Have your experiences in medicine changed how you regard medical history in potential spouses?

[ElectiveResearch]

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Hi all,


During our careers, we see lots of ill patients. Some of the conditions we see are hereditable.


Have your experiences in medicine changed the way you view potential spouses with medical histories of hereditable conditions? Would you avoid these potential partners because of the suffering you see during your day jobs, not wanting your children to potentially be afflicted by these conditions?


Just for context but to avoid steering completely off the point, I love this girl a lot but am concerned about her history of autoimmune disease in her siblings and mild ADHD in herself. I wonder if my career experiences are the main reason I'm worrying so much.

 

[battie]

No. Not at all.

Am I aware that my husband has chronic, cyclical depression? Yes. That my mom and sister were diagnosed with bipolar disorder and depression as teens (sister has since died of suicide)? Yes.

Did I ever think about *not* marrying my husband and having a child with him because of the risk our child could have an increased risk of depression to whatever extent it's inheritable? Not at all. Mainly because things like this have a lot of environmental contributions as well.

Particularly thinking of something like mild ADHD is somewhat neurotic. Mild ADHD isn't like a debilitating or terminal disease.

My perspective is coming from that as a veterinarian where my patients do have significant consistent heritable diseases based on their breeds. The inter-relatedness of two random Americans is nowhere close to what the inter-relatedness of two Golden Retrievers.

 

[PB2464]

Hi all,


During our careers, we see lots of ill patients. Some of the conditions we see are hereditable.


Have your experiences in medicine changed the way you view potential spouses with medical histories of hereditable conditions? Would you avoid these potential partners because of the suffering you see during your day jobs, not wanting your children to potentially be afflicted by these conditions?


Just for context but to avoid steering completely off the point, I love this girl a lot but am concerned about her history of autoimmune disease in her siblings and mild ADHD in herself. I wonder if my career experiences are the main reason I'm worrying so much.

Of course. That's subconsciously what you're selecting for anyway.

ADHD is really a bs diagnosis though. Pretty subjective if you ask me.