How easily can doctors diagnose themselves?

[TheBiologist]

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I was wondering if going to med school makes you capable of always detecting what is wrong with you, and if you being a doctor would actually make you BETTER at diagnosing yourself because you are the one feeling the symptoms - is this true or false?

 

[foregoingfun]

I would argue that the inherent bias and emotion would conflict too much to allow a physician to make an objective diagnosis. If you feel a tumor, you'll try to reason that it's benign regardless of the other symptoms. No one wants bad news and for that reason, we try to avoid it emotionally.

 

[freedoctor17]

I would argue that the inherent bias and emotion would conflict too much to allow a physician to make an objective diagnosis. If you feel a tumor, you'll try to reason that it's benign regardless of the other symptoms. No one wants bad news and for that reason, we try to avoid it emotionally.

What are you talking about? Have you ever seen the people trying WebMD? Everyone immediately thinks they have cancer. I feel like people tend to assume the worst to not risk catching it too late. Maybe there's a bit of both but I've only known one person who would assume it's nothing while many would always assume worst case possible lol.

 

[Promethean]

Of course we can easily diagnose ourselves. How could you not?

We should not rely entirely on our own diagnoses, nor should we treat ourselves.

But every patient self-diagnoses to some extent. We just have the information to be correct more often than not. But still, when we are patients, we are patients. "Stay in your lane" applies here, too.

 

[Mad Jack]

"The physician who treats themselves has a fool for a doctor" is one of the oldest sayings in medicine for a reason.

 

[Mad Jack]

I would argue that the inherent bias and emotion would conflict too much to allow a physician to make an objective diagnosis. If you feel a tumor, you'll try to reason that it's benign regardless of the other symptoms. No one wants bad news and for that reason, we try to avoid it emotionally.

That depends highly on the person. If you're neurotic in a way that predisposes to hypochondria, you will be more likely to see anything off as a reason to seek treatment, despite most symptoms being benign in nature (this is where the dreaded medical student syndrome comes from).

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

That depends highly on the person. If you're neurotic in a way that predisposes to hypochondria, you will be more likely to see anything off as a reason to seek treatment, despite most symptoms being benign in nature (this is where the dreaded medical student syndrome comes from).

Yeah, it can definitely go both ways. I’ve seen a lot of medical professionals blow off red flags because they convince themselves that they’re fine and just imagining it.

 

[Promethean]

Yeah, it can definitely go both ways. I’ve seen a lot of medical professionals blow off red flags because they convince themselves that they’re fine and just imagining it.

This is me.

I love noncompliant patients because *I* am the ultimate noncompliant patient. I convince myself (even knowing better) that chronic conditions aren't really going to hurt me or that my symptoms aren't actually serious and I can totally get away with skipping my b/p med or whatever. It helps me to relate to my patients when they try to pull those stunts... but it also means that I have to pick doctors for myself who won't let me get away with rationalizing or otherwise playing denial games. I need a doctor who will call me on my bs and hold me accountable. If I were left to treat myself, I'd likely get little to no care at all until complications set in.

 

[Osminog]

"The physician who treats themselves has a fool for a doctor" is one of the oldest sayings in medicine for a reason.

A great aphorism from the witty physician Sir William Osler (1849-1919) from Canada. The original variant was "... fool for a patient."

For the "oldest sayings in medicine," one can probably look back to the ancient Greeks. 🙂

 

[FlowRate]

Agreed with above that it's easier to diagnose yourself correctly but it's a bad idea in most cases to also treat yourself. For doctors "I need to go to see a doctor" probably ends with "because of this differential" as opposed to "because of these symptoms" for most patients.

 

[Mad Jack]

A great aphorism from the witty physician Sir William Osler (1849-1919) from Canada. The original variant was "... fool for a patient."

For the "oldest sayings in medicine," one can probably look back to the ancient Greeks. 🙂

I should have been more specific and said modern medicine, of which Dr. Osler is often considered the father, hence quotes don't go much farther back in that respect. If we are to go premodern, well, he's quite outdated by Hippocrates.

 

[OrthoTraumaMD]

I would suggest not diagnosing yourself. It's not objective when it's you, or your family. I was obsessed with a lymph node I had... an MRI, scope, and 3 ent opinions later, I decided I was acting insane. It still freaks me out when I think about it, though, so I just try to remind myself that I always think of the worst possible outcome.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

I would suggest not diagnosing yourself. It's not objective when it's you, or your family. I was obsessed with a lymph node I had... an MRI, scope, and 3 ent opinions later, I decided I was acting insane. It still freaks me out when I think about it, though, so I just try to remind myself that I always think of the worst possible outcome.

