Crying at work

[rokshana]

Her

OOps!!

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[deleted109597]

Sadly, I'm broken. I don't cry at work. I didn't cry at my last family member funeral (uncle).
But I cry at literally every Pixar movie/short. Those first 10 minutes of Up? Terrible.

 

[evilbooyaa]

Sadly, I'm broken. I don't cry at work. I didn't cry at my last family member funeral (uncle).
But I cry at literally every Pixar movie/short. Those first 10 minutes of Up? Terrible.

Glad I wasn't the only one. Teared up with 10 minutes of no dialogue! Amazing story telling.

On topic - I don't cry at work, even with cancer patients. I can be empathetic to the patient, and sad to myself, without tears. If somebody cried at major things once in a while that'd be fine. If somebody cried like once a week/month, or in response to non-malignant criticism, that's a negative for me.

 

[hallowmann]

This seems like a straw man. Nobody in this thread said that "feeling emotions is unprofessional." There's clearly a difference between feeling an emotion and acting on it in ways that may be inappropriate in a given social context. For example, it is well known that therapists can sometimes feel romantic or lustful emotions toward their clients during psychotherapy sessions; these sorts of feelings can be completely normal and unavoidable. However, that doesn't mean that therapists are given a pass when it comes to flirting with or propositioning their clients. An emotion and a potential behavior stemming from that emotion are not mutually inclusive...

I think you are working from a perspective that everyone functions at the same level emotionally all the time. There is a difference between "acting" on emotions and emotions expressing themselves involuntarily. People express their emotions differently, have reserves, and have different triggers. To say that someone should never be able to cry at work, especially when their work is dealing with horrible illness and death day in and day out, is unrealistic, and in all honesty myopic with regards to the way people feel. Personally, I'm a strong believer in being able to maintain composure despite having physical manifestations of your emotional state, but maybe that's because that's how I do it. I don't try to cry, I try to subdue it to some degree in certain situations, but I'm not going to hide my eyes watering when something traumatic happens.

I personally find the whole therapist flirting with patient comparison ridiculous. If anything, the thoughts themselves or associated physical changes that may occur would be a more close approximation to shedding tears in an emotionally heightened scenario. Now if you run away "bawling" in the midst of treating a patient, that's a bit different than having some tears roll down your cheek.

...A dead child —of course you will feel emotions. I’ve dealt with dead pediatric trauma patients—no one is immune from horror, and no one is saying you should be like a robot all the time. But if we can’t hold it together, who will? I’ve seen residents who couldn’t handle criticism, and cried every time they felt inadequate or things somehow went wrong. Then it turned into blaming everyone else for their problems and you became afraid to criticize them because they’d cry. No one wanted to deal with them. I understand quite well that s**t happens, at work and home. I ended my engagement in residency. I went though 20 years worth of therapy in a year once I finally admitted to my therapist I’d been sexually abused as a child. I went through suicidal ideation with near completion without anyone at work knowing. Not one person. It would have been a burden on my colleagues and a disservice to my patients if I let pain trickle into my duty to them. Crying once or twice, okay.. but more than that...At some point it becomes an unhealthy and unprofessional way of dealing with stress.

If I were your co-resident and you got a little further than "near completion," I think I would have preferred you crying in front of me and "burdening" me with your emotions than having to attend your funeral. I would argue that what you described is exactly what's wrong with the medical education system. The fact that you felt venting or showing your emotions would be a burden on your colleagues even in the face of active suicidal ideation that was near completion demonstrates just how cold and masochistic this profession can be. You deserve better, our residents and students deserve better.

I hope that you now have people that you can talk to if you feel that way again without being concerned of being a burden on them.

 

[OrthoTraumaMD]

If I were your co-resident and you got a little further than "near completion," I think I would have preferred you crying in front of me and "burdening" me with your emotions than having to attend your funeral. I would argue that what you described is exactly what's wrong with the medical education system. The fact that you felt venting or showing your emotions would be a burden on your colleagues even in the face of active suicidal ideation that was near completion demonstrates just how cold and masochistic this profession can be. You deserve better, our residents and students deserve better.

I hope that you now have people that you can talk to if you feel that way again without being concerned of being a burden on them.

It was not their burden to bear, and not their job to help. I sought and received professional help, and got better.


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[mvenus929]

It was not their burden to bear, and not their job to help. I sought and received professional help, and got better.

Except that sometimes people don't ask for help by themselves. We had one intern that desperately needed help (as we discovered after we got her said help), but it was one of her co-residents approaching the administration with the concern that prompted the referral. Your coworkers should not be your therapist, but that doesn't mean that they can't assist in you getting better and perhaps see things more objectively than you can (you referring to the global you, not you personally).

