Hep C is also more infectious than HIV, and harder to treat. There's no vaccine against Hep C, and it's a very high likelihood that you develop chronic Hep C and will eventually develop cirrhosis (and need a liver transplant) someday. Hep C scares the &*it out of me.
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:scared:

3-5% chance is pretty low though. Unless you keep sticking yourself with hep c needles and then probability starts working against you. 5 needle sticks and you already have a >20% chance of contracting it. I hope the number of needle sticks is fairly low in ones career.
 
May not be the kiss of death like the aforementioned AIDS; however, I'm hoping to kill the Step I in order to place in to the residency of my choice (and it ain't like the MCAT, no second attempts): orthopedics.
 
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