Managing anger as a doctor

[VolibearMain]

I had a question, and I hope no one takes offense to this, not sure if this is the right place to ask.

But many of the physicians I see, residents, med students, hell some of the adcom's, we get angry when we see stupidity. And I dont mean light stupidity but people who are just totally negligent.
Like some morbidly obese person who has just gone through a major surgery to clear arterial blockages and is sitting in their room munching on pizza, french fries, and a big gulp.

I ask this because yesterday my ex, who works in the psych department, was seeing a patient who started calling her a liar because she told her patient that birds eat seeds (long story short the patient rescued a sparrow of some sort), and the patient was saying no this specific article says that sparrows eat minced meat, ignoring every other fact of nature and google search. The patient then started saying arent you in med school shouldnt you know these basic things.
Later on the patient was talking about camping, and my ex was talking about sanitation and bringing hand sanitizer so that at the very least the alcohol in it would kill a majority of the bacteria.And the patient called her a liar, and based on diagnoses and stuff it seems like her only problem is anxiety.

Im not sure if its just me, doesn't seem so, but is it okay to be frustrated with idiots as a physician?

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[ATPsynthase123]

I had a question, and I hope no one takes offense to this, not sure if this is the right place to ask.

But many of the physicians I see, residents, med students, hell some of the adcom's, we get angry when we see stupidity. And I dont mean light stupidity but people who are just totally negligent.
Like some morbidly obese person who has just gone through a major surgery to clear arterial blockages and is sitting in their room munching on pizza, french fries, and a big gulp.

I ask this because yesterday my ex, who works in the psych department, was seeing a patient who started calling her a liar because she told her patient that birds eat seeds (long story short the patient rescued a sparrow of some sort), and the patient was saying no this specific article says that sparrows eat minced meat, ignoring every other fact of nature and google search. The patient then started saying arent you in med school shouldnt you know these basic things.
Later on the patient was talking about camping, and my ex was talking about sanitation and bringing hand sanitizer so that at the very least the alcohol in it would kill a majority of the bacteria.And the patient called her a liar, and based on diagnoses and stuff it seems like her only problem is anxiety.

Im not sure if its just me, doesn't seem so, but is it okay to be frustrated with idiots as a physician?

Frustration =\= anger


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[Scrubs101]

Well whether it be stupidity or an actual psychological disorder, yes doctors have to deal with this. No it is not okay to express these frustrations to your patient, can you feel frustration? Certainly i imagine, can you let it affect how you are treating this patient when interacting with him/her? No.

All patients must be treated with the same level of respect and comfort regardless of level of intellect, personal opinions, age, race, gender, etc.

No matter what job you have, if youre working with people you will run into stubborn and idiotic people. (Not assuming i know anything about you or where youre from but as a blanket statement) Once you leave the comfort of college-towns, highly-affluent areas, med school etc, you realize education, intellect, and the ability to accept and interpret new facts in order to change ones own opinion are very rare. (Not saying that everyone in said areas has these abilities or attributes, just that its more prevalent than you may think).

You will run into these types of people everywhere, and deal with them in almost all lines of work. It is incredibly important that we all learn to work well with those who seem to be as stubborn as a mule.

TL/DR @ATPsynthase123 summarized it perfectly above

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[getfat]

Better question is why do you talk to your ex?

 

[TheLeadSeed]

^was gonna ask the same exact thing out of curiosity


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[deleted480308]

Sometimes people are dumb, sometimes they just have different value systems. Neither is your problem

 

[Goro]

It's perfectly OK to be frustrated, and you'll get training in dealing with difficult/hostile/acting out patients.

I had a question, and I hope no one takes offense to this, not sure if this is the right place to ask.

But many of the physicians I see, residents, med students, hell some of the adcom's, we get angry when we see stupidity. And I dont mean light stupidity but people who are just totally negligent.
Like some morbidly obese person who has just gone through a major surgery to clear arterial blockages and is sitting in their room munching on pizza, french fries, and a big gulp.

I ask this because yesterday my ex, who works in the psych department, was seeing a patient who started calling her a liar because she told her patient that birds eat seeds (long story short the patient rescued a sparrow of some sort), and the patient was saying no this specific article says that sparrows eat minced meat, ignoring every other fact of nature and google search. The patient then started saying arent you in med school shouldnt you know these basic things.
Later on the patient was talking about camping, and my ex was talking about sanitation and bringing hand sanitizer so that at the very least the alcohol in it would kill a majority of the bacteria.And the patient called her a liar, and based on diagnoses and stuff it seems like her only problem is anxiety.

Im not sure if its just me, doesn't seem so, but is it okay to be frustrated with idiots as a physician?

 

[Neurality]

At the very least, I have gotten to a point where I try to "defend" their point of view/way of thinking. i.e. in the OP's example, I would rationalize to myself that they may have been raised in a less educated or violent household where logic and reasoning were not acceptable ways of defending oneself. In that way, I would feel a bit sorry for them and just try to make their day a little better. I wouldn't feel any better winning an argument or berating someone like that anyways lol.

 

[austintr]

There are basically an infinite number of ways to deal with this stuff.

Approach 1: I know a physician that literally punched a man in the face over a similar argument.

Approach 2: I would probably think to myself "good luck feeding that stupid bird a 100% minced veal diet all the time" all while waiting patiently for this person's tirade to finally cease.

Approaches 3-infinite: hopefully closer to approach 2 than approach 1, but a vast spectrum of replies.

Basically, it's part of the job. You won't have time to get too wrapped up in it as a doc. Unless you do EM. Then you will appreciate the well-mannered, polite, average intelligence patient even more as the exception.

 

[VolibearMain]

Better question is why do you talk to your ex?

To get over my most recent ex, Ive been spending time with my former ex.

Edit: This makes me look like an idiot. My ex has a bunch of degrees in psych and is really good at talking out problems. Just a good person overall. We broke up because of the long distance issues but shes a good person to hang out with, and I was just shadowing her to see what life is like for her.

 

[Mr. D.O.five]

To get over my most recent ex, Ive been spending time with my former ex.

Edit: This makes me look like an idiot. My ex has a bunch of degrees in psych and is really good at talking out problems. Just a good person overall. We broke up because of the long distance issues but shes a good person to hang out with, and I was just shadowing her to see what life is like for her.

That's the way to play