I'm glad you sought the help you needed and got better. But not everyone is so fortunate, partly due to the culture in medicine that we remain stoic at all times.

 

[Limvostov]

There's a number of reasons I don't see kids - the fact that most cases were either boring (Timmy has the sniffles) or sad (Timmy has cancer) is near the top of the list. I don't want to deal with either of those (adults have the same problems - but I find them less boring and less sad respectively)

Agreed, cardiology is where it's at for me. Nearly all my patients are on deaths door. In a given month I'll see a couple pass away. However, it's rarely unexpected and therefore much easier to cope with as the final chapter of life and I generally feel good about my efforts to counsel and ease that transition for the patient and family. I didn't do peds, ob, or emergency medicine for exactly the same reason. I would not be able to be stoic with kids or pregnant mothers who weren't going to make it. If you aren't crying in those situations I think you might need counseling.

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[smr]

*shrug* Reality of being a woman in medicine. Not sure if it extends to black or Hispanic men as well, since the majority of older physicians are white men, especially those in positions of power. When you get comments like maternity leave is a vacation, women shouldn’t be physicians because they all eventually go part time, etc, you become jaded.

So the comment was really more sexist than racist.

So your response to being stereotyped is to proudly stereotype others? I'd bet you are white and so are most of the people who liked your posts, which is hilarious. Strange times we are living in, would like to think people in medicine are smarter than that, but I suppose not.

Those old white men are the reason we have modern medicine..

 

[Eye-eye]

You must be fun at parties.

I mean, from the patient perspective I would tend to agree. Yes, it's fine to cry as a doctor, but you definitely shouldn't be breaking down in front of patients. They are already scared. When you're scared, you want confidence and expertise, and yes, certainly empathy and care, but still always in a way that shows confidence, hope, and professionalism. If a doc cried giving me a diagnosis, I wouldn't take that as a great sign.

 

[deleted480308]

I mean, from the patient perspective I would tend to agree. Yes, it's fine to cry as a doctor, but you definitely shouldn't be breaking down in front of patients. They are already scared. When you're scared, you want confidence and expertise, and yes, certainly empathy and care, but still always in a way that shows confidence, hope, and professionalism. If a doc cried giving me a diagnosis, I wouldn't take that as a great sign.

Sometimes the diagnosis is “this is what kills you”, or “your dad is dead”. That can warrant a tear as long as you stay composed

 

[cbrons]

It's hard to say. It depends on the culture of your program, your specialty, what you're crying about, and how often you cry.

I cried in front of a patient (well, the mom of a patient, since the patient was an infant, and the mom happened to be an ex-nurse), and I've cried with our chaplain, but try to avoid crying on rounds or letting anyone know I'm crying. We had a resident in our program (peds, so generally friendly and understanding) who cried at work every day. People definitely thought less of that resident. But, we also had a resident who cried whenever she was given feedback during intern year, but then cried much less frequently after that, and she was chosen to be chief. The occasional resident who cried after a difficult patient encounter, or when discussing family stresses, not such a big deal. More likely to be a big deal if you're seen as being overly stressed or depressed with your job.

Now, if you're in surgery, you're much more likely to run into problems with crying. If your program leadership is predominately old white men, you're much less likely to get the touchy-feely treatment. If you have a leader who is female but feels that she has something to prove, being known for crying, or crying in front of her will likely hurt you.

Possibly. It depends on the person who caught you “puddling up” and how they perceive it.

Thos wasnreally the only answer that was needed.

Lol at the “old white men” comment. I fail to see how being white has anything whatsoever to do with this.

 

[jdh71]

Real question: As a female resident, I've had a couple of people catch me tearing up (never on rounds) and I might have cried a time or two in front of my advisor. Has this damaged my credibility and will this hurt me in my future goals? (Please take this seriously.)

No. No credibility damage from my perspective. Emotions and stresses bubble out the way they do. Though there are places to feel your emotions and places to probably not. I think in front of patients and most staff is "bad" because like it or not we have to be those folks above the mess directing the traffic in an objective fashion. Those optics are sometimes important. If people think we've lost it then it can make them feel much much worse than they already do.

I like the empty stairway for a cry. Some of the stuff we deal with just . . . gets you. It doesn't happen often for me but it happens. A few years ago when I couldn't save the young post-partem amniotic fluid embolus patient after hours of bedside decisions without leaving her side who was a refugee to this country after waiting TWO years in a camp for asylum and her husband, weeping asked, "How?! Why?! This is America!!" I couldn't just hold that in. I didn't let lose in front of him. But the stairs. The bedside nurse saw me go. Followed me. And we just wept together for a bit. Next to each other sitting on the stairs. The moment needed that. We needed that.

But I strongly think physicians need to respect time and place as much as possible.