I freaked out about a lymph node once too. A surgeon friend of mine was willing to bx it, but he convinced me to give it a month longer just to make sure it wasn’t just from a silent infection. He turned out to be right.

 

[LizzyM]

Feeling the symptoms does not mean you can make the diagnosis. There are a number of things that can cause bleeding in the GI tract but observing the blood and the nature of your belly pain, if any, does not necessarily mean that you can make a diagnosis. DIY colonoscopy is generally frowned on so you aren't going to be able to take a look yourself and see if you can find the source of the bleeding and take a biopsy, if necessary.

This is about the same for every serious thing that could be wrong with you. There was that doctor in Antartica that suspected that she had breast cancer and then treated herself, if I recall correctly, but that's a one-in-a-million.
Doctor rescued from Antarctica in 1999 dies at 57 - CNN.com

 

[OrthoTraumaMD]

I freaked out about a lymph node once too. A surgeon friend of mine was willing to bx it, but he convinced me to give it a month longer just to make sure it wasn’t just from a silent infection. He turned out to be right.

I still have it but it shows up on and off...

 

[TypeADissection]

Got of shower, stepped on scale, looked in the mirror. Already know the history, no need for physical.

Diagnosis: Dad bod.

I'd say I'm pretty spot on in diagnosing myself. Cheers.

 

[OrthoTraumaMD]

Got of shower, stepped on scale, looked in the mirror. Already know the history, no need for physical.

Diagnosis: Dad bod.

I'd say I'm pretty spot on in diagnosing myself. Cheers.

That's kind of like what I do, except I look in the mirror and give myself a high five for looking so hot. Like The Todd from Scrubs. ^_^

 

[Catalystik]

DIY colonoscopy is generally frowned on so you aren't going to be able to take a look yourself and see if you can find the source of the bleeding and take a biopsy, if necessary.

I'd love to see the You Tube video if anyone ever tried it.

 

[Professional Student]

Here’s two doctors performing successful emergency appendectomies. One was on an Antarctic exploration mission, the other wanted to prove that local anaesthetic could be used for abdominal surgeries.

 

[FlowRate]

DIY colonoscopy is generally frowned on so you aren't going to be able to take a look yourself and see if you can find the source of the bleeding and take a biopsy, if necessary.

Tangentially related but necessary:

 

[Med Ed]

I was wondering if going to med school makes you capable of always detecting what is wrong with you, and if you being a doctor would actually make you BETTER at diagnosing yourself because you are the one feeling the symptoms - is this true or false?

False. Every time I suspect I have a problem I innately develop a differential diagnosis of 50+ options, ranging from the likely to the utterly insane, and then proceed to ruminate on the worst ones.

The layer of detachment between doctor and patient is a good thing.

 

[Oso]

I was wondering if going to med school makes you capable of always detecting what is wrong with you, and if you being a doctor would actually make you BETTER at diagnosing yourself because you are the one feeling the symptoms - is this true or false?

Note that most doctors, regardless of specialty, still have a PCP/specialist to manage their own health.

Most pediatricians I've spoken to always defer to their child's pediatrician any time anything comes up because they know they can't be objective about their own child. I've actually heard some pretty funny stories about pediatricians freaking out over nothing when it has to do with their own kid. I also heard of a pediatrician who thought their child's arm injury was 'nothing', when in fact, he had a fracture .. so the kid ended up re-breaking it a week or two later ... on the XR they saw multiple fractures in different stages of healing .. so got the abuse team involved ....

Moral of the story: don't count on yourself to be objective when diagnosing/treating yourself or loved ones.


Now if you'll excuse me, my back is kinda achey and my foot fell asleep, so I need to go get an MRI to make sure I don't have a tumor compressing my spinal cord.

 

[mjl1717]

Its one thing giving yourself a vaccine. But Ill go a direct Osler on this one.
"A physician who treats himself has a fool for a patient"

Oh, this was already stated. Sorry.
But diagnosing and treating yourself. One loses "neutral objectivity". They say that the emotions always take over.

 

[getdown]

I self diagnosed myself with the flu and promptly got tamiflu = back to work in 3 days

I also self diagnosed myself with an appy but did get a second opinion from a surgical colleague at work then went and got it taken out. I do have to say that keeping objective was hard with this one since I didn't want it to be true but reason won out.

 

[Pagan FutureDoc]

Physicians have an (often well deserved) reputation as being the worst patients. Why would you subject yourself to such a patient